Aubade, when we greet the dawn. The following is from a poem by Phillip Larkin, his thoughts on a sleepless night,
"This is a special way of being afraid
No trick dispels. Religion used to try,
That vast, moth-eaten musical brocade
Created to pretend we never die,
And specious stuff that says No rational being
Can fear a thing it will not feel, not seeing
That this is what we fear - no sight, no sound,
No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,
Nothing to love or link with,
The anasthetic from which none come round. "
Sombre thoughts of a man with no faith and no way of reconciling himself to his final "goodbye".This is the time of the year when we say farewell and assess the meaning of the school year which has gone. For those of us in Year 13 it means, for some, the end of a life in St.Helen's which began when they were four or five. For some staff it either means moving on to new posts or maybe to retirement. This set me thinking about saying goodbye - a part of life which none of us find easy and can cause us great sadness whether it is to a friend for the summer hols or to a much loved pet. I was reading this morning about Ben Fogle's distress on having to have his beloved dog Inca put to sleep. Then, of course, when we have to say goodbye to people we love.
Ella Fitzgerald sings a marvellous version of the Cole Porter song " Everytime we say Goodbye". The next line runs "I die a little" does that not decribe the great loss we feel when we say goodbye to one we love even if it's for weeks rather than years ? As a psychologist this sense of loss and saying goodbye is to me a very important phenomena. This is because it is one of our most profound feelings. In books, films, music and art the act of saying "goodbye" is one of the most powerful swayers of emotion. It is something with which we can all identify because we have all felt it.
My personal favourite is the final movement of Mahler's ninth symphony where he described its ending as being like a tiny white cloud fading into the eternal blue of the sky. A metaphor for death as many "goodbyes" are.
Our distaste for goodbyes is a reminder of our unfathomable mutual dependence on each other. Our self cannot come into being, let alone endure without the recognition of others. We depend on others not only to nourish our material persons, but to sustain our character -who we are.
Recognition is as essential to the self as food is to the body. That humans are social animals, understates the case. We are all interdependent body and soul.Deprive us of human contact and we begin to disintegrate. That's why solitary confinement is torture.
The American poet Emily Dickinson wrote,
"This is a special way of being afraid
No trick dispels. Religion used to try,
That vast, moth-eaten musical brocade
Created to pretend we never die,
And specious stuff that says No rational being
Can fear a thing it will not feel, not seeing
That this is what we fear - no sight, no sound,
No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,
Nothing to love or link with,
The anasthetic from which none come round. "
Sombre thoughts of a man with no faith and no way of reconciling himself to his final "goodbye".This is the time of the year when we say farewell and assess the meaning of the school year which has gone. For those of us in Year 13 it means, for some, the end of a life in St.Helen's which began when they were four or five. For some staff it either means moving on to new posts or maybe to retirement. This set me thinking about saying goodbye - a part of life which none of us find easy and can cause us great sadness whether it is to a friend for the summer hols or to a much loved pet. I was reading this morning about Ben Fogle's distress on having to have his beloved dog Inca put to sleep. Then, of course, when we have to say goodbye to people we love.
Ella Fitzgerald sings a marvellous version of the Cole Porter song " Everytime we say Goodbye". The next line runs "I die a little" does that not decribe the great loss we feel when we say goodbye to one we love even if it's for weeks rather than years ? As a psychologist this sense of loss and saying goodbye is to me a very important phenomena. This is because it is one of our most profound feelings. In books, films, music and art the act of saying "goodbye" is one of the most powerful swayers of emotion. It is something with which we can all identify because we have all felt it.
My personal favourite is the final movement of Mahler's ninth symphony where he described its ending as being like a tiny white cloud fading into the eternal blue of the sky. A metaphor for death as many "goodbyes" are.
Our distaste for goodbyes is a reminder of our unfathomable mutual dependence on each other. Our self cannot come into being, let alone endure without the recognition of others. We depend on others not only to nourish our material persons, but to sustain our character -who we are.
Recognition is as essential to the self as food is to the body. That humans are social animals, understates the case. We are all interdependent body and soul.Deprive us of human contact and we begin to disintegrate. That's why solitary confinement is torture.
The American poet Emily Dickinson wrote,
I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us--don't tell!
They'd banish us, you know.
Emily knew that what stands between us and exile is affiliation- friendship, family call it what you like.Self-reliance is a myth. Have you noticed that older people tell the same stories over and over again ? They are desperately trying to shore up their identities that, because of a lack of recognition, are breaking down. By telling us their stories, they are staving off the disintegration of self, one day at a time. You can't really blame them--their struggle is at once heroic and tragic. That you've heard it all before is a measure of their need to repeat themselves. One day, you too may need an understanding ear.
Close! stand close to me, Starbuck; let me look into a human eye; it is better than to gaze into sea or sky; better than to gaze upon God. ...this is the magic glass... .
So spoke Captain Ahab in Melville's Moby Dick. Without that "magic glass," we gradually cease to be. I see you seeing me and I exist. I see you seeing me see you and we exist. Mutual recognition is the glue that holds us together, not merely as friends, but as individual selves. In co-creating and exchanging a blizzard of signals, verbal and non-verbal, we are reinforcing the synapses that form the neural nets that encode our very self.
Good-byes are poignant preludes to the leave-takings and withdrawals that deprive our minds of the support they need to maintain our selfhood. As such, every good-bye is a premonition of disintegration, a foretaste of death, another step on the path to "adieu."
No wonder we're not fond of good-byes. Which brings us back to Larkin and his aubade...
Despite the sombre tone of this blog I hope you all have a wonderful and happy summer holiday.
Dr.Brown
Are you nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us--don't tell!
They'd banish us, you know.
Emily knew that what stands between us and exile is affiliation- friendship, family call it what you like.Self-reliance is a myth. Have you noticed that older people tell the same stories over and over again ? They are desperately trying to shore up their identities that, because of a lack of recognition, are breaking down. By telling us their stories, they are staving off the disintegration of self, one day at a time. You can't really blame them--their struggle is at once heroic and tragic. That you've heard it all before is a measure of their need to repeat themselves. One day, you too may need an understanding ear.
Close! stand close to me, Starbuck; let me look into a human eye; it is better than to gaze into sea or sky; better than to gaze upon God. ...this is the magic glass... .
So spoke Captain Ahab in Melville's Moby Dick. Without that "magic glass," we gradually cease to be. I see you seeing me and I exist. I see you seeing me see you and we exist. Mutual recognition is the glue that holds us together, not merely as friends, but as individual selves. In co-creating and exchanging a blizzard of signals, verbal and non-verbal, we are reinforcing the synapses that form the neural nets that encode our very self.
Good-byes are poignant preludes to the leave-takings and withdrawals that deprive our minds of the support they need to maintain our selfhood. As such, every good-bye is a premonition of disintegration, a foretaste of death, another step on the path to "adieu."
No wonder we're not fond of good-byes. Which brings us back to Larkin and his aubade...
Despite the sombre tone of this blog I hope you all have a wonderful and happy summer holiday.
