Counseling Kevin

The Stories We Tell Ourselves

I recently finished Julian Barnes' award-winning novel "The Sense of an Ending," and, as I read the final pages of this short (163 pages), marvelous book, I felt an emotional tug, not of sympathy with the protagonist, but of recognition of how many of us, me included, spend lifetimes trapped inside the four corners of the stories we've created to explain our lives and our experiences. The creation of such narratives is universal, and a necessary process by which we try to give our lives meaning. Just as universal, however, is our capacity for self-deception, and many of our stories' plots are riddled with it.

Barnes' beautifully crafted narrative (reviewed by The New York Times here) is a first-person reminiscence by a man of a certain age, an age close to my own, that focuses on his close friends and former lover from their teenage years on. Without giving any plot spoilers, it becomes clear in a rapid fashion at the end of the book that the judgments that the protagonist has made about the characters and motivations of his friends and his lover, and, most critically, himself, have been dreadfully wrong. The stories that he's been spinning for decades to justify and explain to himself his life and the lives of others are shown to be false.

I put the book down with a mixture of melancholy and satisfaction. "Melancholy" not in the sense of gloom, but of sober thoughtfulness, recognizing that I, too, am a flawed human being who has lived for decades as an adult who has spun his own personal stories to explain (and justify) myself and others, and that those stories are just as likely filled with erroneous judgments about my own acts and omissions, my motivations for those acts and omissions, and their effect on others (and on me), as was true for Barnes' character Tony.  "Satisfaction" in the sense that Barnes' story, as often is the case when a novel works as "art," communicated truths to me about myself and the larger human condition on levels more profound and emotionally resonant than a work of nonfiction could achieve.

It's easier to observe the traps of self-deception in others than in yourself, of course. I thought, especially, of one person I know who had concocted a story about this person's relationship with me a number of years ago that was a mixture of fact and plain fiction. This person had ascribed to both of us false statements and actions, and omitted critical true statements and actions, but mixed in a healthy enough dose of truth to give the created story a patina of plausibility. After awhile, perhaps a short while, this person began to believe their own fiction was the truth. Once emotionally committed to that "truth," and after a number of years of holding out to others close to you that version of the "truth," it must now be difficult to cut through the hard shell of self-deception without an emotional acetylene torch.

In fairness, I wonder how many of my own stories are hide-bound with the same self-deception. I'll bet more than one, perhaps a lot more than one.

To be fascinated with words for words' sake is a child's game. To employ words to spin a story that breaks apart other stories and sifts through the shattered pieces to reveal hidden, powerful truths about what it means to be human: that's a high calling.

Twisting Our Vision

The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them.
---Thomas Merton

I was "reflecting" upon this quote this morning and it called to mind one of my favorite observations about love, an observation I've discussed previously on this blog.

"Love is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of his personality. No one can become fully aware of the very essence of another human being unless he loves him. By his love he is enabled to see the essential traits and features in the beloved person; and even more, he sees that which is potential in him, which is not yet actualized but yet ought to be actualized. Furthermore, by his love, the loving person enables the beloved person to actualize these potentialities. By making him aware of the what he can be and of what he should become, he makes these potentialities come true."

The "love" that Frankl and Merton understand, and that I did not for many years, requires, initially, a certain passivity, and objectivity. By "passivity," I mean that you must not actively project what you desire another person to be upon that person. Instead, you must try, as best you can (realizing that perfection is impossible), to step back from your own needs and wants, and objectively observe the strengths and weakness of the other, contemplate those strengths and weaknesses, and, with humility and a selfless wish to help the other, offer whatever words and actions you genuinely believe might assist the other to "actualize her potentialities."

This is a very difficult task. At least, it has been a difficult task for me for most of my life. Even now, I recognize two recent instances in my personal and professional life where what I thought I was doing out of love for another (not in the the emotional or romantic sense of that word, but in the sense, in one case, of "philia," and in the other of "agape," as those terms are discussed by Pope Benedict XVI in his first encyclical, "God Is Love," a condensed version of which can be found here), I think I was doing out of baser desires.

In one case, I offered a business opportunity to a colleague, an opportunity that was presented to me and that I could have taken advantage of myself without involving him. I thought that I was doing this because it was, selflessly, "the right thing to do." Upon further reflection and discussion of the pros and cons of having involved the other person, I realized that I might have also had a less selfless motive, one that involved "paying back" another colleague by not involving him in the opportunity. That motive would have been based on a past transgression by the second colleague for which I'd consciously forgiven him, but which, on an emotional level, I've apparently buried in a shallow grave. I'm fairly certain that "pay back" played a role in my decision and it doesn't make me proud of myself.

