Yet in the immense expanse, where the immortal unconscious dwells, all that answers is a roar, a whimper, and nothing more... Serpa Pinto
...was invented to fill the empty place where love should be." ~ Or along these lines spoke Anna Karenina to Vronsky, feeling a bit shirked, as he tries to delay their trip to handle some business for his mother. Like many growing up in Britain, I was brought up in a world of 'manners' and 'politeness', and with these, respect seems to go hand in hand. 'Respect' of course has many wider meanings and relevant applications in a world where we seem to always be fighting for the basic human dignity of one marginalised group or another, and where sexism, racism, and - dare I put it out there - speciesism, unfortunately still pervade many situations and societies. In these cases, we think that 'respect' can be the solution. And it can be. If I respect you, I hold you, or something about you and your character, actions or abilities, in high regard; I admire and esteem your person to an equal or greater degree as my own, and therefore do not intentionally insult or degrade you. The trouble with respect though, is that it is too conditional. I respect someone, until they do something, or I discover something that let's them lose my respect. We talk about 'gaining respect', and if respect is what a woman needs to not be sexually harassed, spoken over in a male dominated workplace, or hypersexualised by the media, or what someone with a disability needs to be treated with equal consideration as someone without, then I don't think it is a very appropriate prerequisite. We are drilled as children to say thank you and not to forget the magic word 'please', as well as more insidiously to not speak our true minds. If a child starts saying out loud that Mrs Robinson has a weird smelly perfume or that you don't like the food Vicky's mum cooks, your horrified guardian will instantly shush you up and tell you not to be so rude. Yet it is perfectly acceptable for people and children alike to have different preferences, likes and dislikes. 'Elbows off the table', 'mouth closed while you chew', 'hand over your mouth when you yawn'... - I notice myself failing ever more frequently on this last one. As a result we learn, by trial and error, adult direction and persistent correction, the rules of society and how to be polite and maintain your manners. They're admissible up to a point, but have to stop at 'smile and nod' even if you don't understand or agree. We have to be able to express ourselves, we have to be able to have human characteristics and we all have to accept the ugly truth and variety of our species. My father is currently writing a book combining two, one might say, 'passions': golf and whiskey. In his preface, while introducing the subject of golf, he mentions 'golf etiquette' -something that almost makes me wince- and refers to the golf course as a place where one may experience a comforting return to the manners which he finds ever more sparse in modern society. I know full well that 'golf etiquette' for years has meant (and in some cases still does), barring women from participating in a sport, excluding certain groups from their 'club', and dictating what members should wear and eat accordingly. For our amusement I cite a delightful quote from high court judge Lord Moncrieff in around 1900 who decreed that no woman should hit the ball any further than 60-70 yards. “Not because we doubt a lady’s power to make a longer drive but because that cannot well be done without raising the club above the shoulder,” he wrote. “Now we do not presume to dictate but we must observe that the posture and gestures requisite for a full swing are not particularly graceful when the player is clad in female dress.” Well well. At least it all just seems quite funny now, but this is one of the nicer 'digs' at women I could choose from through the years. It does rather some up my view about the uselessness of manners (or in this case 'golf etiquette') and meanwhile brings me back to dear Anna's reproach. Regardless of whether we're referring to Anna or his mother, if Vronsky loved her there'd be no need for respect. In the context it seems she refers to his respect for his mother while talking about a lack of love for herself which makes the remark a little incongruous, but I think we can take it both ways. If he loved her, his actions would be respectful of her, and if his reason for helping his mother is mere respect, then he seems to lack love for his mother. In any instance where we observe or talk about a lack of 'respect' for a victim of subjugation, deprecation or abuse, we might do better to think about a lack of love. I'm not getting all squishy, and I know, that especially for the more reserved Brits, this might sound like a step too far in a happy-clappy, hippie-dippie direction, but I think I can win you over. In the case of our friends and family, we admit respect and love. In some cases, we might not respect a member of our family, or perhaps they are a baby and therefore not