We were driving down a narrow Glamorganshire country road which ran along the Bristol Channel, but only from time to time could we catch a glimpse of the channel, the villages (Lavernock, Sully, Cog, the sing pointing to 'The Captain's Wife'... the sweetly suffocating memories...) or, far across the water, lights of Somerset; most of the time we were enclosed by an eccentrically high hedge-wall on either side. Our journey was a quintessentially British experience (I remember the first time I found myself on such a road. “Now I’ve experienced Britain fully”, I thought. “I won’t ever go any deeper than this”. And I haven’t yet). My friend changed the radio station and the voice of Emmylou in one instant took me back to the days of losing D. (I should be writing about losing M. now, but whereas tg something unique about each single loss, isn’t the essence of love-ending always one and the same?) and to a flat in south London where I spent a few months smoking endless hookahs, playing endless records, drinking endless bottles of port and Armagnac and trying to reach a plane on which the break-up of a twenty-year long relationship (and 10 out of those 20 years were happy, or not completely unhappy) would make some sense, or at least where it wouldn’t matter whether it made any sense; or simply where I could just stop thinking of it. I can’t recall today whether it was the sweet-flavoured tobacco, the music or the Armagnac*, but I did stop thinking, or at least obsessing, about it. There were also two thoughts that helped me immensely. One: that life went on; the other one: that she and I, and our marriage, were death-bound anyway. (Then, which was probably more effective than the hookah, the music and the booze put together, I fell in love again).
However, sometimes and for various reasons, I go back to those days. One of the reasons is philosophical. It’s a result of two straightforward observations: one is that apart from all the devastation, hurt and nearly-lethal numbness, I find what happened then, and the memories of that time, not only bitter, but bitter-sweet, or rather bitter-bitter-sweet; there seems to be something good about them, something constructive, something uplifting. The other observation is that the experience is unique and as such it seems to contribute something to my life; if this logic is correct, without those miserable, hazy days in Beckenham my life would be poorer.
These conclusions must be considered as strange and they should provoke a deeper investigation, which they did in my case. Let’s look at them at closer range.
First of all, let’s focus on the latter one: it’s undeniable that any of our experiences is unique; whether happy or unhappy, whether pleasant or unpleasant, whether physical, mental or spiritual - each one is irreplaceable, each brings something that no other experience can, or one could argue so; each of them happened in its own unique circumstances, its own unique ambience and while we were in a unique mood; each then has a potential to bring back the memory of those circumstances and, what’s more impressive, actually re-produce the relevant ambience and mood. Imposed on later experiences, the mood-, thought- and feeling-producing possibilities of one single experience seem mind-boggling, and they often are.
If the aim of our life were to accumulate experiences (some people claim: the more experience, the more life), it could be argued that it’s in our interest to increase the number, depth and intensity of any experiences, including unhappy ones. Although on the one hand it sounds self-evident, it must strike us, or at least some of us, as a major existential fallacy: the pursuit of unhappiness goes against our deepest instincts and beliefs, even more: it goes against us. We’ll deal with this fallacy, which I claim it is, a little later. Now let’s move on to the first observation.
Where does the ‘sweetness’ of unhappy experiences may come from? Is it there at all? I claim that to a various degree, it is the case. At the root of this paradoxical perceived (at least by me) ‘sweetness’ is a certain crucial reality check, a certain discovery...
However, sometimes and for various reasons, I go back to those days. One of the reasons is philosophical. It’s a result of two straightforward observations: one is that apart from all the devastation, hurt and nearly-lethal numbness, I find what happened then, and the memories of that time, not only bitter, but bitter-sweet, or rather bitter-bitter-sweet; there seems to be something good about them, something constructive, something uplifting. The other observation is that the experience is unique and as such it seems to contribute something to my life; if this logic is correct, without those miserable, hazy days in Beckenham my life would be poorer.
These conclusions must be considered as strange and they should provoke a deeper investigation, which they did in my case. Let’s look at them at closer range.
First of all, let’s focus on the latter one: it’s undeniable that any of our experiences is unique; whether happy or unhappy, whether pleasant or unpleasant, whether physical, mental or spiritual - each one is irreplaceable, each brings something that no other experience can, or one could argue so; each of them happened in its own unique circumstances, its own unique ambience and while we were in a unique mood; each then has a potential to bring back the memory of those circumstances and, what’s more impressive, actually re-produce the relevant ambience and mood. Imposed on later experiences, the mood-, thought- and feeling-producing possibilities of one single experience seem mind-boggling, and they often are.
If the aim of our life were to accumulate experiences (some people claim: the more experience, the more life), it could be argued that it’s in our interest to increase the number, depth and intensity of any experiences, including unhappy ones. Although on the one hand it sounds self-evident, it must strike us, or at least some of us, as a major existential fallacy: the pursuit of unhappiness goes against our deepest instincts and beliefs, even more: it goes against us. We’ll deal with this fallacy, which I claim it is, a little later. Now let’s move on to the first observation.
Where does the ‘sweetness’ of unhappy experiences may come from? Is it there at all? I claim that to a various degree, it is the case. At the root of this paradoxical perceived (at least by me) ‘sweetness’ is a certain crucial reality check, a certain discovery...
[to be continued; must run now to discover where money is]
