Happy though Human

How to be happy though Human∗

My father practised as a Freudian psychoanalist. Well, he said he was technically an 'Eclectic'. But the truth is that his training analyst was Freudian; it is just that my dad's training was incomplete. I think the war intervened. I sensed in him a deep respect for Freud's intuitions, but with some minor reservations. He had much less time for Jung, and I do not think I ever hear him mention Adler. My mother, who was usually busy with other aspects of general practice, and house-keeping, respected the more mystical Carl Jung, and summarised Alfred Adler for me as "replacing Freud's monomaniacal emphasis on sex, with the more general concept of 'power'". Thus was the house in which I grew up. 

Last week I  paused at the the bookcase on my upstairs landing to enjoy the mere presence of my beloved books. A cluster of early Pelicans caught my eye:  two by A. N. Whitehead, Paul Einzig on monetary policy and Béran Wolfe's familiar title "How to be Happy though Human". Familiar, arresting, haunting; I doubted if I had ever opened  the book in the 60 years in which we had shared a house. I wondered who had bought it; I, or my mother, or my father. First published 1932, republished by Penguin Books in 1957. From the back cover I learned that Wolfe had been an 'assistant' to Adler in Vienna between the wars. At last! My chance to glimpse the Adler view of human motivation. 

But ouch! This is going to hurt. Opening the book at random, I found a section titled "The Fine Art of making Presents".  I read: 

"... the giving of gifts for reasons of duty, custom, or the like. ....is the worst... way to make a present.......you give a small boy....... a copy of Marcus Aurelius's Meditations because of some vague hope ....". 

And I wince, for I have made exactly that silly mistake with my oldest grand-daughter, and was about to err again with her younger sister. 

On the other hand, despite Wolfe's rather clunky use of English, Béran offers many pieces of sound advice. For example:

"Peaceful social intercourse can exist only in a society of mentally mature individuals. You can achieve a great deal of happiness and gain an enormous host of friends if you will (sic) incorporate the wisdom of social relativity (?)...... If you wish to convince him of a point, or teach him a new technique, minimise the distance between your superior position of knowledge and his inferior position of ignorance..... Conscious modesty in attitude, quietness in gesture, combined with firmness of purpose and decision, mark the well-adjusted adult. .... The words 'absolutely', 'certainly', 'always', 'never'.. have little place in the vocabulary of the happy man." 

Or his comment on Deferred Living: "One important source of unhappiness is the habit of putting off living to some fictional date in the future.........."

Or: "[The immature man] lives a plan-less life. His strategy consists either in muddling through, or dreaming through, life."  

(Touché!  Though I call it 'going with the flow', and explain my strategy as a result of my fear of making a wrong decision. I am beginning to see developing the theme of this essay; its raison d'être écrit.  Wolfe is forever stripping away the multilayered protective carapace in which I have carefully wrapped myself. I keep pulling it back and re-wrapping.  His therapy is rather brutal; it is like pulling a hermit-crab out of its borrowed shell and telling it to stiffen up.)

Béran Wolfe devotes a significant portion of the book to 'Happiness in Love and Marriage', or more correctly to the unhappiness generated in these area of life. He suggests that there are but few people who could number amongst their acquaintances 10 happy couples. However, he goes on to suggest that the great majority of this widespread unhappiness stems from avoidable causes. There are (he says) certain fundamental prerequisites to a happy marriage:

"Mental maturity, physical health, and psychological independence in outlook, a knowledge of the art of love and the practice of contraception are important premisses of a normal sexual life. A mature sense of social responsibility, the willingness to make concessions to reality, freedom from neurotic traits (including any tendency towards romantic idealism), a wide and catholic range of human interests, and the willingness to grow, to cooperate, to suffer sometimes, and to share always the disappointments and the joys of life – these are the foundations of success in the solution of the love problems of every day life. The willingness to encourage, the ability to identify oneself with the situation of the sexual partner, help one over the usual obstacles, ........"

 Well! That explains that then. In my 15-year marriage I do not think I met a single one of those 12 fundamental prerequisites; unless you would allow me  'psychological independence in outlook', and a 'catholic range of human interests'; which latter I admit would be quite generous, considering my total ignorance of sport and pop music. Contraception clearly defeated us in the second year of our marriage. And the 'Art of Love' defeated me till I was 70 years old. I bristle with a host of neuroses; and I am sure those must include romantic idealism if that means 'foolishly trusting nature as a guide', 'hoping for the best', and 'extreme shyness'.

Surely it is obvious that a neurotic person needs his neuroses. They are his defences against  the pain of facing up to his inadequacies. 