In the instance involving my personal life, I urged someone who I thought had talent to stop holding back in her fiction writing and tell us the truths only an artist can communicate. This person had once meant something more to me than merely a "friend" and she had once called me her "muse." We had a falling out a number of years ago, and when I saw that she was pursuing fiction writing seriously at this time, I thought I would attempt to make a small gesture of atonement by sending her encouragement without any expectation of reciprocation. She thanked me for it; however, after reading more of her most recent work, I've decided that I'm not doing her any favors by continuing that line of conversation.

I think that what I thought I saw long ago was my own reflection in her eyes, and that I was blinded by the glow given off by my ego being stroked, by having someone of her beauty and intelligence state that she admired me and that my opinion mattered to her. Instead of exercising critical, honest discernment, I was projecting upon her what I wanted to see, and giving her "feedback" that was not designed to honestly evaluate and nurture her talent, but, rather, to elicit from her continued warm feelings toward me. I wasn't feeding her, then, or perhaps now. I was feeding myself. I wasn't doing any of that consciously, but it's suddenly become as clear as crystal to me.

That being the case, whether or not "there is any there, there," is a question I'll need to leave to more objective, dispassionate critics to answer. You don't accurately see the "potentialities" that need to be "actualized" in another person when you're looking in a mirror. In other words, I'm simply not fit to make the judgment.

Whoever said that you can't teach an old dog new tricks was only half right. Even slow learners have a 50/50 chance of eventually getting it right.

Deus Ex Machina

"The saddest thing in life is wasted talent." Chazz Palmenteri, A Bronx Tale

Some time ago, I wrote a pissy little post about how artists have to take a plunge into the depths of human nature and tell us the truth about what they discover, no matter how painful, not matter how indelicate, no matter how offensive. My defense of artists doesn't apply to hacks posing as artists.

I read something today by a professional writer that was so devoid of real depth, yet posed itself as so profound, that my first instinct was to sneer, but then I quickly turned to despair. If you have the God-given talent to see what the rest of us limited mortals are too dim to perceive, and if you are blessed with the ability to reveal what you see in a written narrative that can enlighten while it simultaneously moves us deeply, why do you opt to play it safe and dance on the surface of life like a water-bug jittering across the face of a pond? For Christ's sake, use your talent! Tell us something we don't know, or, at the very least, tell us something we do know in a way that moves us.

Quit squandering your inheritance by playing it safe. Either that, or quit wasting our time.

That Warm and Fuzzy Feeling

Houston-based novelist Chris Cander advises readers who "fall in love" with a book they read to send the author "a love note." She says that the author will appreciate it.

It sure makes me feel good to be on the receiving end of warm and fuzzy feedback.

Ms. Cander relates that reaching out and touching other authors has led her to some "gentle acquaintances," and a few "genuine friendships." Such relationships are to be treasured, no matter how they arise.

I've only written one author of a novel a "mash note" about their book. That was Alice Sebold, and the love note was for her book The Lovely Bones. The book follows a young teenage girl, who is raped and murdered by a neighbor, and her family, both before and after her murder. The book explores many themes, but the one that especially spoke to me was the possibility of a husband and wife, unhinged by grief, each venturing off on destructive paths that should have shattered their marriage, finding the grace of redemption and not only the salvation of their marriage, but the resurrection of it on a level much deeper than would have been possible without their experience of suffering.

The possibility of finding life's meaning through suffering the loss of a loved one has been explored by authors and thinkers much deeper than me, or Ms. Sebold, for that matter. Yet, she tells her story powerfully, and through the magic of her talent, communicates to the reader meaning in a way impossible by any other means. While I may have amplified her novel's power through my projection into it of meaning Sebold did not intend, that is the natural consequence of a story told by a gifted storyteller. When artists speak truth, readers speak back to the artist with their own truth, and thereby imbue the artist's truth with an even deeper meaning. It moved me profoundly, and I wrote to Ms. Sebold and told her that.

I never heard back from Ms. Sebold, but at the time she was riding high, had sold the movie rights to the book, and was writing a second novel. Moreover, it wasn't important to me that she respond, only that I had communicated to her how much her work had meant to me. I think that is what Ms. Cander is also saying when she tells us how "warm and fuzzy" she feels when she receives our praise, that it is the communication from reader to author that is most important. As icing on the cake, in Ms. Cander's case, her reaching out to authors has led to some genuine human connection with her correspondents. Since life is so short and human connection one of the critical ways in which life is infused with meaning, I think that she's a lucky woman to have had that result.

So, reach out and touch someone today, especially if that someone writes novels.

The Healing Game

As I listen to the soulful sounds of Van Morrison and his merry band of modern-day Irish hipsters, I recall the immortal words of the late great black jazz vibraphonist, Milt Jackson, who once told a writer for a 1968 article in Downbeat magazine that white people couldn't truly play jazz because white people didn't have soul, and they didn't have soul because they didn't know about suffering. Certainly, not like the black man. Nope, old "whitey" just didn't get it. Well, maybe Frank Sinatra did, but that was only after Ava Gardner broke his heart. Vanilla can't play chocolate, know what I'm sayin?

