London***!!!

I made it!!! I have acted on at least one of my new year’s resolutions – to go to London for the theatre - which makes me way more optimistic about the rest: to liaise with my siblings and read more (books!). My social life is still kind of non-existent, at the moment, but I have been in Foyles for half an hour, after which I had too many books and DVDs already to take home. Looks good for book-reading.

I have to go on about London for a while because it made me feel almost like a new person. The main reason for this was of course that I haven’t been going anywhere since Mars 2020 (my last trip to London to see “Uncle Vanya”) and I was terrified of even thinking about going to the airport. I didn’t really take it in that there was a Tube strike in London a few days before my flight, and the German unions were pretty active in the transport sector as well. I was just terrified about having to do everything by phone for the first time, check-in and all. But – having now a proper mobile phone for once! – everything went surprisingly well. That is, not everything, of course. I wasn’t able to get a bar code for ANY of my pre-booked shows on my phone – but there still is a box office, as there has been since the beginning of London theatre in the 16^th century and will be, I am sure, until the end of time (at least where London is concerned), and they just needed my name to give me the bar code … And of course, after I had been so delighted that the check-in for my return flight on the phone had worked, machines at Heathrow Airport weren’t able to READ my barcode so that I had to go on a wild goose chase for a Lufthansa check-in counter. If I cannot think of a reason to be at the airport hours in advance, it will turn up! – Never mind, I soon realized that, having finally arrived in civilization, there is WiFi at every location, and there really is no need to panic. In fact, on my first evening, sitting on a bench in front of the National Theatre and looking on the Thames while chatting with my mother in Bavaria – which I couldn’t do on my old Windows phone for no reason anyone could ever explain to me – I knew I would be alright.  

On my second day I had my best experience outside the theatre when I succeeded in exchanging old twenty-pound notes which I still had from my last trip. As I had WiFi, I found out that they MIGHT still be exchanged at the post office, plus the information which Post Offices in my neighbourhood might do this. I set out to find the closest on Drury Lane, not feeling very optimistic about the whole thing, but, as it was a hundred pounds in notes, felt I had at least to give it a try. I know if I had been in Italy or Spain, the post office wouldn’t have been open at any reasonable hour – even though it said that it was open on the door! – and, if by any chance I had been able to make it there within their three-hour window, nobody would have bothered to change notes for one of these stupid foreigners! (I mean: what is in there for THEM!) If I had been an unfortunate tourist in Germany, I would have to find the right bank and show my passport, fill in a form, and then – maybe – I would have had the value of my outdated banknotes deposited on my account in a few months time … The Asian-looking woman at the counter in the Drury Lane post office was INCREDIBLY friendly. On my timid request to exchange my old twenty-pound notes she answered with a bright smile: “Of course!” and asked me if I had ever exchanged money at the post office before. “No, I haven’t!” I answered and thought: now comes the form … “That’s great!” she answered and issued a slip of paper. “Please write your address here!” And THAT was it! We had a friendly chat about the weird spelling of my name which she was familiar with because she had tried to learn German for her exams, and I got issued my pound notes which I now felt I had every right to spend at Foyles … And, not for the first time on this trip, but most vividly, I had this feeling that I was HOME again! Back with a civilization I recognise, where I understand what people are talking about, where people seem to react normally to me, which makes me react normally to them, which makes me FEEL normal! (Is this really so much to ask?)

So, this time it was the “little” things mostly – not, like last time with “Uncle Vanya”, the theatre. I kind of knew how Covid had messed with everything. Most of all, quite irrationally, had made me feel that I wouldn’t be able to go where I wanted to go ever again. But the theatre was, of course, interesting enough. After having missed Simon Russell Beale in “John Gabriel Borkman” and David Tennant in “Good”, I felt I just COULDN’T miss Sophie Okonedo and Ben Daniels in “Medea” on top of that. So “Medea” became the reason I made it to London after all. As “Phaedra” was still on as well at the National Theatre, I chose this for my first evening. And as I couldn’t believe the incredible daftness of making the “Bake-Off” into a musical, I thought it would be fun to see this on my last day. In fact, “Phaedra” turned out more remarkable than “Medea”, more interesting and breath-taking. First of all, I couldn’t believe to be back at the National Theatre after five (?) years (“Antony and Cleopatra” with Ralph Fiennes and Sophie Okonedo): the atmosphere, the shop, even the weather played ball and I had a clear evening and night stroll along the Thames … But the production was really special as well as it wasn’t a modern version of the Greek/French classic, but they had taken the myth as an opportunity to write an entirely contemporary play about an upper middle-class family, immigration, the works ... A vivid comment on the question of “What is a classic?” that got answered in a significant way in the programme. As it is a question I have been dealing with off and on in my blog – without actually asking it, I think? – I hope I will be getting round to writing some more about it. 

