That’s what I read on the dust jacket flap for THE DIVIDED SELF, R.D. Laing’s first published examination of ‘ontological insecurity’ — the sense for some people that they’re losing themselves, becoming lost in the world.

For many students of psych, Laing holds a special place. He was described by my lecturers as a ‘psychedelic psychologist’: criticised for his mind-bending poetry, applauded for his humanity. If I recall correctly, Laing & his students would check themselves into mental institutions to expose them from the inside out as places that ‘blamed the victim’, that described the patients’ behaviour in ways that re-emphasised (& moralised) their illnesses.

‘Look at how the patients cluster around the lunchroom an hour early. Clearly they’re displaying greed,’ went the populist view of the ‘crazy’ behaviour found in these institutions.
‘Look at how little the patients have to do here, & how often they’re ignored. What else is there, of a day, apart from eat lunch?’ argued Laing.

And this was really Laing’s stance: that our attempts to fit into the world as it is cause us distress. That psychosis has a social birthplace. That the conversation of crazy people was a result of an attempt to express the distress caused by a crazy world. Laing was revolutionary in valuing the content of psychotic behavior and speech as a valid expression of distress, albeit wrapped in an enigmatic language of personal symbolism which is meaningful only from within their situation, claims Wikipedia. Laing also went a little bit further (some might say ‘a little bit too far’) in suggesting that the voyage of psychosis was ‘shamanistic’, leading to deeper revelations about truth & reality. A popular & dare I suggest potentially destructive portrayal of mental disorder, the kind of thing found sometimes in Janet Frame’s (occasionally self-justifying?) writing, & such movies as ‘The Fisher King’: a kind of poetic self-destructiveness, later validated in a sentimental reality. More productively, Laing’s ideas have ended up, in a pragmatic form, establishing the foundations for modern psychotherapy. Relation to the world is equivalent to the relation to the self, argues psychotherapy. Change your perception of the world, change yourself.

One strand of Laing’s thinking, traceable to Marx and Sartre, condemns society for shackling humankind against its will, taking away individual freedom.

This I’ll come back to in later days, having just finished Albert Camus’ THE OUTSIDER (aka THE STRANGER) & not found myself completely convinced of the tyranny of society, nor the absolute rights of the individual.

On the one hand, I applaud Laing’s recognition of the reality of the individual, the dichotomy between self & other & the anxiety that can cause. On the other hand, I can’t carry that through to the *lack* of responsibility of the individual. If the world and my distress has lead to my disordered (differently-ordered?) thinking, can I be excused from killing a man? By logical extension, yes. By every other moral standard … lines must still be drawn.

Oh, & the rest of that quote from the dust jacket? It actually goes,

“This is an original and unusual work whose purpose is to make madness, and the process of going mad, comprehensible to many who have no direct experience with this phenomenon. R. D. Laing offers new insights to many who, in either a professional or a personal context, are familiar with madness. He examines certain forms of madness in an existential frame of reference — the man who is an “outsider”, estranged equally from himself and from society, unable to experience himself and others as being real and substantial. An individual who is so basically insecure develops a “false” self with which to confront his world, in order to achieve some formula for living with his anxiety and despair. This process may lead to the gradual disintegration of the whole personality, and Laing traces the lives of a number of schizoid and schizophrenic individuals.”
– The Divided Self, R.D. Laing, 1960, Tavistock Publications

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Psychology today has a series of articles on narcissism. Do they really hate themselves? (Not enough, some might argue, & the article does finish by reminding us the world isn’t just. Which, y’know, most of us didn’t really need to be reminded of.) Apparently implicit and explicit self-esteem can now be measured. Over at Harvard’s Project Implicit, you can take a test to check out your implicit self-esteem in the area of professions. I’m pleased to note even implicitly I identify more with publishing than engineering. At least the subconscious is playing along, eh?