quite worthy of our 'respect'; nevertheless we may love them. Since we love them, we wish them no harm, we wish them happiness and peace like we do ourselves. Therefore it appears respect is not necessary, as we intend no wrong by them. Thus it may continue for all. I practise a completely secular meditation in the tradition known as Vipassana, which also involves 'Metta' meditation, where one spends time wishing joy and freedom from suffering to all other beings. We've all witnessed the growth and diffusion of modern mindfulness practises (including plenty of apps) which have drawn inspiration from meditation, and these have also started to include and diffuse the benefits of 'loving-kindness' meditation. The fact is, all of us - well, all of us decent folk- wish for everyone to be more or less happy. We don't wish misery and pain and suffering on anyone. At the surface, perhaps a few familiar right crooks...or serial killers, might come to mind. But when it comes down to it, that nasty colleague might not be so damn annoying if he were more happy himself. And if the mass murderer could understand and know what it felt like to exist contently and love and be loved by other people, his motivations might fall apart. So my point isn't necessarily as grand as asking for universal love, but I simply claim that in a certain way we do all love each other. We might act more frequently according to fulfil our own needs, as usually we are the best person to do that, but in the end we can recognise that even our own happiness would be more secured were everyone else happy. Therefore, we need not respect each other individually, where that might even seem difficult. We can simply recognise that yes, we would like them to be happy, we do not wish them suffering. A glaring flaw in the argument stops us in our tracks. The greedy, heartless corporate parasites with insatiable capitalistic appetite and which feed off war, oil and disease. Billions in profit are being made from murderous weapons, exploitation of other countries' resources, or the agony and suffering of disease and cancer. We've more or less gauged that money corrupts and when there's so much 'profit' to be made in extraordinarily inhumane ways, it would seem that millions die in the bids of a few to attain ever more of it. It's inexcusable, it's unthinkable, it's sickening. Corporate monsters, capitalist villains, warmongering, ruthless brutes in suits... What's more is that these CEOs, politicians, businessmen, often excel in the very subject of this discussion (with the exception of Trump naturally): respect, manners and politeness. It may be that the 'suit' was the very symbol of 'civilised society' and 'gentlemanliness', even as it hides the very antithesis of kindness in its wearers. Things and people who feel threatened -organised religions, insecure tyrants, and God himself, demand and enforce respect. People who don't care for their status or external approval, might earn respect but have little use for it. Once again, respect displays an absence of love, a suppression of love: while a symbol of honour and machoism seeks your respect, so it rejects and prevents your compassion or love. My mother endlessly tells me to put on mascara, brush my hair and wear some heels, to make me look older, to make me look 'better', to make me more 'respectable'. Business suits, military apparel, make-up or whatever symbolic or physical attire we don: uniforms usually seek respect. But they do this through distance, through creating an appearance that must be acknowledged by the second party and asks them to behave or treat us in a certain way. Sure they might add confidence to the bearer, but seeking validation through ornaments and clothes seems no better semblance of happiness than shyness. Anyone can love a man or a woman, but who can love a suit? Having digressed a little, let's address once again those seemingly inhuman cogs in the corporate machine. We can only go back once more, to the source of this behaviour. Either it's mental illness: narcissism and excess of power have both been referred to in this way through literature ever since ancient Greece. Or it's unhappiness. Well, smug in their luxury cars they may be, but they are running around like headless chickens after an unobtainable and frankly useless goal of 'as big a number as possible next to the words 'net worth''. In my position I can only begin to contemplate how individuals are led to suppress their compassion and humanity in an endless pursuit of wealth, but we can certainly imagine that individuals who are overall content, don't work so fervently like hungry dogs gobbling up every last crumb, while stamping their buried conscience deeper in the ground. Were every individual truly content and 'free from suffering', as I sometimes endeavour to invoke in meditation, they may feel fulfilled without seeking interminable asset increase and directly or indirectly funding destruction and pain. ~ So, while a polite smile or a respectful nod, might sometimes harmlessly smooth over some otherwise