Achilles – Page 7 – Achilles & Aristotle

The Comforts of Family

They know us too well,
But in some ways, not at all.
We share most everything with them
But fear to share the worst.
They see us change
But always want us the same.
They effortlessly hurt,
But love us blindly.
And when you fear you have let them down,
You haven’t,
Because they are you
And they are yours.

I helped someone this week, and in the process we reflected on the comforts of family. Our families sometimes constrain and limit us – but mostly in our own heads.

We sometimes fear they expect more from us. But generally they just want us to be there and with them. Careers and success can be gaudy wrappings; families care most and know us best.

Achilles, Life, Psychology

No Pain, No Gain

One hesitates to admit to loony sounding practices which invite ridicule, but… mindfulness meditation really does reach the parts other things don’t.

Sure you can read, philosophise, listen to music, exercise or get blotto to blot out a whirring mind. But when it comes to finding out what’s at the heart of the whirring, you have to stop distracting yourself and start meditating.

Mindfulness meditation is learning to connect your mind and body – but without the help of the Buddha. Simple really, focus on your body and breathing and it reveals a deeper understanding of what’s in you mind.

It generally starts with thinking about your feet. More accurately focusing on breathing, and then stopping your mind racing by working up from the feet, to the legs and upwards, concentrating on each zone of the body in turn.

Hey presto, the mind stops racing. Result! But as I discovered this week that’s just a foundation. A very useful one; but it’s not the sum of what can be done.

Turning towards difficulty has been this week’s task – and this has brought some uncomfortable realisations. Quite literally uncomfortable too, as the challenge is to clear the mind, conjure up a difficult thought – a fear, anxiety or problem – and then really feel it. And keep feeling it even when it hurts too. Ouch!

In various runs at this, I have found, thinking about one situation makes my thighs cramp and my face literally twitch with anxiety. Another makes me clench all my arm and chest muscles in controlled fury. And a third – which I thought I feared, I don’t. I also discovered I’m no great fan either of ridicule or being ridiculed…

So what happens next? Well the answer is not to suppress and bottle all this stuff. Recognising mental events often trigger a set of physical responses – which pass, and aren’t so bad really – breaks the vicious circle.

Just like the dentist (where I was yet again on Monday) one way is clench up and hate every minute. Another is to breathe, relax, close my eyes and enjoy half an hour to myself – as the dentist buzzes, whizzes, picks and saws.

I’m off for more dentistry right now and quite looking forward to the chair. I’m learning that when you stop avoiding discomfort and turn to face it – it hurts much less.

Achilles, Children, Life

Beside the Seaside

‘Oh we do like to be beside the seaside’ as the old song goes. And thanks to a new family business venture, we’ve been spending much of the summer there, on and off.

Setting up a cute little holiday home, to entice punters and their hard-earned cash, has come with big spin-off benefits. Family days at an increasingly familiar port of call, have given the kids a space and place to roam and wander – far more than our restless urban life allows.

Less clock-watching, fetching and driving. More wandering, pebble throwing and beach combing. And we all seem happier as a result. A change of scenery and a change of pace has done us a power of good.

We can’t really afford it, it could all go wrong and we could lose our shirts as well as our houses. But human beings always rate risk higher than reward. You don’t get that many summers; and this has been a particularly sunny one.

Achilles, Poetry, Psychology, Work

Avoid Big Egos in Small Numbers

A recent if obvious discovery (all the best ones are), is the very worst things in working life happen behind closed doors, in small numbers. Here’s some verse, to keep reminding me of that.

Avoid closed doors
Between rocks and hard places.
Unreasonable wants
And impossible asks
Come together in confined spaces

The acceptable is found
Not by arm-wrestling,
Shutting down or going to ground.
But by careful crowd-sourcing
And sharing the love around.

When being pressed to do something you don’t think is right, won’t work or will go wrong, it often feels like it would be worse in the company of others. But I’m finding if you can get others in, get it out and let the task hang in the air a moment – very often, the reasonable middle ground prevails.

The art is to fight the instinct to defend, avoid or close down. When bad things look likely to happen, it pays to ensure there are others in the room. Sometimes it seems, the more egos the better.

So my new motto is: ‘avoid big egos in small numbers’, one-to-one being the very worst format of all. Share the love around.

Achilles, Death, Life, Odysseus, Poetry, Writing

Winter

A bit like being winded by a whack in the solar plexus, this poem takes the wind out of your sails – and leaves you gasping.

Clive James’s wit and humour of have always been rapier sharp. But here, his acute observations on his own chronic decline are both a curse and a redemption.

If I appear to be on a morbid streak, I’m not really. But this interminable winter has made me reflect on the seasons of life. I’m ready for another spring in my summer years, so good the sun’s out today.

Holding Court

Retreating from the world, all I can do
Is build a new world, one demanding less
Acute assessments. Too deaf to keep pace
With conversation, I don’t try to guess
At meanings, or unpack a stroke of wit,
But just send silent signals with my face
That claim I’ve not succumbed to loneliness
And might be ready to come in on cue.
People still turn towards me where I sit.

I used to notice everything, and spoke
A language full of details that I’d seen,
And people were amused; but now I see
Only a little way. What can they mean,
My phrases? They come drifting like the mist
I look through if someone appears to be
Smiling in my direction. Have they been?
This was the time when I most liked to smoke.
My watch-band feels too loose around my wrist.

My body, sensitive in every way
Save one, can still proceed from chair to chair,
But in my mind the fires are dying fast.
Breathe through a scarf. Steer clear of the cold air.
Think less of love and all that you have lost.
You have no future so forget the past.
Let this be no occasion for despair.
Cherish the prison of your waning day.
Remember liberty, and what it cost.

Be pleased that things are simple now, at least,
As certitude succeeds bewilderment.
The storm blew out and this is the dead calm.
The pain is going where the passion went.
Few things will move you now to lose your head
And you can cause, or be caused, little harm.
Tonight you leave your audience content:
You were the ghost they wanted at the feast,
Though none of them recalls a word you said.

CLIVE JAMES
(First published in the Times Literary Supplement)