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24/2/2022 February 24th, 2022 ITAR-TASS NEWS AGENCY / ALAMY LIVE NEWS /HTTPS://WWW.ALAMY.COM I grew up in very rural England during the late 70’s, hitching around the countryside at all hours, enjoying dawns, dusks and days surrounded by wide fields, big skies and very low crime. In many ways it was idyllic.
It stood in sharp contrast to the news which was filled with misery. It was very clear even in my early teens, that the country was convulsing. Every Friday night the ITV news would discuss how many more jobs had been lost. The never ending violence between police and strikers, the nihilism of punk, the crushing drudgery of poverty that was suddenly visiting people who’d expected the employment that had been guaranteed to previous generations, and the crassness of the newly rich became part of an amusing start to the weekend as my generation was introduced to satire via Saturday Night Live, The Young Ones and Blackadder. Most of us were insulated from the realities of this period, we had no strikes, poverty and prosperity remained pretty stable in the times before second and third homes, and the nearest thing we had to punk were girls putting bin bags over their party frocks. But what we did share with the rest of the country was Protect and Survive, a pamphlet and public information film telling us what to do if a nuclear bomb fell in Britain. As teenagers we knew that a mattress propped up against the stairs would not be protection from anything and we couldn’t understand why the adults around us were taking it seriously. I asked my mother about it and she said this: “Look at the quality of the film. They know that it’s pointless.” I found her acceptance of the futility of all of it strangely comforting, there was a weird kind of peace in her acknowledgment of mutually assured destruction. In fact, many people were very much more than aware but CND was considered dangerously radical in North Shropshire. My RAF armourer father told me that nuclear weapons put food in my mouth. A couple of years later there was Threads. After watching it I went to bed in no little fear that I tried to sooth with planning. Where could I keep a secret stash of supplies? What supplies would I need? Where could I get a gun and ammunition? Before I finally fell asleep I knew it was useless and my mothers existential despair descended on me: in many senses that despair allowed me to move on. I left home, moved to London where surviving day to day distracted me from war even though the issue was very live and I went on marches and a Die In at Parliament. I watched When The Wind Blows and, rather than having any compassion or sympathy for Jim and Hilda, felt disgust for their bovine trust. And here we are again. Russia bombed Kiev this morning. A huge number of American politicians and voters are expressing sympathy for Russia: if you’re under 35 you might not appreciate how surreal that is. Today's Daily Mail’s front page criticises our Intelligence Services for being ‘Woke’; the Markets are volatile, this is a moment for really quick profits if you’re savvy and lucky; the media is having a field day, it’s all very exciting. Like everyone else, I’m preparing for another working day, not cancelling any social appointments, not marching on parliament, not writing to my MP. The world seems seldom to be out of crisis, very many ordinary people live the entirety of their existence in quiet desperation with genuinely no hope of respite, whether that’s through poverty, illness, a sense of duty or a lack of imagination. Perfectly lovely people, people you’d happily have over for dinner and be pleased to have as neighbours, create the conditions for despair to thrive. What can we do about it? Are the Hard Working Tax Paying Jim and Hildas better or worse off trusting their betters than despairing protesters who know what war actually means? Are the bloviating Я Boyz gang happier than people hand wringing over how isolated the UK is? You won’t be surprised to hear that despair is pretty standard fare in therapy but over the last few years despair about the state of the world rather than the state of an individual life has become a thread that runs through increasing numbers of narratives. Brilliantly functional people whose lives look pretty perfect (from in and outside) are also consumed by unshakable anxiety, a sense of dread and the overwhelming but secret fear of being found out. The intersection between personal and political is becoming harder to discern as one leaks into the other. Isolation is a structural part of this dynamic: a society that lauds success must despise failure, and so pretence seems vital, becomes habitual, increases the despair because you can only dance prettily for daddy for a limited amount of time before exhaustion kicks in - yet still you must dance. In an ideal world, we’d stop dancing when we realised that the music was discordant but the rewards for throwing ridiculous shapes can overwhelm reality. It’s why so many MPs take vast amounts of money and other benefits from private individuals and businesses : many are genuinely nihilistic, believing that there's no such thing as society and consequently that all that matters is making their life as comfortable as possible at any cost, because if they don't others will. In an ideal world, we’d be able to talk with our peers, listen and be heard, and have some power to alter the conditions that make life difficult, but that’s never been part of our culture (something that many other developed societies find bewildering.) So what can be done when despair takes hold? Understand that despair can sometimes be the cost of years of denial. It can manifest as anxiety, panic attacks, intrusive thoughts, compulsive behaviours, burnout, depression, deep sorrow, agitation, and even a feeling of