After Great Pain

After great pain, a formal feeling comes –
The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs –
The stiff Heart questions ‘was it He, that bore,’
And ‘Yesterday, or Centuries before’?

The Feet, mechanical, go round –
A Wooden way
Of Ground, or Air, or Ought –
Regardless grown,
A Quartz contentment, like a stone –

This is the Hour of Lead –
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow –
First – Chill – then Stupor – then the letting go –

Emily Dickinson

Theodicy

My aunt-in-law had a hard life.  She was brought up by a very strict Calvinist family, and it left her unable to have loving sex with her husband, leading to an unhappy marriage and ultimately divorce   She studied to be a radiographer, and worked hard all her life.  She was always mounting charity drives or cake sales or knitting bees to help those less well off than herself.

She suffered terribly from ill health towards the end, and in the last two weeks of her life was completely senile, abusing her helpers and throwing shit at them: this prim, restrained, polite woman.

My father died in agony from cancer.

My adorable little dog went through hell in the last day or two, and his pain was ended only when we took him down to the vet and had him painlessly killed.

Millions of people spend huge parts of their lives alone and lonely, even though humans are social animals and need other humans to make life worth living.  And then they go through a long decline, in pain and suffering until they die.

Now theodicy is strictly speaking the "explanation" of why God permits evil.  But I'd extend it:  why is there so much suffering?  Don't tell me it's for our own good.  That's feeble.

There is no explanation in my view.  Life just is filled with pain and suffering and evilness.  It's not God's fault, because there is no God.  It's up to us to try and reduce the suffering and evil we see around us.  Heaven and Hell are right here on Earth.  And it's up to us, each one of us, which of those two it is.  And even then, we can't fend off Death or Pain or Suffering.  All we can do is care and comfort.  And love.


[And note how learned these 17th and 18th century intellectuals were:  Leibniz wrote his book in French, though his home language was German.  He could read and write Latin.  How many modern intellectuals could write a thesis in their second language?  And what lovely, kind, intelligent eyes he has!]

Melancholy

Tonight I'm thinking of friends and family who've died.  It started with a post from Andrew Sullivan, The Last Lesson We Learn From Our Pets,  and I thought back to my own dear dog, and with tears in my eyes, after that to friends and family who have died.  My mother, my father-in-law, my friend Henrik, my friend Anneliese, my father.

God has so badly organised this business of death.  So much suffering before the end.  And our grief!  It's just not fair that we should suffer so.  But "not fair" is childish.  The world is what it is.  But the way people and animals die, and the grief that survivors endure seems to me to argue very cogently for the absence -- the total absence -- of God.  We are alone, and what we make of our lives and of the lives of those we love is up to us.  Not believing in God and in Heaven and Hell makes it all the more important that we show love and compassion and forgiveness and grace now, while we yet live, and not rely on some mythical ideas about life after death and paradise.  I know these notions comfort some people when someone they love dies.  But for me, the horrible savagery of our ends, of the permanent severing of ties between us, is a compelling argument to loving one another while we still can.

True empathy

Years ago I got to talking with a woman on the train, who recognised me from TV (you didn't know I was on TV, did you?)  We became acquaintances, sharing anecdotes about our lives, our children, our jobs.  Sometimes we gave each other lifts home from the station.

I always rather envied them.  They were well off.  They went every year on weeks-long overseas holidays to France and Italy and Switzerland.  They went to opera and ballet.  They did things.  But then, about a year ago, I saw her and her  husband in the station car park. He looked ill.  They told me that he had lung cancer, not because he'd smoked, but because he'd worked, decades ago, in an office of smokers, in the days before people were forced to go outside to smoke.  Just a few months ago, on another meeting, they remained upbeat.  The treatments were working.  Alan was getting better.

Yesterday I met her in the supermarket.  I knew at once what had happened.  You could see it in the way her body slumped, in the terrible grief in her stance, in her eyes.  I didn't even have to ask what.  I knew.  How long ago, I asked.  A month, was the answer.  Then a burst of courage.  Well, I must keep going.  Nice to meet you, Nick.

I know what grief feels like.  And I don't believe until you have experienced grief yourself that you can fully understand the grief of others.  Perhaps we humans can only really get the suffering of others when we have suffered ourselves.   When you have nursed your sick child through the night you will never again be dismissive of other parents' worries about their own children.  When your marriage has been under strain, you will know and understand what others are going through when theirs is similarly afflicted.  And when someone else suffers intense and incredible grief, you will be able to understand fully only if you have lost loved ones yourself.

As I spoke to her, I felt the lump in my throat and the unshed tears in my eyes.  But I wondered afterwards whether the grief I felt was just a memory of my own, in other words was selfish (even narcissistic) or whether I was truly feeling for her.

Who knows?  It's all too easy to deceive yourself, and to fancy yourself to be a better person than you are. And yet I am unable to shake the memory of that grief-ravaged face and the cringing posture; body and soul bending away from the blows of life and the horror of death.  Perhaps the only mechanism our minds have to have insight into the minds and characters of others and into their feelings and sufferings is our own mind and our own memories of those we loved and lost and what we felt.  Maybe that is the only way humans can see into the soul of other humans.

What's the saying?  Hope for the best, be prepared for the worst?  The best, surely,  is a compassionate and empathetic insight into the hearts and souls of others.  The worst is to say, "well, when I ..."  We humans are surely a mixture of both, neither unalloyed compassion nor unbridled selfishness.  But there are times when I wish it were not so.

It's not supposed to hurt

If he does it right, it's supposed to be -- it is! -- intensely pleasurable.

Love one another

Christmas day here in Oz.  Not too hot, a little cloudy but the forecast from the Met is that it'll clear up later.  I'm going to drive across the city to fetch my daughter and her guy later -- they're having lunch with his family and dinner with us.  Present giving later today.  No turkey or ham, we're veggies, but we'll have our traditional almond loaf with pineapple slices, plus roast potatoes, peas, roast pumpkin etc.  My lady has made a very rich and quite delicious gluten-free Xmas cake for afters (my daughter and I are wheat intolerant, so we can't eat wheat and we won't eat meat -- makes life awkward) and we have custard and cream and brandy to go with it.  I shall gain 2 kilos.  Sigh.

This coming year I'm going to try and be a better person, less bitter, more organised.  I'm going to keep on counting my blessings: my lady; my kids; my job (I get paid half of nothing but it could be worse!); my garden; my passable health; all of youse.  I plan on losing another 10 kilos this year, and starting working out again.  Going to keep up with the Spanish and drawing, start playing music again, now that the garage conversion is complete and I have space for the piano/clarinet/sax/guitar and all the music scripts and a place to practise.  (As you can see, I am the Prince of Good Intentions)

And I hope all of you have a beaut 2013.  I know that some of you have been in pain this year, and I hope you find solace; some have been lonely, and I hope you find friends; some have been poor, and I hope that changes.

As they say in SA: Ek wens julle almal 'n gelukkige Kersfees en 'n voorspoedige nuwe jaar.  I wish you all a happy Christmas and a prosperous new year.  Where prosperity is broadly defined: love, friendship, companionship, enough money for food and wine which gladdens the heart and a life full of meaning and satisfaction.

Hugs to you all.