The narcissistic boss requires excessive admiration (admiration more than liking, which explains a lot) and is interpersonally exploitative. And The Field Guide to Narcissism examines the charisma (often short-lived) of the narcissist:

Intensely narcissistic people often live tumultuous lives, as few people can tolerate them for long. But having a milder version of the personality type comes with many side benefits. [snip] Mild narcissism also seems to help people recover from accidents or other trauma—it gives them an unrealistic sense of their own invulnerability, and they believe that they will be able to handle whatever else life throws at them. As one researcher put it, being somewhat narcissistic is like driving a huge SUV: You’re having a great time, even while you hog the road, suck up extra resources and put other drivers at higher risk.

Sounds kinda nice, actually. Relaxing, like.

And finally: Is there an epidemic of narcissism today?

Ahhhh, the cult of personality.

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“The foundation of all mental illness is the unwillingness to experience legitimate suffering.”
-Carl Jung

Not sure I’d stretch it to ‘all’ mental illness (though, y’know, out of me & Jung, pick the famous psychologist type. So … ), but I’d pay this one. Avoidance is a mental ouroboros. A green-eyed monster that doth mock the meat it feeds on and ok, now I’m getting a bit carried away.

So let’s complement that with:

“If you’re going through hell, keep going.”
– Winston Churchill

and:

“The best way out is always through.”
– Robert Frost.

Boy, I just have dozens of these, don’t I.

You know, on a tangent, I was talking to a guy once who happened to work in advertising, & we were discussing upcoming movies, & I was saying, ‘Oh, the Movie Show reviewed that, & they said…’ Anyhow, the second time I said, ‘Yeah, the Movie Show guys said…’ he sniggered, cut me off & said, ‘Have you thought about coming up with an original opinion on anything by yourself?’

I think the next thing I said to him was, ‘Good night.’

And let me re-iterate: he worked in advertising. One of those vocations renowned for originality. So his point about my unwillingness to come up with an original opinion on movies as yet unreleased in my city was completely justified. Or, wait, no, I think he was just a complete tosser. Yeah, yeah, that could be it.

As to that self-indulgence thing that’s all over everywhere online, love nihilistic_kid‘s comment today:

I just thought this was an amusing addition to the conversation, since the self-indulgent/non-self-indulgent fight seems to be boiling down to another round of Artists vs. Hacks, again, sans any evidence of what actually motivates people to write. Of course those artists just love their own selves (ooh, smoochie smoochie, mirror man!) and of course the hacks just want to stick to formulae and do well by their readers (it’s in the contract!), goes the conversation so far. But the first person I met who actually gets to discuss motivations and meanings with dozens of authors per year pegged two uberhacks as the most self-indulgent of writers straight off.
So nyah nyah on everybody.

I don’t actually mean to get into the self-indulgence debate. It’s just that I find everyone else’s reactions so entertaining. Plus, clearly, tonight I have no original opinions on anything.

What I’m wondering, though, is how to gauge motivation &, once gauged, how to critically assess it? I’m wondering this because it seems to me that motivation is, in fact, important. Because I think it seeps into a work & therefore into a reader. In my mind, now, motivation has become twisted around with intention. ‘What is the author’s intention’ goes the popular highschool English lesson. As a student, I used to want to argue that it didn’t matter what the intention was, what mattered was what I took away from the text (I was post modern before I was even post modern. Does that make me pre-post modern?). But now I think intention is understated. Overlooked, even.

What, indeed, *is* the intention of the author, any author? What assurances, what subliminals, what attempts to get into the psyches of readers exist out there? What amount of trust should we give, & what hold in reserve? What imbalances are we contributing to the collective consciousness (thanks, Jung) if such exists? *Can* we contribute to the collective consciousness, or are we just passive recipients? Why did I not bother to check my facts before I started this post?

What numbers of people are wanting to ask me to defend my blithe comment that motivation is important — given that I have bothered with no evidence whatsoever?