It is especially interesting in comparison with “Medea” which WAS a contemporary version of the Greek classic – which actually made it a bit boring, at least at the beginning, compared with “Phaedra” where you get thrown into the middle of vibrant family life with everybody talking at the same time without listening to the others, whereas in “Medea” we get the “classic” update by the nurse about Medea’s distressed state following recent developments. In fact, the greatest attraction of this production for me was for it to be played in the newly built Sohoplace theatre that had been finished in October last year and is, of course, really beautiful. It wasn’t at all a bad thing that this version of “Medea” was partly “about” this theatre, that is about using the structure of its rather “Greek” setting to best effect. These exterior aesthetics is what I enjoyed most about it, will remember most, whereas in “Phaedra” it was the liveliness and life-likeness of the whole production. Even if you don’t care about these people – as I didn’t! – they make you suffer. “Medea” had a simple, entirely beautiful – and rather “classic” - structure which was very much informed by the exterior structure of the theatre.

Whereas in “Phaedra” it didn’t impair the performance that the stage set got damaged at one point and there was a short interruption to fix it, it was a pity that Sophie Okonedo had a sore throat. I think it took a great deal off the power of her performance, at least in the first half. Afterwards it became better, and I was able to enjoy her amazing sensitiveness as an actress that I had already noticed in “Antony and Cleopatra”. It is so “un-classical” that it is neither really compatible with Shakespeare nor with this rather formal version of a Greek classic, but, as soon as it comes to full effect, in both cases this turned into a strength of the production rather than a weakness. As to Ben Daniels, I rued it that I had missed “The Normal Heart” (where he got an Olivier Award nomination) as soon as he entered the stage. I haven’t actually seen him that often, but every time I see him I get the impression that I have seen just a fraction of what is there to see. This impression got still stronger this time as he is such an incredible presence on the stage already without doing anything that an accomplished actor cannot do with one hand tied behind his back. He is definitely still on the list of actors of whom I want to see much more in the future … 

As to the “Bake-Off”: It wasn’t daft at all. I thoroughly enjoyed myself watching the clever, funny and incredibly accomplished performances. And I liked it that, at the end, we don’t get to know who wins. Of course, winning is an important issue, but the outcome made me realize that it is not why “we” are watching it. It is, in fact, the little things, the comedy and tragedy of NORMAL life – instead of the great tragedy of the stage and the world that we do everything we can to stay clear of. – So, this rounded it all off really well.      

How I get into bed with books

Ever heard of “Blue Monday”? Weirdly, I hadn’t until this week when Deutschlandfunk introduced me to the phenomenon round five on Monday morning, and I thought: THAT is me, today! There was no special indication of its being the “worst day of the year” – as I wasn’t particularly low in money nor spirits – though depressingly high in weight – had had a nice Sunday out seeing a very special film (“The Banshees of Inisherin”) and – most importantly – had even acted upon an unusually clear perception about what was to be the most important thing to be done in the new year … Nonetheless I found myself on this pinpoint of depression where the world just looks EXACTLY as it is. About half an hour later, though, apparently acting on inverse motivation, I discovered that THIS was going to be a splendid day. Walking to work, I pointedly noticed the change in the weather. (No longer torrential, but finally colder.) And I noticed and enjoyed my determination to take things head on even before I had started to do so. When I did act on it, though, I got instant gratification out of the most inconsequential success – like being able to buy adhesive foil to mend my well-worn Cornwell paperbacks in an ACTUAL shop, just a stone’s throw away from where I work, instead of having to order it on Amazon … 

This is going nowhere, but I had to get into twenty-three mode before being able to write anything. And the only thing I already know about twenty-three is that it will be full of surprises. (Which is basically good.) Meanwhile I know I am not back from my excursion into the real world. And I won’t be anytime soon. Another thing I expect for twenty-three is that it will be first and foremost about the real world. (Which is a pity.)

