Considered Happy

This is different from my earlier posts - a (very) short story.

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It's a good job, all things considered.

Not that what I do is what I would call a job, exactly. I wouldn’t even say it’s my work. It’s a way of life, this thing that I do.  It’s who I am, what I’m known for.  If you’ve heard of me at all, it’s because of what I do.  Nobody remembers what it was I did before this.  Even I can’t remember, most of the time.

How did it start?  To be honest I can’t really remember that either.  I suppose there must have been an induction process at some point, setting out the ground rules. This is when you start each day, this is how long it’s supposed to take you, this is what you do when you’ve finished.  Annual leave, sick leave, salary, benefits, management.  But I’m vague about all that.  I always assume that there’s an overall plan somewhere, and that I’m part of it; perhaps a row on someone’s spreadsheet, setting out how I fit into the overall scheme of things.  I don’t really think about all that. It’s above my pay grade.

Each day starts the same way.  There it is, waiting for me, at the bottom of the hill.  It’s always the same boulder, too - I would be really upset if they ever changed it.  There’s a particular angle I’ve learned to appreciate, the way that it fits into my shoulder, almost nestles into it, as if the two were designed for one another.  It’s like wrestling with a brother, when you’ve grown up having play fights.  

Why does it need to be moved up the hill?  I suppose because it’s in the way, where it’s lying. You can’t just leave a great boulder lying around like that. It might stop the traffic.  Imagine that there was an ambulance that wanted to get through, or a fire engine.  Even if they could get round it, it would slow them down.  No, to be honest, I’ve never actually seen that happen; but then again, I’ve always been there to make sure that it doesn’t happen.  And it’s the sort of thing that could happen, no question. All sorts of bad stuff could happen if you just leave boulders lying around at the bottom of a hill all day.  It’s not done, is it?

Always the same route, that long winding path upwards.  There are a few places where I’ve learned that you can stop for a break:  odd corners, where you couldn’t leave it for good (it would roll down hill pretty quickly), but where you can balance against it safely for a few minutes, take a break, even enjoy the view if it’s a clear day.  Smoke a cigarette (though I’m trying to give it up).  There are two or three of these regular stopping points, and they break up the day nicely.  There’s the sense at the first one that you’re well under way, that you’re getting on top of the day.  By the time I get to the second, I feel I’ve broken the back of the task.  The third one is a bit of a luxury.  If I feel I’m running late then I skip it; so you could say that it’s my reward for a day where I’ve made solid progress.  You have to do that, when you don’t really have a visible boss, as such:  give yourself these little rewards, little encouragements, to keep yourself up to the mark.  Nobody ever called me a slacker:  but my secret is in these little moments of rest and recovery.

I sometimes get a bit sentimental, when I get to the very end.  There’s a little ledge that I have to get over, before I get to the very top.  It takes an extra push to get past it.  Sometimes I imagine that I’m newly married, lifting my bride over the threshold of our new home.  You could say I’m quite imaginative, really. You get like that when you’re on your own as much as I am.  My life is really very full, very much inhabited.  

The other side of that ledge there’s a sort of shelf that marks the top of the hill.  It’s almost flat, and there’s just about enough room for me and the boulder.  I say almost flat, because - of course - you can’t quite balance there.  Anything between a few minutes and an hour or so (my personal best), and then you lose balance and it rolls back down the hill again.  I used to spend a long time looking for that sweet spot - as I thought of it - where it would just balance for good.  There were times when I thought, just another couple of attempts, and then I will master it.  After all, there didn’t seem to be any shortage of time for that:  no urgency. But now I’m past all that.  If I managed to find that point of balance, that what would be the point?  The balance of my life would have gone. I would wake up the next morning: and then?  They might make me do something else, something far less congenial, something that wasn’t mine in the same way.  Nobody would know who I was.  Even I wouldn’t know.

All that’s behind me now, and I’ve settled into regular rhythm.  Why would I want to do anything different?  

