The traces we leave behind
My fabulous friend Jessica posted this piece about Joyce Vincent from the Guardian on her Facebook wall this morning. The double-fold story about the quest of an artist and film maker to find the life story of the woman that is known throughout the world as the lonely lady that died and nobody noticed (go ahead, follow the link, it’s a summary of the news from 2006, the year her body was discovered), left me completely stunned. Numbed out. For oh so many reasons.
Not only is Carol Morley’s piece in the Guardian so well composed and written, that you get to feel the fraction of shock and confusion that she must have felt over all these years of research, but the story itself is such a heartbreaking testimony to modern life and the loss of community and the realisation that in the end, we all are alone. Forgotten and discarded, the only thing that remains are the people we touched.
Morley has finally made her movie. 8 years after Joyce Vincent’s death and 5 after her discovery by a media public that was just about starting to get the concept of internet content and shared news. At the time they hadn’t gotten blogs or Livejournals yet. The citizen journalists hadn’t really been born by then yet, the internet had not favoured revolutions or changed our way of interacting on such fundamental levels yet.
One reasoning always comes up when you start reading about this woman and her isolation: this would not happen today. Today we have G+, we have Twitter, we have Facebook. Someone would notice. Today, absence would be impossible to miss.
I fundamentally believe that this is a guilty lie that we are telling ourselves to mask our own uncomfortable thoughts. Because there isn’t one person in our Facebook lists that we could immediately think of and say “Hey, it’s been a while since I heard from him.”
Isn’t the truth of the matter somewhere completely else?
What if it wasn’t in the loss of our sense of community today, where we can only dream of neighbours taking care of each others or where community is more often the theatre of conflicting interests rather than exchange and support. If we dare to move beyond the fear of blaming the victim Joyce Vincent here, the truth might be somewhere in between. Maybe she wished to isolate herself the way she did and people/our modern society just made it that much easier.
Moving beyond the nagging feeling that someone should have done something – which goes from blaming the immediate neighbours, to the social services, to the electricity company that didn’t check her bills etc. – you quickly realise that the best system, the best social service, the best support net of friends or family cannot save you if you won’t let them. But again, this is only part of the equation of truth here. The other part is much more painful. Intervening in other’s people’s lives takes strength. It takes time. It is inconvenient and disruptive to your own life and worries. It’s messy, and it’s unbearable at times and you will be rebuked and pushed back more times than taken for a good samaritan.
Why that is?
Because truly, today weakness is not interesting. Showing weakness, showing emotion is a liberty that isn’t rewarded particularly well. Even less in the working place, but the same goes for friendships. Rare are the ones that can really support a crying friend and so, we don’t dare to give oursleves this opening. This weak spot. This blemish on our armour. Because we are much more afraid of what our friends might think of us than we are of dying alone.
Facebook et al. didn’t help with that. Facebook makes that even worse.
It has never been easier to project something completely different from what you are feeling to the outside world than over the internet. Facebook has given us more possibilities to appear happy, fulfilled and well rather than made it easier to span together.
Sure, true friends are more easily reached and average friends can be kept close without having to put in the time to really connect. It’s made it possible to be with people without actually being with them and caring for them. Modern social & friendship media has taken out the ‘messy’ of life. How easy is it today to ignore a digital message by someone? Much easier than a personal visit and a proper face that will tell you that they’re worried about you.
No. Joyce Carol Vincent would have died the same way today. Because in the end, she had isolated herself from the people she knew. That the people around her that didn’t know her, had not realised her passing, is a different story. I doubt that it really is a story of neglect or disinterest. Much rather of hard times, maybe even respect for someone else’s privacy. And someone who for whatever reason was at a point in her life where new decisions had to be made. She needed a clean slate to make them.
Joyce Carol Vincent never got to make those choices. That’s why Morley’s title for the documentary is so fitting: Dreams of a life.
Often we have dreams that we cannot realise, dreams that remain on our mental top shelf and develop a life apart and sometimes life ends without them ever seeing the light of day.
It doesn’t make them anything less, or anything more.