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So : are you religious/irreligious? What role does it play in your life? What are the central tenets of your beliefs/ lack of beliefs? How do you reconcile the bits of your religion that don’t fit? If you have changed your religion – why?

Religion is a mild fascination for me. I will likely go on about it at great length.

History first: I am a failed catholic.

I like the phrase ‘failed catholic’. I use it on purpose. I don’t say ‘lapsed catholic’, because that implies that somewhere along the line I simply forgot to be catholic in some way. Neither do I say ‘ex-catholic’, because that stops short of recognising the effort I made. I tried to be catholic, and failed.

As a consequence of my failure — or perhaps, instead, my failure was a consequence of this — I have a gap where instinct tells me religion should fit. Or maybe not religion. Maybe belief. I have a gap in my beliefs that hasn’t been completely filled. It is an easy thing to live with, though. It keeps me active, and curious, and searching.

Which is, as an aside, apparently the ideal mindset for prospective cult adherents. Consequently, I stay away from cults and other undue influences. I avoid uttering phrases like, ‘Oh, that would never happen to me, I’m sure I could outwit any freaky cult leader type.’ People like me have thought that before. I am not over-confident. I have seen what religion can do to a mind. I am, after all — returning to my original point — someone who once was catholic.

What role *did* catholicism (yes, I am aware I am not using a capital letter) play in my life? Family influences were not strong. Or, rather, the strong catholics in the family were a step or so removed from my immediate sphere growing up. I didn’t go to a catholic school, but I did go to a school with a preponderance of catholics. In first grade, at the age of five, I was taught to make the ‘sign of the cross’ & told that bad children went to hell. Also, ignorant children went to hell. Children who died before learning the sign of the cross, for example. This readily instilled in me a fear of that razor’s edge of chance and circumstance that lead me there to that moment, Day 1, of Salvation.

What luck that I had made it that far, eh? But no, it wasn’t luck. It was — or so I was informed — God’s will. Just like it must have been God’s will to abandon all those ‘children in africa’ (ie. non-catholics).

Which never made sense to me, even then, but I was a good child, & quiet, & anyway, the sheer chaos of God’s will was what made Him so frightening. I became, indeed, God-fearing.

We were taught about the the day of reckoning & I remember S., age 5, saying, ‘The day of reckoning could be today. Or tomorrow. That’s why I always say my prayers for everyone every night and I try not to forget anyone. In case everything’s over before I get another chance!’

I tried to say a prayer for everyone I knew, not leaving anyone out, but my mind was prone to drifting. I worried about the people I was forgetting. I worried about the non-catholic relatives I was praying for, particularly. I worried about my pets, since pets weren’t allowed in Heaven.

Also, secretly, I began to develop a dissatisfaction with a god that would condemn people so easily & in such numbers. Heaven seemed like a wide, empty place. But I was too young to put any of this into words. It was an emotion or an instinct or some kind of spiritual twinge that I was feeling, & I tried to hide it from God.

The local priest wore shorts & an unbuttoned shirt & had a dark, unshaven face. In short, he was a disappointment. I wanted a priest with flowing robes, for a start. Still, most of my experience with catholocism was at school, so priests were an irrelevance. The real teachings came mainly from peers and parents (mostly other people’s).

When I moved to bigger schools interstate, I was surprised by how many religions there were. We were divided into scripture groups hosted mainly by local mothers. Again, I was unimpressed. Where were the monks, & nuns in crazy black habits like in Sound of Music? At age 11 an angry woman with wiry black hair was my scripture leader. She declared, ‘If you’re not going to church, you’re going to hell.” She asked, “What are you putting before God?’

There was something about the way she said God that made me wince. ‘God’, flat & spat, like a swear word. GOD! Like ‘fuck’, only with more hate. I worried that I was going to hell because my parents didn’t take my eternal soul seriously enough to drive me to the local church. Wherever that was. Mostly, I worried that my gut was beginning to curdle at the mention of GOD.

Age 14, I began to read the Bible.

