Relationships & Parallel Lines

Who would have thought that "chick lit" would give you a philosophical insight into relationships & the meaning of life? 

"I hate alone"

"That's all there is. You run on parallel lines. Overlapping sometimes, waving sometimes, but always alone." Joanna Trollope "Girl from the South"

I've always thought that life is essentially solitary. Even living with my parents & my husband. Even with friends. In one sense people are like dodgem cars. If you are lucky you bump into someone you want to be with, but it's basically random. Even if you are in what we weirdly call a relationship, you should retain your sense of the importance of self. All too often women don't. They subsume themselves into the relationship & the man. Then the children, who oddly seem to remain children all their lives. 

If women behave in a way accepted as fairly normal in a man - not putting others first, even being selfish. Refusing to always be the glue that holds a relationship together. Refusing to multi task & micro manage every aspect of todays complex life. Refusing to be the prime carer for the children & the partner - They are condemned.

There are very few truly egalitarian relationships. Even in a close, loving, partnership with children, things should be equally shared. The woman should be as completely free to do what she wants to do as the man. She should be able to leave the washing up in the sink & forget the washing & ironing. She shouldn't have to always decide what the next meal will be, shop for it & cook it. She should be able to make work her passion & focus if she wants to & hang out with colleagues after work.

Two people should be able to negotiate a good relationship that does run on parallel lines & allow both equal freedoms. There needs to be consideration of & care for others on both sides. But it seldom happens.

So relationships break down. The parallel lines move apart & go their separate ways, because either there was no negotiation, or the negotiation was broken by one or other party.

People end up alone. Even when it does work, being essentially alone within a relationship isn't so unusual. The thing humans don't seem to learn is that we shouldn't be dependent on someone else to be  ourselves or be content. 

Being alone is normal. Being alone isn't necessarily lonely. Being alone is being self sufficient, self confident, self sustaining, self motivating. Being alone is a natural state of affairs - Even when you think you aren't. Being Co-dependent is often used to describe relationships where a person is needy, or dependent upon, another person. A co-dependent relationship is when one partner needs the other partner, who in turn, usually needs to be needed.

Relationships can be wonderful & fulfilling. They can also be stifling & disfunctional. We all need the freedom & confidence to simply Be Truly Ourselves.

Bias, Prejudice & Perfection.

 "Inclination or prejudice for or against one person or group, especially in a way considered to be unfair".

 "Cause to feel or show inclination or prejudice for or against someone or something".

I prefer to think that I am rational & logical in my thinking. I hope that I am not particularly prejudiced against anyone or anything. I would like to be kind, willing to be open to other ways of doing things, generous, non judgmental......

But if that were the case I would be a perfect human being. Patently not true. I am flawed. I have personal beliefs & traits which may or may not result in bias.

I don't like some modern art, Mark Rothko for example. I am prejudiced against it & think that it's a con. I'm inclined to think that many male politicians are self serving & egotistical. I believe that we have made a complete mess of handling drug addiction & am very biased towards legalisation & control by Medics. I am also biased agaist our justice system & don't believe it achieves much that is useful. I could go on.

Actually I am full of bias & prejudice. There isn't much perfection lurking in my brain. I am the sum of my experience, good & bad. I was indoctrinated by my upbringing, education & professional life. So were we all. I think working hard is important & am very biased against people I feel are lazy. I am very careful about money & don't waste it. I am biased against people I think are spendthrift. I value intelligence, I don't tolerate fools easily.....

I'm inclined to be a liberal socialist. I'm inclined to love art & feel very inadequate about anything mathematical. I make judgments about people very quickly - whether I like them or not, whether I want to spend any time with them. I'm inclined to put others before myself.

The point is that I do know whether I am biased. I do know what my prejudices are. Knowing is power. Knowing means that I can try to overcome prejudice. Buddhists believe in the Eightfold Path of right views, right resolve, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. That, simply, is Life. A journey towards being as good as you can be.

An Arm Full of Covid.

I've had the vaccine. 4 weeks ago. Hopefully Pfizer induced antibidies are charging around my system, preventing me from getting a severe reaction if I get Covid. I had no reaction beyond a painful arm for one night. Obviously I'm still observing the rules & being careful.

My local surgery organised the logisitcs of vaccinating the whole population of my area superbly. The Medics & Volunteers were wonderful. No waiting or queuing, the whole thing took less than half an hour. Just shows how excellent our NHS are at thinking through procedures & organisation. Maybe if the NHS had been allowed to organise the Covid response from the outset it would have been done much better. 