Racism sounds stupid on both sides of a color line, doesn't it?

My Dad laughed at that one. He used to play with old black musicians down at Union Hall in Kansas City. They preferred the designation "black" in those days, if you felt compelled to refer to skin color at all, and they would have been insulted if you'd called them "African-American." I can just hear one of them retorting: "What's that make you, son? U-Row-Pea-An American? Dumb ass American, more like it."

When you were playing jazz together, the topic of skin color didn't come up much, although, of course, it was always under the surface. It was America in the late 1960's and early 1970's, after all. However, it never got in any one's way of the love they all shared for the music.

True, when my father once asked a couple of the guys what they thought about Jackson's opinion, they allowed that while it was "a load" as a general proposition, in my father's case it was certainly true. Then they'd all laugh and swing into "Fly Me To The Moon," "My Funny Valentine," "Green Dolphin Street," or one of hundreds of other songs embossed on their psyches. Many of these guys were old, much older than my Dad, who was 45-50 during that time. Some had played with Ellington, Basie or other bands of that era, and a number of the less ancient with KC legend Charlie "Bird" Parker, Stan Kenton, Dizzy Gillespie, Coleman Hawkins and others who all made Kansas City a major stop on the jazz railroad. All of them -- all of them -- generously shared their common love. The music was the message and they communicated perfectly. There were no color barriers to mutual understanding.

Morrison and his boys aren't playing jazz, but they are playing blues, and both have the same roots. Moreover, both touch a common chord in the hearts and souls of people across the globe. Even if one accepted Milt Jackson's proposition, the Irish, of all the people on earth, understand suffering and pain as well as the black American male. Any man who says that Van Morrison -- a guy whose face looks like someone set it on fire and tried to beat it out with a rake, and whose voice rasps with the pain of too many cigarettes, coke, Bushmills and bad women -- doesn't feel the power as much as any other man who's ever faced life head on, that man is an moron.

Soul is the unspoken recognition of the beauty and the pain that are inextricably entwined in the mystery of the human condition. Music -- jazz and blues especially, from my admittedly cockeyed perspective -- is the language of soul, and no one group of people has a monopoly on speaking or understanding that language.

The Pull of the Moon

Moon dips his finger
Into Ocean's frigid deep,
Sends waves surging home.

Alison Krauss and Union Station - If I Didn't Know Any Better

Most Wounds Are Self-Inflicted

Sometimes the sky's too bright,
        Or has too many clouds or birds,
        And far away's too sharp a sun
        To nourish thinking of him.
        Why is my hand too blunt
        To cut in front of me
        My horrid images for me,
        Of over-fruitful smiles,
        The weightless touching of the lip
        I wish to know
        I cannot lift, but can,
        The creature with the angel's face
        Who tells me hurt,
        And sees my body go
        Down into misery?
        No stopping. Put the smile
        Where tears have come to dry.
        The angel's hurt is left;
        His telling burns.      

Sometimes a woman's heart has salt,
        Or too much blood;
        I tear her breast,
        And see the blood is mine,
        Flowing from her, but mine,
        And then I think
        Perhaps the sky's too bright;
        And watch my hand,
        But do not follow it,
        And feel the pain it gives,
        But do not ache.
       ---Dylan Thomas

The Blower's Daughter --Damien Rice
       

Bridges

I was tempted to post my thoughts about how disgusting both sides of the great debate over the mosque/community center near/two blocks from Ground Zero have been, but, then, where would one begin and where would one stop? The intellectual dishonesty on both sides of the issue has been astounding. Well, not actually "astounding," since intellectual dishonesty is the modus operandi of all sides of the political and social spectrum these days. The best comment I heard this week was George Will's on yesterday's This Week on ABC, to the effect that a month from now the American public will wonder what all the noise was about.

The condescension of the supporters of the community center was as amusing as it was annoying. The left always takes the stance that the right is composed of knuckle-draggers and mouth-breathers, because it makes them feel more comfortable with the fact that although they're a small fraction of the populace that surrounds them, they're "superior" in oh-so-many ways. As C.S. Lewis once observed, there's likely a special place in hell for those who feel they're a cut above the common man.

Strangely (or perhaps, not so strangely), in the course of this week I also thought of the reverse condescension that once assaulted Mary Chapin Carpenter when she first burst on the country music scene many years ago. Country music "purists" could never accept the fact that a graduate of an Ivy League school like Brown could feel and express the same deep sense of hurt, longing, regret, and battered-yet-persistent hope that the rest of us red-necked riff-raff felt in our bones. In a sense, many of the "common folk" believed that only they had the right to feel those feelings and that someone from a privileged background like Chapin was a pretender treading on their sacred ground. The irony of that reaction to Ms. Carpenter made me take her to heart right from the get-go.