But I must admit that the world of fiction had dried up a while ago, and I had ended up watching TV series just for the sake of watching. A month or so ago, I made a list in my head of fictional things I wanted to explore and write about, but nothing came of it. The weekend before this I had a psychological boot-camp, meeting my four siblings for the express purpose of catching-up. Apart from a great Indian restaurant and too much alcohol, it turned out quite tough. Luckily, it doesn’t get tough in our family because of inherent conflicts or people being judgemental – heaven forbid, we are all too nice for this world! - but just having a GLIMPSE of what everybody had gone through in the last years, or well back, because we never did this before but once, was … there is not quite a word for it. Being home again, I decided that this would have to be enough of the “real world” for some time … 

Things in the fictional world have improved slightly since. For one thing, I have been to the cinema quite often round the end of the year, and enjoyed it, though more for the sake of the outing and the atmosphere. In fact, I really remember very few of the films I saw, except for “Bros” – which, despite the bad press, is an extraordinarily beautiful film. (Wonderful acting!) “She Said” was good too, but I had forgotten all about it almost as soon as I had seen it except for being appalled one more time about what had to happen BEFORE anything about what happened got out. It must have been the real world “taking over”? (But now I am remembering, and I have to mention a fabulous female cast. Samantha Morton almost made me cry just because of the matter of fact way she presented her character’s vulnerability.)  

My first film in 2023, “The Banshees of Inisherin”, deserves every bit of the good press and the Golden Globe it got and increases my expectations for a good cinema year 2023. (All the potentially award-winning films the rest of the world has already seen will be in cinemas here in the next two months!😞)  It is definitely not a comedy, though, but had to be something, I suppose, to be eligible to win. “Comedy” probably because, apart from a very sweet donkey and a weird lad, nobody DIES !? It is beautiful, and serious, as in: “to be taken seriously” and actually being about some deep issues about life and relationships we cannot escape, even if we DON’T live on an Island where the faces are always the same and every day is exactly as the day before. Partially funny, true, but ultimately very sad, in a “good”, realistic way. And, last but not least, quite political – in a good way too - and probably more so for the Irish than the rest of the world. But, even though I have given up on Ireland before ever getting into it, I seem to have picked up the essentials … In short, one of these silent, monumental films where every sentence and every emotion rings a hundred percent true. And – what I even liked best! – one has to wait for the very last sentence of the film to get its full impact. 

The best thing about 2023 so far is, though, that I seem finally to be reading again. I mean BOOKS. The realization surprised me because I am used to thinking that I am always reading something. Well, of course I am, and very seldom non-fictional, like my actual favourite by Vivian Dittmar about feelings. One of the important things she writes is that we are usually doing all kinds of things with feelings apart from FEELING them. And this, I noticed, describes my relationship with books quite accurately – at least for some time now. I am never without a book, they are absolutely a part of my daily routine, I am always thinking about them, talking about them, mending them with adhesive foil, downloading them on Audible and transforming them into a format I can listen to offline. Some I actually listen to in the end, and mostly ENJOY having them read to me, usually without really picking up a thing! I am in a constant relationship with some books that I REMEMBER having read, or am planning and looking forward to reading or ordering on Amazon or downloading, or which I have a weird bad conscience about because I have never read them … Actually READING them is something that rarely occurs. (As I just proved once again, it occurs more often with films!) To enjoy having them read to me, trying to follow the plot, or appreciating the writing MIGHT count as reading and might up the count a bit. But it is not really what I mean. Way back, almost every book used to be this beautiful world of its own …

Again, with the beginning of 2023, I noticed a SLIGHT change. Compared to the monumental things I tackled in 2022, my blog in 2023 will probably be about the small things … 

And as, in truth, I have very few ideas about how and why I am getting in bed with books and – equally interesting in certain cases – why I don’t, I’ll approach the subject tentatively, writing about two recent experiences. One thing I discovered I knew only recently, in conversation with my friend, even though it is about writing, not reading, may cover some of this ground. We had seen the film “Emily” and unanimously disliked it – though I’ll always remember that evening because auf the best Indian meal I ever had. When I got home, I remembered that I had seen another recent film about the Brontës on DVD which I knew I hadn’t really understood at the time. I watched it again, and now I understood it because it was exactly the opposite of everything I had disliked about “Emily”. It doesn’t really matter except for the fact that “To walk invisible” really is about WRITING and dealing with text, like actually publishing something, and what a life-changing experience this might entail, not about the FICTIONAL story of a writer that became “Wuthering Heights”. I would never deny that there are probably lots of personal things that got into this novel – usually where we would least suspect it! – but it is DEFINITELY not a novel about Emily Brontë’s LIFE. I’d say: quite the contrary. The important thing was that, for the first time, I could SAY why I am so almost universally annoyed by films about writers. It is because “they” always get it wrong, and most of the time ON PURPOSE! As a dilettante writer I know at least this:

GOOD WRITING doesn’t come out of life, at least not directly. It COMES OUT OF READING. A successful writer endeavours and achieves to RECREATE THE GREAT EXPERIENCES THEY HAD READING. 

Okay, this was my first fictional breakthrough in 2023. Writing follows reading, and there has to be some reading-experience it relates to which might well be to just enjoy text or the way it is written. But this alone, even though entertainment and readability are the parents of countless bestselling novels, is not all. What I am really looking for – and, mostly because of my own inability to “engage”, am not able to get - is this singular and personal experience, the way this book exclusively “messes” with ME.

I’ll start with the case where it DIDN’T happen. More precisely: where it didn’t happen even though I expected it to happen. Most of the time, I don’t expect to really read what I am reading, and this is okay. But sometimes I definitely do, especially when somebody I am taking seriously as a reader recommended it to me. And then I want to know why nothing happened. This applied to “The Reading List” (by Sara Nisha Adams). There isn’t much to tell because nothing happened, but, even though I didn’t really find it interesting, I might have enjoyed the book the way I totally enjoyed “The Jane Austen Society”, which is a stupid book about inauthentic people with uninteresting predicaments but with a rather original, clever plot. In this respect, “The Reading List” is rather alike, at least in my estimation, but I didn’t enjoy the book, it totally PUT ME OFF. Maybe it is just a nicer experience to have this kind of book expertly read to me than reading it myself? But this is not all. I totally loved “The Jane Austen Society” and listened to it three or four times because it made me feel good, and was totally annoyed with “The Reading List” without knowing why. Maybe because the latter is “pretentious” – actually pretending to be about something, to be “deep” – whereas “The Jane Austen Society” doesn’t pretend to be anything else but entertainment? – Be this as it may, for some reason it ANTAGONIZED me. I didn’t like the characters, or couldn’t “get them out of the pages”, for no sufficient reason … 

No answers here. If I really read something I like, though, I usually know why. My first relevant fictional experience of 2023 – uncharacteristically - was about a book. And I don’t remember something that intense since Sally Rooney – which might have been in 2022, but I am afraid it was more like 21. This recent one was about Stephen Fry’s first novel “The Hippopotamus”. It was a random find, not something I ever intended to read, but, on one of my recent trips to the “Museum” cinema, I stumbled on a very small bookshop with a substantial choice of English books, and I spontaneously picked Stephen Fry’s “Mythos”. I read the first few pages and liked it, and as my sister had seen me reading it, she got me “The Hippopotamus” as a Christmas present. I decided to leave “Mythos” and read this first, but couldn’t get into it. As I always do, especially if something was given or recommended to me, I read it through, but I never stopped thinking: Why am I wasting my time, following the ramblings of this old-fashioned, grumpy fart of a narrator and a plot that doesn’t seem to be getting anywhere? Other people might find this entertaining, but I HATE books that are about somebody proving how bad, clever, world-weary and erudite they are, and who think that every burp their brain produces is worth hearing …

The interesting and singular quality of this reading experience was the sudden and complete reversal of EVERYTHING I had read towards the end of the book, which had never before occurred in this way. I had picked up that it was some kind of unbloody “mystery” but presumed that this was just a pretext for limitless incontinent rambling about what the world has come to. Pretty close to the end, though, it becomes suddenly apparent that “we” have been fooled about EVERYTHING, and the success of this book WITH ME actually depended on MY OWN capacity for being fooled in this way, of having taken up EVERY prejudice about people the author evoked, every false lead, having followed him into every dead alley … Surprisingly, this didn’t put me off. On the contrary: I was thrilled and totally loved the book and Stephen Fry for showing me in such a singularly clever way how stupid I had been. Now I am reading it again – aloud! – to fully appreciate the brilliant writing which I couldn’t enjoy the least bit, being constantly annoyed. The writing’s dead good. Where “The Reading List” had the bland taste of a plain wafer, this is red wine and black chocolate … 