I didn’t like it.

Particularly, I didn’t like the bit that said that a woman who lies with a man not her husband is committing adultery and shall go to Hell, even is she is divorced or widowed, and a man who lies with a woman who is not his wife, even if she is divorced or widowed, is _making that woman commit adultery_. I seem to recall I closed the Bible and didn’t open it again for four years. I’m not sure why my young mind was so quick to grasp the injustice of that principle. But there you have it, I renounced catholicism and realised I was something-I-had-no-word-for-then (a feminist) in one sentence. It was the cleanest break I’ve ever made.

Four years later, I did try another Bible (not a catholic one, I was sure I wasn’t catholic) when they were giving them out free at school. Nothing particularly offended me this time that I recall, but I ran headlong into that gap I mentioned; that gap where my response (love/fear/reverence?) should be. God as Father, as determining force, as judgment, as life — just wasn’t working for me. I was 18 and I realised that at least part of my course had been set. I still, for a time, listened politely to various passing evangelists, but I wasn’t Christian anymore. I was like jelly that had failed to set. There was something wrong with me that answers were so difficult for me to find or, when presented to me with righteous vigour, so impossible to accept.

It changed, of course, the feelings of ‘wrongness’ were replaced with feelings of right, and the desperation with answers mellowed into a fascination with process. I think now spirituality is something which is meant to evolve as we do, & that the truest test of growing up is not in simplifying ideas, but in making them more complex, amalgamating & synthesising them, adding coherence & depth. Or, that’s how I want to do it, anyhow. But then I also prefer personal expression to organised religion of any kind. Another result, probably, of my earlier failure.

I still have a fascination with ritual. In my twenties, travelling in Italy, I stepped into a marbled church and heard monks chanting in latin. Apparently I had to be nudged twice before I broke my trance. It really was beautiful. And in small ways, I think there is a lot of ritual in my days. My daily walk home is a kind of ritual. How I make a cup of tea is a ritual for me, how I arrange ‘found’ objects (trinkets, souvenirs, momentos) on a windowsill, how I light candles, how I watch rain, how I dust (when I dust), how I prepare a meal.

To knit together these strange little quirks of mine, I use ideas from, I suppose, Paganism, Goddess Worship, some Buddhist ideas on meditation, some concepts from Psychotherapy, yoga, Wicca. I don’t particularly buy into any one of these in total, but I use their vocabularies to talk about things I don’t fully understand & don’t otherwise have words for. It is difficult to say where the ‘spirituality’ ends & the ideas on self/life/purpose/choice/ethics begin. And maybe it doesn’t matter.

Am I religious? No. Am I spiritual? Maybe I sort of am. Kind of. I respect spirituality. I envy it when I find it in others. I pursue it — perhaps that’s a better way to say it. I pursue it. What are the central tenets of this home-made brew? Hmm. Honesty. Courage. Responsibility. And a damn good attempt to do no harm.

So far, that’s proving to be enough.

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What she sez: Yay, Justine Larbalestier, for poking holes in that whole ‘woe is me, it’s just not the same around here since the golden age ended’ rubbish some people go on with. Please. I hate that shit. The best chance we have of seeing the best fiction in history to this point is right now, when we have the benefits of the (entire literary) canon that has been forged already, coupled with the unique insights of our time. And if I live a thousand years, you’ll find me saying the same thing a thousand years from now. Because literature is for the living, & the time we’re living is *right now*, so howsabout we goddamn make some use of it.

Also want to agree with the divine Ms L re. the new anonymous blog on genre fic. Its slogan is ‘Vote for stories, not for friends’. It’s as true in this field as in any other that there are alliances that can be made. Allegiances that may be used either to drum up promotion or conspire to keep silent, all because of friendship or other shared attributes. Though I prize honesty, I don’t necessarily support cruelty. Though I want to assist friends, I’m not comfortable with complicity or politic conspiracies. Also I know that these were the rules of the game as given to us, that we may forge strategic networks or otherwise, that we may offer ourselves as marketable product, or not. There are also a host of other positions and compromises that may be made and maintained. Each one of us makes our own decision, & all that is required is that we allow room enough for each other to find our own locations on the matrices.