When we should be building bridges, we build walls. We're all fools. Every damned single one of us.

Truth is truth, and no one has a monopoly on truth save God. Whatever He's revealed to us, we all see it through a glass, darkly.

I'm not running
I'm not hiding
I'm not reaching
I'm just resting in the arms of the great wide open
Gonna pull my soul in
And I'm almost home

Wake Up: Time To Die

Everyone must have days or nights when they've had it. At least, I assume everyone must.

Had it with all the Sarah Palin haters and their effete condescension to the point that I'd like to cock the hammer of a .44 S&W, shove it in their mouths, and pull the trigger. Repeatedly.

Had with Sarah Palin and her Mama Grizzly inanity to the point that I'd like to bury her under a pile of her own bullshit and grow a garden of lima beans and snap peas over it. I hate lima beans and snap peas.

Had it with young women who post that everyone should join in with a hearty "F*** YOU" to everyone employed as a mortgage broker.

Had it with the venality of many mortgage brokers who push the envelope until it folds in on itself and becomes a shroud in which they're buried.

Had it with jerk offs who can't understand that 80 million fanatics out of 1.2 billion adherents doesn't paint an entire religion as "radical."

Had it with politically correct ninnies who don't understand what some long dead British apologist understood 90 years ago and announced publicly, that Islam and Christianity are irreconcilable.

[I]t does no harm to describe the differences between them as "irreconcilable." He says, "We have grown used to a habit of calling things by the wrong names and supporting them by the wrong arguments; and even doing the right thing for the wrong cause." Obviously everyone one wants peace, but we fall into the lie of saying "Peace, peace" when there is no peace.

Had it with a lack of charity to be found anywhere in my being. Notwithstanding a very thorough search, the cupboard is absolutely bare.

Had it with people who supposedly have given their very lives to agape being as "wink-wink, nudge-nudge" in their business dealings as the dumbest stump of a bank officer I've ever had the misfortune to represent in 36 years of a professional life spent swimming with turds.

Had it with the people I meet who I feel compelled to reject because they represent the old life from which I'm trying to escape.

Had it with living as the kind of clueless ass who would reject any human being to save himself when by sticking by her or him they might both save one another in ways only those who understand what it means to love might comprehend, such as, for instance, God.

To live in fear is to be a slave.

All those moments will be lost in time like tears in rain.

Time to die.

Dust To Dust

A negative reaction to the strong (albeit redacted) language in my most recent post left me feeling about some of the more brittlely and overtly pious Christians I run across the same way that former editorial writer for The National Review and the Dallas Morning News, Rod Dreher, felt about protesters on the right of the social divide over the movie Brokeback Mountain a few years ago. Quoting from one of his favorite Catholic novelists, Flannery O'Conner, about novelists, Dreher said some things (in an editorial for the Dallas Morning News I can no longer locate online) that apply beyond the subject of novels.

Ms. O'Connor once wrote that you don't have to have an educated mind to understand good fiction, but you do have to have "at all times the kind of mind that is willing to have its sense of mystery deepened by contact with reality, and its sense of reality deepened by contact with mystery." The mystery of the human personality can never be fully plumbed, only explored. To the frustration of ideologues, artists like Annie Proulx and Ang Lee undertake a journey to those depths and return to tell the truth about what they've seen – which is not necessarily what any of us wants to hear. As Ms. O'Connor taught, "Fiction is about everything human and we are made out of dust, and if you scorn getting yourself dusty, then you shouldn't try to write fiction."

In my view, if you scorn getting yourself dusty, then you shouldn't try to live. Life's dusty. It's especially dusty for a twenty-one year old white bread kid from small town USA who's plucked from his comfortable surroundings and figuratively (and literally in some respects) air-dropped into a cesspool filled with thugs and assassins, to swim or to drown. This man-boy has just witnessed the murder of a family by his companions, fought a half-mile running gun battle with hard-core killers (and patriots for another cause), during which he's certain he's killed at least two men at close range, lept onto a helicopter that was lifting off with him or without him, and experienced the terror of knowing (knowing) that the 'copter was going to crash and that either the crash would kill him or his pursuers would finish the job in a most painful fashion. He's filled with the utmost fear, rage, and, worse, despair. He sees God's face nowhere, only Satan's, and he's sure he's going to burn in Hell for eternity. This wasn't exactly his life plan unfolding as he might have intended when he was in grade school. At that moment, he is profane. How utterly "shocking and unnecessary."

It's called "life." It's "dusty." Learn from it or don't learn from it, but whatever you do, if "dust" offends you, read elsewhere.