I profoundly believe that Joyce Carol Vincent is not defined by her death, her own neglect or the fact that nobody missed her for three years. I believe that the traces she left in other people’s lives transcend her dying alone in whatever circumstance. People – through Morley’s insistence and meddling in Vincent’s life – remember her for who she was, care for her memories, and isn’t that what really matters after all?
Whatever really waits for us after death, we cannot take anything with us and we cannot change the unchangeable. But we can strive to leave parts of us with other people. Leave our essence with them and hope that it’s enough to become a change in their lives in turn.
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The Mum/Dad Manifesto
I ran across this picture a while ago and made it into my Kindle screensaver. (Sounds odd? Don’t know how to do that? Well, you’re in luck, here’s a guide and here a repository of rather neat screensavers for the kindle.)
It’s been with me for a while now. Almost a year to be honest. And considering the hours I’ve spent carrying Amélie in a sling or wrap and reading on my Kindle, the message has left an impression.
I do think that this is just as valuable to dad’s as a manifesto as it is to mothers, because trust me, they worry just as much as women do, but it has a profound message and I thought I’d share.
Have you ‘stopped, taken stock and breathed’ today?
Just ‘savour each moment, laugh, tickle, kiss and cuddle’. It’s love. And we can all do with love. It’s almost Christmas after all.
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Taking sides
Why is discussion such a hard thing? Why are we afraid of taking sides or having a clear opinion about something? And why are we reluctant to say so in public? Why is taking a stand about certain matters suspicious in the world we live in today? And why has it become acceptable to not have an opinion?
This is an old issue of mine: why are people afraid to have an opinion about something they obviously care about?
The answer is probably simpler than we are led to believe and it has nothing to do with being too absorbed, having to much information on a subject – due to the mass of information in the mass media century – or the fact that they can’t be bothered.
In a time where people with conviction blow up market places and bomb refugee camps and after a century where convictions killed millions of people, it is clear that the image of a person with convictions and a strong belief system – and I don’t mean faith here – has been tainted. Today it equals with ‘being zelous’, ‘being intolerant’ or simply with ‘being suspicious’. But that’s not the only reason.
People have become afraid of expressing their opinions and beliefs because the aggressions or disadvantages that they fear being subjected to could test their system. This, of course, ultimately lead to an underlying agreement that certain discussions or debates are off limits. And since debate – in this mindset – is necessarily conceived as a negative thing, every way a person will try to discuss will be interpreted as a casus belli if the enunciation doesn’t present the four-step attenuation markers, such as subjective tense (also known as I-sentences… “I feel…”, “I think…”), conditional tense, question form and a “…don’t you think?” at the end.
Having an opinion, having conviction and explaining what led to these convictions should be something that can withstand questioning. Even more clearer: it should be something we ourselves question everyday and expose it to further outside questioning, because an opinion that remains unquestioned and un-argued will always just remain an opinion, as opposed to a vision or something that could potentially change the world.
There is a series of sayings that push us to suspect opinions and favour a more active approach to life (and a lot of them are rooted in Judeo-Christian culture): “Make it happen”, “Just do it”, “Actions count more than words”, “Do or don’t, there is no trying…” etc.
Actions however need basis. Physical basis for once. You cannot act on air, and when it comes to change for instance you need an object to change. But what if we took conviction and opinion to be the actual basis of action? What if arguing your opinion and conviction is in itself the first act? Then ‘having an opinion’ and confessing to it publicly could become that much more than just ‘having a philosophy’.
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Keep it simple.
Keep it simple.
It’s an art.
I’ve been struggling with this. A lot. For a long time. While I may seem to be very ‘straight to the point’ and quite guided, my mind is a constant firecracker, spawning little sparks of intuitions and thoughts and it has taken a lot of learning to work with it (instead of against it and trying to constantly change it. I am sure that I would have been a perfect candidate for a Ritalin dose in today’s school system).To learn to focus on one spark only, maybe two. To really focus on one argument, one question in a discussion and keep in tune, instead of blasting off.
But of course focusing does only so much, when you can’t stop or turn down the sequence in your head or your inner dialogue. So, most of the time I am discussing things with my husband while in the background two other train of thoughts are battling it out and I am planning the meals for the week ahead.