I like the idea of an anonymous blog of honest critique. It’s a challenge, though. I wonder how long anonymity may be maintained. I wonder how much honesty is too much.

Related to the above post (by marriage): Scott Westerfeld covers interesting ground with his post on perceptions of beauty. Digital TV shows up Cameron Diaz’s bad skin. Shoot. Good thing I decided to stick with writing for a trade. Remind me to turn down all those Letterman interviews.

I couldn’t take that kind of pressure. Ah, how the myth of perfection has turned into a capitalist dream! Keep us anxious, keep us consuming, no possible resolution to either of these entwined processes.

Beauty is an interesting topic. I like beauty. What I consider beautiful, however, is not necessarily what Hollywood has so far been considering beautiful. I like people who are expressive & energetic & enthusiastic & optimistic. I think that sort of stuff shows up in a person’s face. I don’t necessarily think Zellweger looks better thinner than fatter (she kinda looks unhappy all the time), I didn’t think Zeta Jones was more heavenly when she squished herself into that tiny red dress at whateverawardceremonythatwas than when she was pregnant some months earlier. I think Streep looks more fabulous now than ever before. If I had to compile a list of the world’s most beautiful people, I would put Dawn French on it — & I would mean it.

But I’ve been aware of the ways celluloid (not cellulite, that’s an entirely different subject) has influenced us, given us what I call the ‘portrait of a lady’ syndrome, the idea that stasis is attractive, that planes and angles are desirable because of the way they direct the light into the lens. I could never watch Friends, because I couldn’t get past how thin the women were. (Also, it just wasn’t my thing.) I saw ‘The Interpreter’ the other week & it’s a really good film, but Nicole Kidman has no thighs, no hips, no ribs, nothing, nothing, I swear. There is nothing between her chin and her knees except distance. Good thing she can act with her eyes. There’s not much more to her. She’s thin. Very thin.

Or, her knees are huge. One or the other. Both, maybe.

This is not a criticism of Nicole Kidman, though. Turns out you really can ‘never be too rich or too thin’. I feel that desire, myself, to escape corporeal reality & turn myself into a feather, a satin sheet, a canvas, a veritable page of a human being, as slim as a photographic negative. And being that slight, that insubstantial, like air, like an angel, somehow I will have escaped my biology and with that escape comes the defeat of death. I will be too ethereal to die.

It is the only explanation for how those women on film get so thin and still manage to stand upright, still smile, still have porcelain skin, still have teeth that aren’t falling out of their heads. And people say, ‘I’m sure there are health consequences to being that thin’ — but are there? You would think by now someone would’ve expired on the red carpet. But, of course, they can’t. For that to happen they would have to be alive. Made of meat. But they are made of air and light.

And here’s another beef I have: when people say, ‘we should eat more like they did in caveman times because it was more natural for our bodies’ … was it? Really? Why? And, if it’s true, why haven’t our bodies evolved yet? Why did they get to caveman times (cavePEOPLE! I hear some of you cry) & then just stop? ‘OK, honey, looks like we got us a cave, think I’ll squat here with a physique that craves cheesecake at the same time as being wholly unable to healthily digest it, what do yer say?’

So many things make no sense to me.

Anyway, beauty. Beauty is interesting.