You asked me if I was happy.  I hadn’t really thought about it before you asked, but now I come to think of it, I’ve got no doubt on the matter.

Yes, you could definitely think of me as a happy man.  No question.  

Some inconclusive thoughts about Simone Weil

What has set me reading Simone Weil?

I’ve been aware of Weil for some time.  I’ve seen references to her in Iris Murdoch, and in writing about Iris Murdoch, and it’s been clear that Weil was very important for Murdoch.  I’ve seen quite a lot of references to her in writing by Quaker friends (Ben Wood, Jennifer Kavanagh). Early in lockdown I read a blog post by Anna Rowlands that referred to Weil at some length.  In particular, I’ve come across references to the importance of attention for Weil - and there is a connection for me with a question I’ve sometimes asked myself about Quaker worship, which is to what extent it’s about trying to decide what to do next, and to what extent it’s simply a matter of learning to pay attention.  A similar question arises in relation to therapy.

The result of all of this groundwork was that before I had read any Weil at all, there was a sort of charisma about her.  The baptismal service talks about the glamour of evil.  But there’s also a glamour attached to the good, or to the places where we think the good might be found.  For me, Weil had acquired some of that glamour.

I started with “The Need for Roots” (TNFR). This is the only book-length publication that we have in the form in which Weil wrote it:  otherwise, we’ve got collections of essays, and selections from Weil’s notebooks.  It was written in London in 1943, during the last year of her life, when Weil was working for the Free French.  It's - ostensibly - a report setting out proposals for the reconstruction of France after the war.  It’s much more than that.

The first section of TNFR is about a fundamental theory of politics.  Obligations are prior to rights - there is a basic obligation owed to every human being, arising from our universal dignity as God-seeking and God-capable creatures - the practical effect of that obligation, is a duty to meet both the physical and spiritual needs of everyone - and an important and much-neglected spiritual need, is the need for roots.  And what it means to have “roots” is to be part of a community with both a shared memory of the past and a shared hope for the future.  This experience of rootedness is one that has been severely disrupted, and it needs to be restored.  

Reading that opening section I found myself responding on two levels.  There was a surface level, at which I tried to understand what I was reading, and thought:  I agree with that, I don’t think that’s right, I don’t understand that.  But there was also a sense of something being communicated at a different level - a sense of someone who had seen a great light, was half-blinded by it, and was trying to convey what she had seen.

I read on, and I finished the book, and I found a lot of it was a struggle.  Some very long chapters that made few concessions to the reader in terms of structure or signposting.  A lot about French history and culture, which made me realise my own ignorance, but which I couldn’t readily assess or assimilate.  

While I was part way through TNFR, I looked at the Penguin anthology of Weil's writing, and read her draft of a statement of human obligations.  This was a distillation of the political theory behind TNFR, in about ten pages, and using slightly less overtly theistic language.  I found it a powerful and inspiring manifesto.

And now I am reading “Gravity and Grace” - a collection of Weil's remarks on religious and spiritual themes, organised in short thematic chapters.  What a strange book this is!  It was put together after Weil’s death, from her notebooks.  There were editorial choices not just about which passages to include, but also about which passages to group together into chapters, and about the order in which the individual passages appeared.  We’ve no way of tracing how her thought developed (it would have been very interesting if each passage had been accompanied by the date when it was written).  It’s like a Gospel of Sayings - say, the Gospel of Thomas - except that you are at least confident that she did say (or write) all of these things.  I read with a pencil, underlining the passages that particularly strike me.

There's a lot here about the dismantling or "decreating" of the self, and some of this is very hard to read - particularly given that it's controversial whether Weil's own death was a form of suicide.  Yet - paradoxically - one thing that comes across is the sense of an overwhelmingly strong personality, fierce and intolerant and sometimes almost intolerable.    

I'm still trying to work out what to make of all this.