There is one conclusion at least I can draw about me as a reader and, consequentially, the two books I had been reading. I actually MIND my intelligence being insulted, and this, apart from getting bored, is the one thing I don’t forgive. (As my Stephen Fry experience proves, I quite easily forgive political incorrectness – which annoys me only as long as I cannot see the point.) As I think I had been READING “The Reading List” – not done anything else with it! – I conclude that it actually is a STUPID book with a clever plot and characters who just had the misfortune of being in a stupid book, by no major fault of their own. (In this case I even REGRETTED that I was unable to empathize with any of them because I actually might have in real life. As it often is with mediocre novels: it might work better as a film!)

What makes the book stupid is probably just the fact that it inadvertently insulted my intelligence by not being, just in some respect, CLEVERER than I am. This, and the Stephen Fry success, makes me remember something I knew from childhood about me and books but seem to have buried. Especially at an earlier age, books had been my entry into a more adult, more intelligent world with fewer limits; a world of superior brains and deeper knowledge and experience about life and literature and so on than I encountered in my own environment. And, more than I thought, they still are. It still happens often enough, but Stephen Fry kind of buried my nose in the reassuring experience that I can still fall spectacularly off my judgemental high horse and find out that I don’t know anything at all. And that I should try to have this experience more often.

 

NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS (apart from the ongoing issue of losing two kilos …): 

Continue “liaising” with my siblings

Finally get to the Westend and see some of these amazing new productions 

READ more books …

The P-Word

 

It seems that I am on a lengthy trip away from the fictional world. But as it is about a crucial „discovery“ about myself, it is not out of place here, though it feels weird in English and in this environment. But the fictional world is where my „real me“ usually exercises itself.

One other thing first: I made up my mind if I like “Geneva”. I do, obviously, because I enjoyed listening to it – significantly more than to most of the Audible thrillers I downloaded! – and not JUST because of Nicola Walker. Not because it really is a good thriller – even though it is more “thrilling” than some of the Audible books I have downloaded as well. It is not a good thriller, though – in MY book! – because it has two of the “shortcomings” I mind the most in this kind of novel. The first is to start with a scene that happens after the beginning of the main plot and where you don’t know what’s happening or which person it is about. I mind because it is purposefully misleading, but it is certainly a favoured kind of beginning, therefore people who REALLY like thrillers must LIKE to be misled? In this case, though, the scene at the beginning doesn’t even really match the scene at the end of the book it relates to, and this is a no-go! That something like this happens - and I am sure this is not my first experience of this kind - shows me that people never read these books twice. (As I do and probably shouldn’t.) But I am sure I will listen to it a third time at least, for a different reason. The second thing that I hate about thrillers and crime novels is when we experience part of the story from the perspective of one of the protagonists and when there are crucial things about this person we cannot know because it is part of the plot and the suspense that their real character or plans are not disclosed until later. This is the case with the husband, Daniel. In this constellation it cannot be avoided that characters are lying to themselves, or disguising their own mind, in a way that is not convincing. There are parts where it is convincing that Daniel is lying to himself, but there are lots of bits that are irritating and just don’t add up. To empathize with his wife because of something HE has done to her – and planning to kill her at the same time! - is taking it two steps too far, in my opinion. (Again, this might be more acceptable if you read the book only once!)

The main reason why I absolutely enjoyed listening to the text, and will certainly listen to it again sometime, is the writing. It is beautifully written, and I totally like the “writing voice” of Richard Armitage (– which shouldn’t surprise me, but somehow did.) There is always something like music in good prose writing – which is why I love to read books to myself aloud to listen to it – and the “music” of this book is beautiful. And – this is difficult to express, even though it is what I find most important in prose writing – the imagination and the writing are extremely “close together”. He always finds the right words to express the imagined scene, state of mind, environment etc – sometimes very original and surprising without being overly sophisticated, so that neither the “dead” commonplace nor the obvious act of imagination comes between the reader and their object. Strange that I never really thought about this, but it is what I most appreciate in prose writing. When I was writing myself, I always noticed when I had reached this point and totally enjoyed it because then I knew that the writing was authentic and I knew what I was doing, and could lean back and enjoy the text “writing itself”. I find it interesting that I can make such a clear distinction between the quality of the book as a (classic) thriller and “as a book”, but, when I think about it, not really surprising. From my perspective, a thriller or a love story or whatever kind of conventional form of fiction is just an “excuse” for good writing or good reading. And this was some of the best I had this year.  