restless excitement. Somewhere in there, there may very well be shame. Guilt is a reflection of what you’ve done, and you can make amends, put things right. Shame is a reflection of who you are - and how do you make that better? Despair occurs when you become aware of your essential powerlessness - you’ve done all the right things and life is still not good. It’s not unusual for people to metaphorically throw their hands up in the air, understand that they’ve been wasting their time trying to be decent, and begin investing in armaments, polluting industries and other high yield stocks, buy the second home and the performance car, the cans and the drugs, throw their spouse away, because life is short and nothing matters. So start where you are, you are not going to change the world but you may be able to improve your relationships. Try new conversations with your children, partner, parents, friends and don’t expect instant results, life is not a Pot Noodle. Think about the boundaries you’d like to set with the friend who sucks up your time but doesn’t reciprocate, the manager who abuses your good will, the child whose behaviour has become tedious or too compliant, the partner who seems more like an annoying flatmate or a comfortable stranger. In the last 70 years we’ve lost all sense of meaning and purpose beyond having stuff, not even money - household debt has never been higher - but the trappings that signify success. Religion and charity are almost entirely reduced to an uncomfortable charade; retired businessmen used to go into politics as a way of giving back to society and while it’s never been clean, it’s seldom been more polluted. That doesn’t mean that you’re obliged to ignore the traditional sources of meaning and purpose. If the idea of working at a food bank is too much then hand over some money. It’s a fact that poorer people give more to charity than rich people, so knowing that put 10% of your weekly supermarket spend aside for the foodbank box by the tills, just to see what spending 10% on someone you’ll never meet feels like. Next time transfer the money anonymously. See what that feels like. Life is short and then you die, but rather than acting out (performing what you can’t find words for) find the words. This is what therapy is for. God knows, if Mr Putin and Mr Johnson and the rest of these apparently very successful people had spent some time trying to find some words to describe how they felt they might have been less inclined to physically compete against children, support terrorist organisations, sow chaos, cause terrible hardship and become paranoid, small and pathetic. You may not enter the history books, but you can do better than most of the people who do. |
CategoriesAll Abandonment Abuse Ancestors Anger Anxiety Ash Wednesday Attitude Banking Bereavement Birthday Bravery Breivik Bystander Effect Camila Batmanghelidjh Carnival Cbt Challenger Charlotte Bevan Childbirth Childhood Children Christmas Coaching Compassion Contemplation Control Counselling COVID 19 Culture Dalai Lama Death Death Cafe Democracy Denial Depression Domestic Violence Dying Eap Earth Day Empathy Employment Eric Klinenberg Ethics Exams Existential Failure Family Annihilation Fear Founders Syndrome Francis Report Gay Cure Genocide George Lyward Goldman Sachs Good Death Greg Smith Grief Grieving Grooming Groupthink Happiness Hate Hungary Illness Interconnectedness Jason Mihalko Jubilee Kids Company Kitty Genovese Life Light Living Loneliness Love Mandatory Reporting Meaning Men Mental Health Mid Staffs Mindfulness Money Mothers New Year Nigella Lawson Optimism Organisational Collapse Oxford Abuse Panama Papers Panic Panic Attacks Parenthood Petruska Clarkson Pleasure Politics Positivity Post Natal Depression Power Priorities Priority Productivity Psychotherapy Ptsd Red Tent Reflection Rena Resilience Riots Rites Of Passage Ritual Robin Williams Sad Sales Savile Scared Seasonal Affective Disorder Self Care Self Preservation Self-preservation Shock Sin Singletons Sport Spring Status St David St Georges Day Stress Suarez Suicide Support Talking Terry Pratchett Time Transition Trauma True Self Truth Understanding Unemployment Valentines Day Viktor Frankl Violence Whistleblowing Who Am I Winter Blues Women Work Archives
May 2022
CategoriesAll Abandonment Abuse Ancestors Anger Anxiety Ash Wednesday Attitude Banking Bereavement Birthday Bravery Breivik Bystander Effect Camila Batmanghelidjh Carnival Cbt Challenger Charlotte Bevan Childbirth Childhood Children Christmas Coaching Compassion Contemplation Control Counselling COVID 19 Culture Dalai Lama Death Death Cafe Democracy Denial Depression Domestic Violence Dying Eap Earth Day Empathy Employment Eric Klinenberg Ethics Exams Existential Failure Family Annihilation Fear Founders Syndrome Francis Report Gay Cure Genocide George Lyward Goldman Sachs Good Death Greg Smith Grief Grieving Grooming Groupthink Happiness Hate Hungary Illness Interconnectedness Jason Mihalko Jubilee Kids Company Kitty Genovese Life Light Living Loneliness Love Mandatory Reporting Meaning Men Mental Health Mid Staffs Mindfulness Money Mothers New Year Nigella Lawson Optimism Organisational Collapse Oxford Abuse Panama Papers Panic Panic Attacks Parenthood Petruska Clarkson Pleasure Politics Positivity Post Natal Depression Power Priorities Priority Productivity Psychotherapy Ptsd Red Tent Reflection Rena Resilience Riots Rites Of Passage Ritual Robin Williams Sad Sales Savile Scared Seasonal Affective Disorder Self Care Self Preservation Self-preservation Shock Sin Singletons Sport Spring Status St David St Georges Day Stress Suarez Suicide Support Talking Terry Pratchett Time Transition Trauma True Self Truth Understanding Unemployment Valentines Day Viktor Frankl Violence Whistleblowing Who Am I Winter Blues Women Work |
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