Shifts, ends, beginnings
Looking back, looking ahead, in the now
The newsletter Some Little Language has just turned one year old. When it was launched, this is what it said on the tin: it aimed to explore “intercultural communication, language, rituals, books, films, and the ideas that connect them.”
Now that I look back at the year, I notice a shift from this stated aim: the earliest posts focused on cultural differences, based on my academic reading and life experience in Iran. In June I discerned hidden messages during a visit in Jane Austen’s house; in July I explored the basic Stoic teaching of the dichotomy of control; and in August, the experience of teaching a refugee English revived the sense of emotional connection between people without the veil of language hanging between them. The two-month hiatus in early autumn (explained in the November post) shifted priorities even further. I now find myself at a very different place from the one I was one year ago: as if things are in the process of being re-arranged before they fall into place exactly where and when they should.
I have thought of myself as a writer for so long, but I confess that apart from journaling and the monthly newsletter, I have written very little else for months. Not only that, but I haven’t even thought about writing. And what is more strange: this not-writing status would normally be causing me anxiety but - it doesn’t. What I came across these last two months, a chain of events, has cast a new light on my being.
Stoic Practice
And do not fear that you will stop living, but rather that you will never have started living according to nature.
(Marcus Aurelius Meditations 12:2)
When the previous newsletter came out, the daily 28-day Joyful Death Contemplation with the Stoics with Kathryn Koromilas had just started.
I was uplifted every day by the daily email and extract, then by the daily practice, copywork and contemplation of Marcus Aurelius’ thoughts to himself. The arrangement of the meditations followed a logical progression from the graceful exit (featured in Greek in the previous newsletter) and the initial shock of “tomorrow you will die”, to the arguments and the hang-ups and the protesting “but...but”, to the conclusion that it all boils down to how you use your mind - or the other way round (cue: your mind is not you - see below). The daily prompt felt like a seed and the responses of the Stoic friends in the slack group like blossoms shooting off into different trajectories. We all set off from the shared experience of contemplating death and annihilation: the whole practice was a moment-by-moment confirmation of the common fate of humanity.
And something else, relevant to the writing practice. Marcus Aurelius wrote the Meditations as his own personal journal; the Greek title translates as Notes to Self. I can picture him, weary after a day of military campaigning, sat in his tent scribbling away (I don’t even know what materials he used) in order to make sense of his thoughts, talking to himself in the second person, trying to dispel his fear of death and oblivion. He did not write with a reader in mind; he only wrote to make sense of his mind, and kept reminding himself to try and do his best at any moment. Not just live-in-the-moment wisdom, but live rightly in the moment.
After his fashion, I addressed myself in the second person with this advice:
Take care of this present moment, write what fires you up this moment, don’t defer it for a future that may never come. Be in the moment.
Practise constantly without trying to measure progress; do what you need to do without thinking of ‘success’.
And as always true to my commitment, I thought, “let me re-organise my library”: out pops this book that has followed me from London to Tehran and back to London, now gathering dust at the back of the bookshelf. At around the same time I bump into a clip of Eckhart Tolle's on YouTube (is it the algorithm or the universe? or both?) which prompts me to read it again (?).
The Power of Now
by Eckhart Tolle
Technically, I read this book over eight years ago: it was a present from an old colleague from my teaching days. I say ‘technically’ because there is evidence that I read it in the autumn of 2013 - I underlined bits in pencil - but nothing really registered. I continued to thrash about in the dark, working myself to the bone lecturing in Tehran.
I am still digesting the central ideas:
Everything I have is the Now: what is now named ‘the past’ was experienced as the Now when it happened, and the future will likewise be experienced as the Now when it comes. They are both mind projections.
‘I’ (the essential being) is not my mind/self/ego.
In order to transcend the mind/self/ego, I need to arrive at the acceptance of and submission to what is at every present moment.
I confess I am finding it hard to digest these teachings, and I have yet to work out what these mean for me as a writer: I am fixated on dates, on marking time, on the stories of my past and those of others. But let me just say this: I am stunned by the realisation that one hears what one is attuned and ready to hear at any particular moment. I had to undergo a lot of heartache and physical pain in order to get to the point of reading this book as if for the first time.
If you think that you need more time, you will get more time - and more pain. Time and pain are inseparable.
(Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now)
Community event
My local IAPT (Increased Access to Psychological Therapies) unit recently organised an online event under the title Co-designing better support for those with chronic health conditions. It was sparked by the realisation that people who live with chronic conditions (and I have a good set of them) need more support in the integration of care of physical and mental health. GP, hospital and nurse appointments usually take care of the former, services like IAPT may take care of the latter, but structures to bring everything together are generally lacking. During the 2-hour long event, health practitioners, psychotherapists and those with lived experience contributed views.
These were my notes from this event:
Family members do not always have a complete understanding of the physical and the psychological/mental challenges that a chronic condition sufferer has to deal with constantly; this adds to the mental and psychological stress.
A woman with osteoarthritis explained her difficulty to cope with isolation and loss of identity after she was forced to give up work. She turned to Stoicism for solace, but she thought she could have been spared the heartache of feeling lonely if a sense of community were available. She added that being heard by a fellow sufferer can often be of help. Her story and experience resonated with mine.
Virtual groups and a sense of community can become a lifeline for fellow sufferers.
Then I picked up this book.
When the Body says no
by Gabor Mate
It confirmed what I had felt for a very long time, even before I started my own collection of chronic conditions: that the mind/body distinction is not a distinction at all. It is useful for medical school training, but not for health practices and healing. I should know: three years ago I lost two hips in the space of months in what the very experienced surgeon in Tehran ascribed to ‘idiopathic’ arthritis - a face-saving expression meaning ‘I don’t know why you got it’. This book is an affirmation of what I have known all along, and a revelation of much I had no idea of. I will return to it, especially the last chapter on the Seven As of Healing, the first of which is Acceptance.
Illness not only has a history but also tells a history. It is a culmination of a lifelong history of struggle for self. […]
(p 274, italics in the original)
[H]ealing has to involve establishing or reclaiming the boundaries of an autonomous self [….] We experience life through our bodies. If we are not able to articulate our life experience, our bodies speak what our minds and mouths cannot.
(p 277 italics mine)
Where it all comes together
For a year and nine months I have been part of the London Writers Salon, which started from an online daily writing practice on the very first day of the UK lockdown and has now grown into a 500+member strong, ever-growing, worldwide community. I learned the power and the possibility of togetherness in a large virtual group, and in its smaller groups like The Artist’s Way and the Memoir and Life Writing group. The silver lining of the pandemic was the ushering of this new way of being and connecting with others. I look forward to applying this new way to new ventures in the new year.
