MEANING AND MADNESS

                                           by Stanley

We are the hollow men…
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
T.S.Elliot

The ‘meaning of life’ is something people crave if they haven’t got enough and are driven mad if they’ve got too much. Not enough 'meaning' is what we call ‘depression’; and too much is what we call ‘manic’.
       Too much and not enough meaning are both symptoms of despair. We meet the hollow men when our rage for life meets no one at home.
       Depression is easily spotted. People will say there’s no point to life, nothing in it – life has no meaning. But the other end of the scale, the manic end, can be a bit more deceptive; largely because our whole culture tends to favour a manic lifestyle. Existence is like rugby game - all push and shove and fight, where triumph and glory await you at the end. This type of mania is quite mad, but normal.
        Then there is the more 'clinical' mania regarded as abnormal. This is where a person turns the smallest details of life into stories pregnant with meaning and burgeoning with significance, where everything is monstrously larger than life, where a bird sitting on the garden fence is trying to tell me something; or spiritualising about the significance of the clock stopping at exactly twelve; or what did the postman mean when he said ‘good morning’ like that.
         But the world fraught with meaning comes in all shades from simple faith to the most bizarre superstitious concoctions. The more outlandish beliefs and meanings, separated by the distance of history, are easily recognizable for what they are. The Incas, for example, knew quite well the meaning of life. It was simply that the sun was hungry for blood and human hearts. So, twenty times a year there would be these wonderful festivals. A thousand celebrants, one by one, would ascend the sun-temple steps where a priest would raise the sacrificial knife and surgically gouge out their living hearts and hold them aloft still pulsing with blood – a gift to appease the sun-god.
        What is it? Is it the terror of nothingness that incites these profusions of significances with which we embellish life? It’s almost as if any meaning is better than none. When the Roman Empire was crumbling, astro-religion (astrology) swept through the population in a wild scramble for security – the stars as a comfort blanket. Every upper-class family had their personal astrologer who would daily announce the complicated conjunctions of the stars and what they meant – and god help the Emperor’s astrologer if he failed come up with a favourable prognostication or, if he did , it didn’t happen.
        Then there are the deep meanings that the great thinkers have given us. Saint Thomas Aquinas probably wrote the most influential philosophical theology of all time, trying to reconcile paganism with Christianity. The work of Doctor Angelicus, as he was known, has been the bedrock of church thinking for seven hundred years and is so even today. He wrote the most profound and scholarly tomes of drivel you could imagine; they had meaning for the time, but we never get to the small things: we never get to hear whether St. Thomas was worried about his piles when he went to the toilet. We only get the up market Big Stories of the more grandiose manic mind-set.
              Today some of the most revered masters of unfathomable meaning are our top physicists who search for a 'Theory of Everything'. even the authors themselves quite frankly admit that no one understands 'quantum mechanics' or 'string theory' or ' parallel universes'     
        I am impatient and sceptical with large-scale meaningful scenarios because they hide the really important issues in psychological life. Perhaps that’s their purpose. They encourage a cloak of grandiosity that covers up the small worries we think we should have grown out of. They inhibit reflection on the close, personal concerns in life that really mean something. Over and over in therapy we find it’s the small, childish things we overlook that really count. Simply acknowledging them can make a world of difference – helping us to be more relaxed about our frail humanity and what it all means.

contact: stanrich@vodafone.co.nz

(03) 981 2264

 

ELABORATION.

At some point in any classical western movie the taciturn and reserved cowboy, on being questioned about his life by the heroine, will be bound to answer: “If you don’t know, then ah caint tell yer !”  

He is the archetypal lone hero, silent and self sufficient. He is a man’s man, but strangely shy of a woman and unwilling to explain himself to her. It’s not necessary and he doesn’t even try.

 I am referring to that most fearsome of human afflictions, the inability to elaborate, to amplify one’s meaning, so as to make oneself understood. The disease is found in women too.

Take the following dialogue,

She: “I can’t stand the way things are”.

Him: “How do you mean?”

She: “You know perfectly well what I mean”.

Him:  “You mean about the money situation?”

She: “I hate it when you deliberately

           misunderstand me”.

Him: “I’m sorry, but   …”.

She: “Don’t play the innocent with me. I’ve told you a dozen times.

Him: “You mean about the weekend.”

She: “I’m not going to repeat myself.”

Him: “You mean me being too facetious?”

She: “You know I don’t mean that.”

He: “I don’t know what you mean until you tell

         me”.

She: “Ahhhh. You are so exasperating.”

In spite of a genuine attempt to find out what she is actually referring to he is still none the wiser.

Or take this example. Someone hands you an

enigma like this,

Him: “I hate it when people are rude, but I suppose it’s me.”

She: “How do you mean?”

Him: “Well, that’s the point isn’t it?”

She: “You mean they might be rude because of

          the way you look?”

Him: “Maybe.”

She: “Or do you mean you always feel you’re at

          fault?

Him: “Probably”.

Without a little elaboration whatever he is trying to say is a puzzle and it stays a puzzle.

Or take this one,

Him: “You seem a bit quiet”.

Her: “It’s the same thing”

Him: “The same?”

Her: (no reply)

Him: “The same as when?”

Her: “When it came up before. I told you.”

Him: “I remember you said something about the wedding”.

Her: “No not that”

Him: “You mean when we went to the movie?”

Her: “No, it was the time before that.”

Him: “I’m sorry I don’t quite….”

Her: “Never mind!”

She is obviously annoyed with him because he hasn’t read her mind. She said it once three months ago and that should be enough. It is as though she is completely unaware of all the possible incidents she could be referring to. It’s almost an offence to her that she should have to repeat something once she has said it. And as for elaborating on the full extent of her preoccupation – well, she shouldn’t have to. He should know.

Why do some find it so difficult to amplify, to give any kind of fullness to their meanings, so as to eliminate all the things they could mean? Such paucity forces one to probe and dig out what they alone have in mind? Its hard work and they are likely to get angry with you for trying. Is it that they are mean? Are they frightened of too great an exposure? Are they secretive? Are they just trapped in nobility of silent suffering? Or is it just in the family and culture? All of these are good guesses – but there’s something else.

It can be the regressive, infantile fixation that others should know what one needs. Every person is rightly born with such an instinct. If the environment doesn’t fit exactly what an infant needs it loudly lets everyone know. It behaves as though it were the centre of the universe because it is. There is no other centre but itself. It has all the necessary instincts to plug into a world that should be there and ready with exactly the supplies it needs to grow: the breast, care, warmth, protection and love.

It’s a basic narcissistic stage of development. If it is skipped over because the supply is inadequate or simply absent, it leaves a hole in the development of the personality that is never forgotten – it is remembered deep in the tissues of the brain and body. It leaves a memory trace that colours relationships, particularly close relationships. And it hangs around as a suppressed rage.

“I shouldn’t have to say it – they should know”. Not that this is ever consciously realised or stated, but it forms the background to the way I behave. I am the narcissistic centre of the universe and I know absolutely that they do know what I want without me having to tell them. They know perfectly well! And therein lays my anger with people – they pretend not to know.

There is a fascinating aspect to elaboration: if you are reasonably good at it conversationally you find out yourself what you mean. You listen to yourself elaborating; and what comes out can by very surprising. Like someone once said, "I don't know what I think until I hear myself say it." That is the whole principle of person-centred focusing.

contact: stanrich@vodafone.co.nz

(03) 981 2264