That is also the hidden reason why J has no patience with me showing him things on the computer. I simply move too fast and am doing three things at the same time. It makes me a lousy explanator, but a great supporter when something about his MBP is not working as he wishes.
For me, keeping it simple, cutting myself off and really listen to what is being said in my own head is a challenge.
It’s an art.
No. The fact that there are certain techniques involved doesn’t mean that it excludes the artistic value. My techniques are artistic in their very core. Technic and techniques comes from the greek word techné litteraly meaning ‘art’.
Reaching peace of mind. True silence that will allow you or me to create what we can, is work.
And yet, everyone is an artist at it.
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Make the Change
What is worse…? Daring too much or not daring enough?
There probably isn’t anybody in this world who doesn’t dream about changing something in their lives. It can be as small as finally finding a better way to deal with clutter and go as big as becoming a better human being.
Dream about it… talk about it… think about it and paint the future ‘changed’ state in a way that is appealing.
A lot of steps can make up what eventually can become a scary thing: change. If we could see into the future and only have a clear view of what this change can bring into our life… if we just could have some kind of positive reassurance that we are doing the right thing… yes, that would make it all so much easier. But the truly scary part about change isn’t so much the uncertainty, it’s the going out and making it happen part that is so hard. So hard in fact that in numerous situations, we prefer to play it safe. Putting ourselves out there in the world, is a hard gamble. Exposing who we are, what we wish for, running the constant danger of being rejected, of finding doubt where we need assurance and relief, it certainly isn’t something that will bring power or strength. Or so it would seem.
But if we try to look at it from another direction, then maybe change can be the one thing that saves us from becoming what we never wanted. (…) Look at a child that learns to walk. There isn’t anything particular running through their mind when they take the smallest, but surely one of the most important steps of their lives: the first one.
A first step always holds a promise. For the toddler it holds a whole life full of danger, full of injury, full of pain, but also full of discovery, fully of phantasy, full of exhilarating sensations, full of … new.
So many occasions come and go, but each and every one of them are a possibility to take a step. A new step, the next step, a faltering one, an assured one. And of course it is a dangerous thing. While toddlers run into a lot of physical dangers while starting their path in this world, as grown ups the pain becomes more hidden, more subtle and so much more devastating. Because we’re supposed to just ‘deal with it’, just ‘get on with it’. Because in a society that only considers a person in terms of performance and buying power, there is no space for ‘not dealing’ and ‘not getting on with it’. Through these eyes, only losers can’t deal with rejection, only underachievers dwell on the bad and the fear.
Reality obviously has a different face. It talks of the hard moments when you don’t know the direction for that first path. When you have the impression of being in a wrong path, but don’t know how to turn back. It talks of uncertainty and of failure. Of never feeling good enough, of never being enough.
Popular belief suggests that knowing what you want is the first step. But that also suggests that you know where to go.
Maybe knowing what you don’t want (such as persisting in a fearful state of mind or an undecided one for instance) is the better way to go. And sometimes it will take a lot of uncertain steps, steps that might seem wrong or out of place or useless to achieve that long sought after change that we wish for and dream about. Change in most cases doesn’t come with a label and it certainly doesn’t come in one giant heap. It takes a first step. And that first step, try to take it without thinking. Just as the child takes that first step into a new and larger world full of wonders and who know what could happen once the first one is done?
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On Missed Chances
There are no missed chances in life, only a perspective guided by regret sees something lost in an unrealised act that is pure potentiality.
At one moment or another in our lives we come to that point where we get that nagging feeling of having missed a chance. It can be anything from meeting someone who could have helped us to missing out on a wonderful bargain to the big chances of a new job perspective or a life changing experience. In deliberation we always work with that unity of ‘a chance to…’ and when we weigh the pros and cons of a decision, there’s always that player called ‘a missed chance’ that we measure up and calculate our future luck with. It instils dread, fear even, that idea that we could miss our on something. Something different, something new, something that is potentially so many things.
There is no such thing as a missed chance.
I am aware that this is a rather bold statement, some might even find it plain wrong, others might be revolted by it, because they are so used to that idea.
The truth of the matter however is that the truly missed chances are extremely rare. Much rarer than we’d think.
What is a chance? And when is it really gone? When have we truly missed it?