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“If the world was without any natural evil and suffering we wouldn’t have the opportunity, or nearly as much opportunity, to show courage, patience and sympathy.”
- Richard Swinburne

“When written in Chinese, the word ‘crisis’ is composed of two characters – one represents danger, and the other represents opportunity.”
- Saul David Alinsky

“A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.”
- Sir Winston Churchill

“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”
- Theodore Roosevelt

And by the way,

“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”
- Aristotle

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Thomas Nagel, Mortal Questions

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Skinner (1904-1990, or so the web tells me) is considered to be one of the forefathers of that particular school of psychology known as behaviourism. When I was studying psych, behaviourism was like some kind of consolation prize. It was functional, common-sensical, even, but it lacked romance or spiritual excitement. It talked about curing people by making their maladaptive behaviours go away, but it said nothing about the mind or the soul, or about belief and identity, emotion or integrity.

‘I fear giant rats are eating at my brain, and they start underneath the smallest fingernail of my left hand,’ said the client.
‘Count to five and remember this anagram: EAMPT. Continue in this manner until you desist from driving your left fist into the nearest wall,’ replied the bahaviourist.
‘Can I tell you about my mother?’ asked the client.
‘Goodness, no. But I can train you out of the *desire* to talk about your mother, if you like,’ said the behaviourist.
‘Will that be helpful?’ asked the client, scratching at her left palm.
‘It will *look* helpful, and who is to say that is not help enough?’

By now, you may suspect I’m oversimplifying behaviourism, & you’re right. But that’s because behaviourism is not at the heart of my point, & I couldn’t be bothered checking my facts right now.

My point is that when Skinner was writing (he is most often cited for his papers in the 1970s), the word ‘men’ was inclusive. It meant ‘humans’ or ‘people’ or even ‘humankind’. So that when I pasted his comment into my lj last week, though *of course* I was aware of the connotations & denotations of the word ‘men’ nowdays, still, in my mind, I was reading Skinner as he intended. Men as people. Of the comments I received on & off-list, not one made reference to this reading.

Men, I now note, means *men*. Not people. Men are just _some_ of the people. They are not all.

I quite like this. It makes me happy.

Let me translate, then, Skinner’s words into our modern banter.

“The real question is not whether machines think, but whether the writers of Matrix 3 had anything at all going through their heads when they etched together that ridiculous script of theirs, thereby wiping out all the love I had for their first, deadly cool movie & leaving the taint of bile in my throat.”

There. Done.

Next up: Conflux2 = love.

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It was just an overdue thing — nothing at all to do with all the dying that’s featured in discussions lately. I stumbled across the half-completed will under an overdue water bill (which seemed particularly poignant at the time) & thought, oh yeah, this thing, I’ll just fill this in right now. It’s not like my ‘estate’ is in any way complex or extensive.

So I completed the new will right then at work & surprised a couple of colleagues into witnessing it for me & I tore the old one in two & I felt pretty good. Like I had outwitted death by leaving behind a few words & some trinkets with a sentimental value only, & some small sliver of paid-off mortgage.

Then I got a little worried about how I’m spending my time, & whether my priorities were really working out for me & I thought, ‘you know, I really need to be *living* my life a little more’. Which is just one of those irksome ideas that can either galvanise or immobilise you, depending what you determine to make of it.

And I thought to myself, fuckitt, galvanise.

And then I reflected on a scene from Six Feet Under that I found particularly moving, & went looking for a transcript online, & here is the bit I mean.

David speaking to the ghost of his father, Nate Snr:

David: I thought it would set me free but it…didn’t change anything. Except now I know he really is insane.
Nate Sr: You’re missing the point.
David: There is no point. That’s the point. [Nate Sr. Sighs] Isn’t it?
Nate Sr: Don’t give me this phony existential bullshit. I expect better from you. The point’s right in front of your face.
David: Well I’m sorry, but I don’t see it.
Nate Sr: You’re not even grateful, are ya?
David: Grateful? For the worst fucking experience of my life?
Nate Sr: You hang on to your pain like it means something. Like it’s worth something. Well let me tell ya, it’s not worth shit. Let it go. [Talking to the air] Infinite possibilites and all he can do is whine.
David: Well what am I supposed to do?
Nate Sr: What do ya think? You can do anything ya lucky bastard, you’re alive! What’s a little pain compared to that?
David: [Sigh] It can’t be so simple.
Nate Sr: What if it is?

http://boards.hbo.com/thread.jspa?forumID=117&threadID=676&messageID=300529327&start=-1#300529327

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Today’s subject line was prompted by girliejones in our discussions on the suicide of Hunter S. Thompson.