awkward situation, let's be wary not to let 'manners' disguise marginalisation caused by a lack of empathy. If as Anna believed to observe, there is an 'empty place where love should be', it may seem innocuous and appropriate to fill the awkward gap with something akin to 'respect'. But I suggest speaking candidly what you feel may in the end be the best recourse. When everyone can be open about what they feel, there is no need for manners, for empathy is created. We are all human, we all have several, if not many, of a plethora of similar tendencies, misfortunes, passions and emotions. And we are all scrambling our way through this peculiar world more or less bewildered. We all hit love, we all hit grief, we all hit discomfort, pain, a little joy and then death. There is no point hiding all these ups and downs behind a veneer of 'politeness'. No, I didn't like your pasta, sorry. But there's bound to be someone who does, quite a few in fact, and there was always bound to be some who didn't. Nothing to be done. None of us is alone in our experiences: no matter how painful, how embarrassing, how inconvenient, I assure you that of the billions of lives that have existed and do exist, many a similar scenario has occurred, and it's all mixed up in the endless causality of the universe. Society grabbed at manners because it felt out of control: people were farting and burping and coughing freely and suddenly a need for orderliness meant that these unpredictable occurrences had to be banned by the manners police. Nevertheless, we all know that each of us farts and burps and coughs, and if you don't hear us then we've engaged in a private endeavour to release them quietly. So just empathise with the other who burps, just as much as we can empathise with the other who is bored, who is heartbroken, or who acts greedily or gets angry. We all do and there's no need to pretend otherwise. Next time some impatient twit on the road hoots or overtakes you, just think, 'yeah, I've felt that way, I've felt in a mad hurry and cursed the slow car in front of me before. Today is their day', and suddenly you empathise with them and you're both off the hook! ~ “Respect was invented to cover the empty place where love should be. But if you don’t love me, it would be better and more honest to say so.” Chapter 24, Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy I'm the sort of person who is rather on Sartre's side when it comes to...other people. Hell is other people, he amicably claimed. I just as readily admit that hell can very often also be the fire of my own mind. And furthermore I'd concede that, occasionally at least, other people can most certainly be heaven. The deception of falling in love eh? For me, one of my biggest hindrances and hurdles while travelling, but of course also, the biggest gateway, delight and learning curve, can be other people. I have quite a plethora of inner challenges and problems created within myself; but I do also find a fair few without. When I check into the Airbnb and quietly notice my whole body tensing as I realise my room is by the kitchen in an echoey apartment shared with 3 of them (other people); or as I walk briskly down the street and incessantly am hindered by a couple of dawwwwwdling other people, oblivious to the world around them; and as I settle into my nice cold little beer and freshly prepared Portuguese pastry after a long day's travelling to notice the two other people beside me light up (why do some bars in some parts of Europe find themselves blind to the empathetic-to-clean-smelling-clothes-lovers law that is the ban of smoking indoors?) and realise my hair, my jacket, my top, probably my bra and most certainly my jeans are all going to smell of that not-so-sweet perfume that is eu de cigarette on just the first day of my trip, I find myself silently enraged by other people. I suppose it's a matter of being acquainted. Before you've met someone personally, in whatever scenario you encounter them, they're one of them. Once you've had a chat or two, whether or not you walk at the same pace and share the same eating habits, they gain individual status. Well what's the solution? As with most problems, we reluctantly find that Sartre yet again is right. There is No Way Out. To go through them is the only way. I'm not ever going to be able to fully embrace the detestable ashen scent of my wardrobe after an hour in a bar, but I might at least learn to observe myself and my reactions on a subtler level when things I don't exactly like start to happen around me; try to see some positive, or at least attempt to empathise with whatever is making that the other person's reality in this moment (nicotine addiction anyone?). No, really. None of us can live in the world alone and even those who might wish it, don't really, for who would there be to blame then? There'd be noone to complain about and blame our misery on. And suddenly we'd have to contemplate the despairing reality that hell in fact might be ourself. The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven. |