Now to the less enjoyable and more demanding matter: I put “discovery” in inverted commas because I always knew. I always knew, but somehow nobody else did. Even if I had wanted to, I couldn’t have told them because I didn’t have the right word for it. So, the discovery was about a WORD – which I already knew as well, as everybody else does. I just didn’t know that it applies to me.

I must have known since 1987 – at the latest! – when my father died in an accident, and when I HAD to ask myself why I didn’t feel what I was SUPPOSED to feel. That is, I felt NOTHING.

I didn’t do anything about it at the time but began to live with the knowledge of a difference, kind of excusing myself with the thought that I probably had too many problems of my own (!!!) to deal with. This might have been so, but it is NOT an answer to the question! 

Then – it will be ten years next year – my life’s path went round a bend, and I figured out how to be happy for the first time in my life. In retrospect it was mainly to get out of my hole and somehow KEEP MOVING. That suddenly made all my problems go away. But of course they didn’t really disappear. I think being marooned in Covid kind of made them come creeping back. Things that hadn’t been dealt with which I knew would affect me sooner or later and make my life shit. And then, of course, there is old age …

So, quite suddenly, I find myself expelled from my land of bliss, right in the middle of dealing with shit. I wrote in my last post that 2022 is a shit year, which was even more accurate than I knew then, but doesn’t necessarily mean that it is a BAD year. DEALING with shit – even when it is not hugely successful - reduces fear and may even be rewarding. Mike Thyson – usually not a role model! – said that you have to try to do the things you hate as if you loved them. It‘s a bit like „laugh and you‘ll feel better“, just more decisive. At the moment, this strikes me as the direction I have to take … 

My great role model was recently made a „Doctor of Lettuce“ by Leicester University and gave an amazing speech which was very personal, as I would have expected. At the end he said something he particularly singled out as personal experience, and I was absurdly pleased because I thought: This is what I KNEW he would say (but maybe hadn’t been prepared to say until then?) He said that the only thing you can control (about your life as a public person) is your reputation. Therefore always show people the best version of yourself. (And if others do something you like, always cheer them, because then they will do the same for you.) Somehow I don’t think that most people I know would have appreciated this advice as much as I did. But why did it feel so important?

Another question added that will hopefully be disentangled at the end of this. 

The next enormously helpful thing was a question I got about myself that was nagging me because I felt it was important and I couldn’t answer it. I should have known the answer because it is a life question, like the first one about my feelings, and is clearly linked to it. It was my friend asking me why I always thought that I was DIFFERENT. I think I reacted kind of annoyed, like: Why would I even WANT to be NORMAL? But people always think of other people as normal and treat them as normal, as long as they act normal, and why should they know or care about the difference? But in some cases, absurdly, to FEEL NORMAL ABOUT YOUSELF you have to deal with the difference.

There is a tangle of small events, and trying to disentangle it somehow brought me an enormous step forward. It is probably not important at which end the disentangling began. But there were two or three things still, at least. The most important of all, the one that kind of drew all the rest towards it and coerced me to finally tackle the issue, was that I went to a therapist for the first time in my life – not about myself but together with my youngest sister because of a problem in the family. (One of the things I knew I would hate but had to do as if I loved them …) I was better prepared than I thought because my other sister has had therapy lately, for burn-out, and she made really good use of it to effect decisive changes in her life. I was very impressed by it and made time to meet her and talk with her several times. So I already had adopted the position that I had to look at myself as part of the problem. Still, I was annoyed about the lack of progress. I had no clearer view of what I should do, but, in retrospect, the question I had had in the beginning had changed slightly from: „Why am so totally UNABLE to talk about this problem?“ to: „Why am I so totally UNWILLING to talk about this problem?“ And I think this slight shift caused an avalanche … 

This still doesn’t make a lot of sense, but I hope it will when I add the last bit of the puzzle. Which was that I read a newspaper article about „everyday psychopaths“. How to deal with the situation when your boss is a psychopath, and so on. I tend not to take psychology seriously because of Freud. How can a science be right about anything if it is based on faulty premises? But psychology has moved far beyond Freud, and not ignoring it might have saved me a long detour. On the other hand, a long detour might have been exactly what I needed to catch up with myself.