How do you pick a day to die?

Not just die. How do you pick a day to inflict irrevocable violence on yourself? How do you reach a point where that seems the better option? How do you do that to yourself knowing what legacy you are leaving to your family, friends, fans, neighbours?

And in case you haven’t read these blog entries yet, I recommend them to you. You might find some answers there: lonewolfe‘s Suicide is painless… and Lee Battersby‘s Thompson.

Since there is so much talk going on about this, I felt an urge to clarify myself. I should say upfront that, so far, I have not been touched by suicide. I’ve known OF people who suicided, I’ve not known people who HAVE suicided, I have never contemplated it myself. Suicide is ugly. I don’t buy into the romantic glory of it despite the extent of my sympathies for its victims.

That said, my first thought with suicide cases is that it must be an awful, lonely, angry place to be. I’ve heard the ‘coward’s way out’ theory & I’ve read the poetic romanticisations of the suicides of artists & writers. I piece them all together but I don’t have any real conclusions. It’s clearly more complex than any of that. I kinda feel like an animal that senses it has a wound, but doesn’t understand what that wound is. Suicide leaves scars on the people around it. But when Thompson died, I felt he deserved a moment of quiet contemplation. I felt sorry for him. I thought, ‘what a fucked way to go’.

My second thought, then, is with the people left behind, whose pain is not over, & whose grief is just beginning. Particularly, I feel for the loved one who has the job of finding the body. In death, the body re-asserts itself over the soul/mind/spirit/whatever. You’re left with the sheer mess of it, the corporeal reality of our imperfect biological systems. Heart, lungs, brains, guts, the spit & blood & shit of living & dying. Spilled and leaking and good for what? For what? Making soap and glue, maybe.

‘What a fucked thing to do to somebody else,’ I think.

Can you ever get the marks off the wall?

What always comes next to my mind is this: that when I was backpacking around Europe, I met a girl who’d spent the last year running from the discovery of her boyfriend’s suicide. She was sleeping on a beach in Italy. She had no money & refused to accept any. She wasn’t sure how she would make it back to London for her flight home to Seattle in a few weeks. She was worried, but not overly anxious. She seemed to be living on an edge, too. Without fear of falling. She wasn’t reckless, but equally she seemed to have nothing to lose. She had a kind of disregard for fate. She was still carrying the burden her boyfriend had found unbearable. There was a sense she was separate to us. That she existed a little outside life, still with a firm grip on reality, but also with a kind of knowledge of something that was outside normality, that made life both darker and more light. Less weighty. Harder to see.

I thought I’d keep in touch with her, but when I came home I found I never had written down her name or address — though I distinctly thought I had. Somehow she’d slipped right by me & I hadn’t realised. She’s one of my ‘lost’, one of the people that made a long-term impact on me but proved to be impossible to hold onto. For that reason, she is unresolved in my mind. I want to know how she’s going & how her story ends.

So, OK, I get that there’s a euthanasia argument in suicide. I get that there’s a desire to control your death the way you controlled your life. I get that no one reaches suicide without pain & rage & sorrow. I’ve watched slow deaths, I’ve heard of fast ones. I get it, I get it. But I don’t get it.

In the end, I come out of all my thinking & my analysis & my apparently dim-witted inability to understand with a small measure of my own pain & rage & sorrow. I feel no blame. Just an unaddressable desire to understand.

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– Anne Sexton, Wanting to Die

http://www.poets.org/poems/poems.cfm?45442B7C000C07050E70

Thankfully, I want most to know ‘why build’.

Thief —
how did you crawl into,

– Anne Sexton, Sylvia’s Death

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