There are so many good words on how you have to make your own chances, how you need to seize the moments that across the history of human through have drizzled down on us until they form a certain pressure that puts us on edge, turned towards the future constantly waiting for that chance, or turned towards the past constantly analysing our decisions and separating them into ‘missed chances’ and ‘used chances’.
Life isn’t that straight forward and if a chance came with a clear label, which fool would walk by it and miss it on purpose?
If we analyse the concept of a ‘chance’, then one element becomes apparent rather quickly: a chance is never empty. It’s a chance to act, to do something. Thus it is always like to a certain theory of action. A second element is that a ‘a chance’ almost always leads to a decision. Obviously by it being linked to action, the decision mostly is about doing one thing or another and that leads to the third element which is change. There rarely is a ‘chance’ that does not involve some degree of change.
But the concept of chance is just a short way of stating a situation. It’s an abbreviation. For what ?
If we look a bit closer a the first element stated above, then we quickly realise that action requires assessment: action cannot be done without aim, goal or orientation. That’s what differentiates action from actionism, doing for doing’s sake. What is left out in the way we use ‘a chance’ in our deliberations today is the second part of the equation of reality: doing one thing means not doing something else.
Put this way, the ‘missed chance’ gets back its true value of a moment of decision and with that value, it isn’t any different from any other decision. The added value of change most often veils that fact. Even if in hindsight we are aware that we decided on one thing rather than on another, at the moment of decision, the fear of missing something, missing a chance, has the dangerous quality of making us miss that fundamental second part. In hindsight we barely see the chance anymore, focused on the decision. But that is only one kind of ‘missed chances’.
Another kind is the one we only see in hindsight. And aren’t these the most bitter ones? The moments when we go back and analyse and think that we make a wrong choice, thus missing that elusive thing that was a chance.
Both visions are askew and limiting. An old motto states that we are our decisions. Put in front of the backdrop of the above analysis, this suddenly becomes a true statement. Every single decision, may we qualify it through our vision on time as good or bad, shapes the here and now, the person that we are now and thus also said vision on our past. The smallest change would change the person that we are today and it also would change our vision on the past and so forth. This basic reality takes on a prominent role in the rather popular rules of time travel and its paradoxes. (Cf. the concept of the butterfly effect in chaos theory and its use in pop culture such as The Butterfly Effect [movie] or in time traveller Hiro’s story arc in Season 6 of the TV series Heroes )
But in everyday life, where we don’t go back in time to change our lives or the lives of others, to shape ourselves to our own wishes, all we’re left with is the future and while our mind is so tempted to turn back and divide our decisions into good ones and bad ones, into missed chances, misfortunes, missed encounters and mistakes.
I’ve stated that there is no such thing as a missed chance. Usually self-examination, understanding our actions, serves the purpose of learning which then ultimately should lead to avoiding mistakes or repeating bad behaviour. In the case of a ‘missed chance’ such introspection falls flat, because there is not an iota that is changeable about it, or it wouldn’t be a ‘missed chance’.
Everything that is based on the concept of ’seizing or using that chance’ and its twin of ‘missing a chance’ is next to useless as a lesson. The same chance can never present itself and we can’t go back. All that a self-analysis of that nature accomplishes is that it makes living with our decisions that much harder. This is particularly the case since we only ever consider our failures that way. Nobody ever sees a positively missed chance at misfortune for instance. This is reinforced by the nature of pure potentiality of the so called ‘missed chance’. In truth, we have no idea how the other decision could have turned out. It could have just as probably led to disappointment as ‘missing the chance’ could have led us to happiness. It’s our visions from the present that accounts for that. Be are further along the way when we do an introspection and analyse our past, have understood more, have experienced more and that lets us have a clearer view so to speak. Using that clearer view and more knowledge to devalue our own decisions however can only ever lead to a bitter consideration of ourselves and our past.
I would advocate for trust rather than a chance. Trust in ourselves. That we make our decisions to the best of our knowledge at the time and that they are the deep expression of our reality. That we do what we can to lead a sound life. Turning ourselves constantly towards the past, reminiscing about what would have been the better choice, not only blocks the present, but ultimately scares us to stand up to the future.
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