As I put the book back on the shelf, I felt inclined to admit that 'Life' was rather wasted on me. And yet, you know, I just about managed. Bailing, perhaps, but still afloat.

∗ Wolfe, W. B. (1957) "How to be Happy though Human", Penguin Books Ltd., Harmondsworth, Middlesex

Fathers and Daughters

  Fathers and Daughters    

      I know many cases where there seems to be a special relationship between daughters and their fathers (as contrasted with their relationship with their mothers).  Whose hand does a daughter want to hold? Whose attention does she want to catch? It may be that I exaggerate the number by noticing them, and that it is my problem (as it were); but I think I am detecting a tendency, a natural bias in the female child towards the male parent. 

     I have gone on to wonder whether this tendency is innate, a hardwired sexual orientation, even in a very young child. Or, whether the relationship builds up by itself over the first 2 to 3 years of a girl's life, resulting from her interactions with her two parents. Perhaps she turns to her mother for food and security but to her father for his approval. It seems to be highly likely that the two parents will respond differently to demands; mother with a sigh or a cuddle; father, flattered into an attitude of heightened interest.

     Here is a case in point. A couple with an eight-year-old daughter came into the pub, the girl in front, the man at the rear, wearing a slightly odd sunhat (perhaps of leather).

      "Dad, what would you like?, asked the girl. "Dad. Dad, what would you like?" She was on the edge of sounding precocious; as though she was going the buy the round. But her parents ignored her. They bought drinks and settled on the table next to mine, the parents on opposite sides, the girl floating.

      "Dad, you are my best friend." 

Whereupon the father (continuing his exposition):     

      "It just needs enough of the high energy particles coming from the sun to be bent by the earth's magnetic field by just the right amount ."

      " I have never seen the aurora borealis", said mum. 

      "Nor have I ever seen it" admitted dad. He put his hat on his daughter's head just in time for the European barman to say "That's a nice hat!"

      "Daddy".

      "Georgina must have known if they really were living together" said mum.

      "Daddy".

      " Yes?"

      "Hmmmm," all of a sudden the little girl had forgotten what she wanted to say.

      "I don't think they would go that far" continued the mum, at which point the girl went round and snuggled up to her, and received a reflex cuddle. 

  

     It was very different as I approached the bus stop four hours later. A seven-year-old boy, shouting over his shoulder at a thirty-something-year-old man who was rather grimly pursuing the boy down the tow-path: "Get away from me. Get away from me. I know what you are going to do, you bully." This carried on in front of a crowd of waiting passengers. The boy seemed considerably 'het-up', but not so distracted as to miss the opportunity of playing to his audience. 

     However, I was worried and felt that I ought to do something. I converged on the man as we both walked after the boy; spoke a few soothing words and urged him not to go too far. I think I must have pitched it about right, as he did not shout at me to "mind my own - - business"; but carried on round a corner. He came back a minute later, with the boy, having established (it would seem) a temporary truce. 

     Daughters and sons! Two adjacent episodes, at random, but head-to-tail as though deliberately pointing the contrast.

  Darwin, Freud, or Lorenzian-imprinting? Or all of these schools?

(See also "Kicking" (https://occidentis.blogspot.com/2023/05/kicking.html))

Kicking

Kicking

A man (in a green pullover) by the bus stop is watching his two children playing on the grass some twenty yards away; and I watch all three. My mind wanders.

"Robbie! No kicking!", and the slight, weary, lift in his voice suggests that this is not the first time he has said those words.

I look more carefully at the children; the boy, a sturdy four-year-old, the girl considerably taller and perhaps six. The check seems to work. "Skilfully done Mr. Man-in-green." 

My mind wanders again. What a lot a child has to learn, about bullying, about getting your way, about consequences and avoiding consequences. What a lot of civilising goes into parenting; the making of a citizen. I am reminded of the books and offprints on Freud, Psychology and World Order that Father left us; his legacy, our inheritance [1,2]. Is selfishness primary? Is aggressiveness? Is conscience inherent, or acquired as vestigial traces of early training from childhood or even infancy? Is 'God' indeed little more than 'our father in heaven' writ large?

Robbie might wonder what is wrong with kicking; his sister usually gives way. Of course, he may get a walloping from his dad, or smouldering resentment from his sister. He may conclude that, all-in-all, kicking is counter productive. Or he may conclude that it is best not done in public.