I'm not a sheep blindly following diktats. I use my own intelligence & reliable information sources to make decisions. I don't listen to bonkers conspiracy theorists on social media. I simply don't understand Anti Vaxxers & the harm they do - Is it simply fear? Not just Covid - the Measles jab is a case in point.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/feb/05/gp-anti-vaxxers-mmr-vaccine-measles

I think Covid is a learning experience on multiple levels. There are all the climate change & ecological benefits we saw in the first lockdown. We have been given the opportunity to pause & consider deeply the lives we lead & the harms we do. There is the understanding that we live in a enormous World system where everybody is interlinked in many ways. Territory & Borders are irrelevant in a Pandemic. "The Butterfly Effect"  -  small things can have non-linear impacts on a complex system. A butterfly flapping its wings and causing a typhoon. ... Simple systems, with few variables, can show unpredictable and sometimes chaotic behavior.

We need to cooperate worldwide. We need to share knowledge & resources equitably. We need to respect our environment & other cultures. The question is will we remember the lessons once Covid is under control? 

Or, perhaps more importantly, will politicians remember & be prepared to try a new way of working & governing that isn't short termist, that is inclusive & consensual. Most importantly, that isn't just about Power. 

Moving House & Making Decisions

Moving House is the 3rd most stressful thing in life after Death & Divorce. I've experienced 1 & 3 several times. It's stressful because it involves having to cope with a transition in life. It's about change & unfamiliarity & for many people that causes stress & anxiety. You have no control over anything.

I put my house on the market at the beginning of September in 2019. It's been a long, difficult road. Trying to move when Brexit had devastated the house market & then Covid changed life for us all has not been an easy experience. My house did sell, but one buyer withdrew at the beginning of Covid because he had a house in Italy. Several supposedly keen buyers weren't proceedable & couldn't sell their houses. My current buyer has been extraordinarily patient & has stuck with me, for which I am very grateful.

Finding an appropriate house to buy has also been difficult. I want to downsize in a particular location where most houses have 4-5 bedrooms on 3 floors. Because of the shortage of this type of house I've always been in competition with someone else. So the houses have gone to "best & final" offers. My current prospective house is the only one I have won. Every suitable house I have considered has been in need of a lot of work, which would be expensive & time consuming. Most would not be livable in while the work was going on. So I have to be prepared to rent. Renting for a couple of months is also difficult.

I went through months thinking that I was buying a perfect house in a retirement property, but had to withdraw because of problems with the Management & the Lease. I had to start all over again after making the hard decision to withdraw.

All through this process I have tried to remain calm & positive. I'm hardly living in bad conditions. I have a lovely house in a very good location. So my fall back position has been I can stay here & hope that my physical condition doesn't deteriorate.

Making decisions when you are single isn't as easy as doing it when you have a partner. I've always found that the old adage " two heads are better than one" works. Someone else's perspective & experience is always good, however hard you try to research & be informed. But at the end of the day you are the one who has to decide.

 

So much rides on these decisions. It is literally your life, your home, your happiness & comfort. 

I have no idea whether the decisions I have made will be the right ones. What I do know is that:- 

• I do want to downsize
• My new house has great potential
• Re furbishing will be expensive & time consuming
• The interim period will be difficult - I may be a 76 year old sofa surfer! 

It is a challenge & a project. Maybe my last one. I really hope that it works.

 

Dreams & Reality

My dreams, when I was young, were quite different to my dreams today. When I was young the world was very different. Much simpler. I just wanted to be happy & free. As a child, I wanted to be secure & loved. I wanted friends to play with & freedom to do that. I didn't understand a lot that was going on around me in the 10 year aftermath of a world war.

As a teenager I wanted to succeed at school, both academically & in sports. I wanted freedom from restriction even more. I was rebellious, but I still wanted approbation. I wanted to be House Captain & a Senior Prefect - I achieved both. I wanted to go to college to get away from a retrictive & controlling mother - Thank goodness I achieved that too, because Grammar school & College shaped me.

As an young adult I always wanted to reform situations I was in & right wrongs. I was headstrong & let my emotions rule my logic sometimes. I wanted the world to be a better, fairer, place. I could see injustice & inequality & wanted to change that for the better. I felt education was the way to achieve that. Then I wanted to be in charge - hence I became a headteacher.

The thing about life is, that if you let it, it will teach you valuable lessons. That is what life is for, a pathway to a better you. By the time you are a better person it's probably too late because people tend not to listen to you when you are old. They think that you are locked in the past.

Now I know more & I can clearly see the path humanity is on. My dreams of a fairer world are frankly shattered. We have made a complete mess of our relationships with eachother & our relationship with the superb ecosystem we live in. We are a destructive species, driven by tribalism, money, power & posessions. That is the reality I see. It isn't pretty & if we don't change our behaviour it will destroy us.

But, we are also a uniquely inventive & intelligent species. We can turn this around. My dream is that we will step back from the edge of the precipice, understand the reality of what we have created & do something about it.

There is the reality, possibly of Armageddon. There is also the dream,  not quite Utopia, but certainly sustainable & equitable.

Which do you choose?