Keeping a Journal

A lot changed for me in 2014.  It was the year I turned 50.  It was also the year when I started to explore Quakerism.  More accurately, I started to explore it for a second time: there had been a year or so in the early 1990s when I used to attend a Quaker meeting in London, but it didn’t last.  Also in 2014, I started to keep a sort of journal - a collection of short pieces of writing.  Journal writing is a traditional Quaker practice, going right back to the 17^th century, though I didn’t know this at the time.

By way of an example, here (slightly modified) is something I wrote on two successive September days in 2017.  I was thinking about a Quaker text called the “Advices and Queries” (A&Q for short).  A&Q is a series of brief passages for reflection - 42 passages in all - it’s perhaps the closest thing to a Quaker creed.  In particular, I was thinking about the first passage (or A&Q1).

11^th September

A&Q1 says this:

Take heed, dear Friends, to the promptings of love and truth in your hearts.  Trust them as the leadings of God, whose Light shows us our darkness and brings us to new life.

The first question for me this morning is, can I think about these words while sitting in a crowded commuter train to London? There is a lot of conversation going on around me - including between the two men opposite me.  I am finding this a distraction and irritating - so I am feeling resentful, and hostile to the people around me.  Quaker worship needs special conditions, because it needs silence.  Or at least that’s how I tend to think of it.  But if the Quaker way - taken as a whole - requires special conditions and can’t be brought into ordinary life, then what use is it?

The first sentence of A&Q1 tells us to to focus our attention in a particular direction.

Is it a call to introspection?  Look inwards - look into your own heart - don’t look outwards.

In which case, are other people a distraction?  The people on this train are talking, and I overhear their conversations, and they catch my attention, and then I resent them for catching my attention.  So is this the message?  Ignore other people, and look inwards?

If this is the Quaker way then it would best be lived by being a hermit - leaving other people and living alone.

But if I lived in isolation, what scope would there be for any or these “promptings”?  And how would I take heed of them?  Because taking heed can’t just mean, becoming aware.  It must also mean, acting in some way.  Pay attention to what I say, but don’t act on it.  How would that make sense?

So is this it?  The advice is to pay attention to something within me, that is directing me towards something outside me?

12^th September

How do I tell the difference between “promptings of love and truth” and the other things that fill my mind?

I’m aware of a crowd of thoughts, feelings, desires, memories, sense impressions: and many of them are clamouring for my attention.

Look at this!  (The scene outside the window - early autumn, sun, blue sky)

Do this!  (Go to the fridge and find a snack - now).

Think about this!  (Think, right now, about how someone offended you many years ago - think about how badly they behaved).

How should you deal with this noisy crowd of thoughts and feelings?  Should you approach them with discrimination, judging which ones are based on reality and which ones are not?  Should you treat them all with friendly curiosity, as objects of enquiry in their own right?  Should you simply watch them rise and fall, come and go?  Or are these options best seen as different items in a tool-kit: sometimes you want a hammer, sometimes you want a spanner …

But perhaps A&Q1 takes me in a different direction from all of this.

Reading A&Q1 this morning I was struck first of all by how warm these words seem.  The first sentence, especially, feels warm - feels warming.

Then I was struck by a challenge.  What are the promptings of love and truth that are operating for you now, right now?  And at that point I fell silent.  A&Q1 tells me that these things are here, in my heart.  It assumes there are “promptings” - and it tells me to pay attention to them.  But where are they?  What if I can’t find any?  

But then, gradually, various fragments started to emerge.  

For instance, a prompting to reflect on my own birth - to picture myself as a new-born, wholly dependent on others - to think of all of the different needs that I had, all of the different ways they were met, all of the different people who were involved in this. Religion often tells us to meditate on our own death, but never - or almost never - to meditate on our own birth.  Why is this?

We cannot pay attention to the promptings that A&Q1 refers to, unless we first become aware of them.  

The mental picture I have, at this point, is of someone panning for gold in a stream.

Of course, there is also a lot in our mental life that is dark, unpleasant, unwelcome:  evil, the shadow.

A&Q1 recognises that these things are there too (“shows us our darkness”) - but the darkness isn’t where we start (“promptings”), and isn’t where we end (“new life”).