Britain spent 180 years 'kicking' weaker countries into submission, till 1956, when, with the French and Israelis, Britain thought it could recapture the Suez Canal from the Egyptians. By the end of November 1956 these allies found that they had won the war but had alienated all the world (except for Adenauer [3]). They withdrew, humiliated. In April 1975 the USA had to accept their humiliating retreat from Vietnam, and again in August 2021 their retreat (with their allies) from Afghanistan. 

Perhaps 2023 will see the humiliating retreat of Putin and his Wagner allies from Ukraine. But he need not be too embarrassed; we can see this as an integral part of growing up; we might even say "Join the club". Anyway, his wasn't a war. (It is amusing to note that, in 1956, Prime Minister Eden apparently said "We [are not] at war with Egypt now.[…] There has not been a declaration of war by us. We are in an armed conflict." [3]).

Reference:

[1] West, Ranyard (1942) "Conscience and Society", Methuen & Co., London.

[2] West, Ranyard (1945) "Psychology and World Order", Pelican, Harmondsworth, London.

[3]  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suez_Crisis 

 Please address comment to cawstein@gmail.com

Inner Monologue

Inner Monologue 

Maybe it is just me. This incessant talking in my head. Though I believe Leopold Bloom suffered the same problem. I have lived much of my life alone, so maybe that is why I am blessed or cursed with this silent chatter  – if it is just me, and Mr. Bloom, and other loners. 

When it is not verbal it is a bit of music. And I know my mother and my daughter both share this 'earworm' problem. My daughter goes around the house humming. My mother did not; but did occasionally discuss it as a problem. Schubert was her worst offender; she became reluctant to sing the more beguiling of his songs, for fear of them lingering with her for a week. So, I can conclude that the musical  version of the perpetual inner monologue is not linked to living on one's own, for Mother had a job and a household of nine, and Heather has a job and a household of five. Though, admittedly, even a school teacher will have moments alone; at a bus stop, in the bath, that moment while putting her key in the front door. 

But talking to oneself, albeit silently, is rather different from listening to internal music. It has content. With a notebook, I could record my chatter, and analyse myself, as Freud (and Jung) did with dreams. Sometime I am arguing with someone, over and over, testing out my case. Recently, when walking slightly off the designated footpath, I found myself looking sharply round for the farmer who, at the beginning of COVID, had put up aggressive signs. Not that I have ever set eyes on him, nor anyone else, mostly, but it is as well to be prepared.  

"Yes, I do know that the path goes slap across the middle of the field; and if this were grassland I would probably follow the path. But it is ploughed land, and when it is wet and muddy the path is most unpleasant." ........

"Well, I would be prepared to offer you compensation for damage done, but I do not think that walking on grass round the edge of a field does any harm. " ........

"Sir, for eighty years I have lived in the country and walked round the edges of fields, in preference to slap across the middle, as a courtesy to the farmer." ('Slap' is good!  The 'past subjunctive' (were) is good. Because I can only guess at the farmer's side of the dialogue, it is hard to know if I am winning or losing.) 

Over the stile, and I can shelve that anxiety. Sheep now, and I wonder, again, that they are all browsing. Browsing, browsing, browsing; all day long. Low grade food, I suppose. Remember that man who bet he could cycle from Land's End to John o' Groats eating nothing but grass? Grass with a sprinkling of sugar. And even at that age (was I fourteen?) I realised that the sugar would help.

"Can I tell the whistle of a kite from the mew of a buzzard? Hardly. But a glance at the tail is enough. Silly woman! Serve her right if I had bet her a pound to a shilling that it was a buzzard, for I would certainly have won the bet. The tail, long, and often forked! (Thank you, Dad. for teaching us that little bit of Freud! The long tail – though I do not see it as phallic. Silly old Freud!) And the 'aspect ratio' of the wing; very broad for the buzzard; rather tapering and 'fingery' for the kite. Somebody had suggested that buzzard- and kite-terrains cannot overlap, that the birds are incompatible. Well, we have both here within fifty yards of each other."

"I have often seen crows (or rooks) mobbing a kite, as they have been mobbing buzzards for decades, but I wonder if it is wise. There is a bundle of black feathers over there, strewn across the grass. I think an over-valiant rook (or crow) might have gone too close.  I doubt it would have been caught by a fox. Sparrow hawk, maybe?  I'll take the stile this time, rather than the gate. This is where we saw the fox, that time three years ago. "

   

"I shall take a notebook next time I go for a walk. I hope I do not turn out to be inexcusably aggressive or judgemental. I have worked so hard all my life at presenting myself as a rational and sympathetic person. Perhaps the real 'me' is beginning to show through. That would explain much."