PSYCHOPATHS 

Quite often fiction is a great shortcut to really complicated psychological problems. Sometimes it really isn’t. We think we know what a psychopath is because „we“ have met them in horrid thrillers where they kill and mutilate dozens of people just for the fun of it. Everybody loves a psychopath! - Being a psychopath myself, I must say: THIS is not helpful. Theoretically, everybody knows that this kind of psychopathic murderers are an evanescent minority that only becomes visible because of the enormity of their crimes. On the other hand, everybody knows at least one psychopath and hates them, especially if they are somebody in their own family or at work above them in the hierarchy. Psychopaths without power over other people, like me, tend to go unnoticed. I suspect that people usually know what is wrong with us, but, as long as we function, there is no need to look into it. In fact, not functioning finally became a problem.

WHAT IS A PSYCHOPATH?

In my understanding, a psychopath is somebody who doesn’t feel empathy. No wonder that I was always fascinated with the bit in Richard III where he says:

There is no creature loves me,

and if I die no soul will pity me.

And wherefore should they, since that I myself

Find in myself no pity to myself? 

As with lots of psychological issues, Shakespeare knew all about it.

 

THE „PITY INDICATOR“

Richard III (in Shakespeare!) certainly IS a psychopath, but, obviously, not all of us are like him. If being pitied tends to annoy you, though, or make you furious, and if you seldom or never feel pity for other people – except in a condescending way which isn’t real pity! – you are certainly „on the spectrum“. As I have already pointed out, the term „psychopath“ is misleading and discriminatory, and it might be more to the point to talk of an „empathy disorder“. But there is a reason for me to use the “P-Word”. 

 

PREPARE TO BE HATED!

The question „Why do you always think your are different?“ was so useful to me because I hadn’t really decided if I thought I WAS different or just LIKED to be different instead of normal – as I do in fact as well because I am bored with normality and like people who are different. Maybe not so much in real life where they are often annoying and threaten my routine, but certainly in fiction! And in certain real-life contexts I get extremely interested in people who are „different“ and suffer as a consequence because I find it so unjust … I never realized, though, that this was because of me! 

If you are different, PREPARE to be hated! I was always prepared to be hated just because I KNEW I was different. I mean REALLY - or fundamentally - different, like people with autism or lesbians are different from me because their brain is WIRED DIFFERENTLY. (Of course, in an “every-day” way, everybody is different from everybody else, and it is great that they are.)

On the surface, it was never a problem to be different because nobody really knew it, and even if they disliked me – mostly because I just didn’t care if people liked me, respectively because I didn’t (actively) like them – they had no right to HATE me because my deviation was not visible. UNTIL NOW the empathy disorder has even been more advantageous to me than feeling empathy would have been, in my opinion. As I was lucky to grow up in a healthy and caring environment and, as a passionate reader and amateur writer, became extremely involved with feelings, emotions, moral issues, people’s predicaments and so on, I just LEARNED all the things I NEEDED to learn. Feeling no empathy – I would imagine! – spares me a lot of anxiety, pain and hurt, and – the absolute best about it! – makes me completely immune to emotional manipulation. 

The other good thing is that I never hated myself for being different and am not at all appalled by my „discovery“. I only just realized why. I have always been annoyed and puzzled by the question if people are „born“ good or bad. The question as such is nonsense because “good” or “bad” carry no fixed meaning but are totally context-sensitive. A bad apple is bad because it is rotten, and Hitler or Putin are undoubtedly bad people – because they have caused a lot of devastating hurt to others. So – if you don’t put another context “behind” the question, like a religious one – “good” or “bad” in people can only refer to their ACTIONS, and nobody can be good or bad BEFORE they have done anything. So, nobody is good or bad because of the way they are wired, it might just be more difficult to make something good of your life.

But there are circumstances where being a psychopath really makes things difficult for you. To notice that somebody has a severe and complicated psychological problem and act on it, is an impossible situation for me because it requires genuine empathy, not just the put on one I have learned and that has served me well enough. Besides, only real empathy can provide you with enough motivational energy to see this through. It might not be impossible to get over this impediment because I am good at doing things I hate as if I loved them – if I put my mind to it. (And with my two sisters as “back-up”.)  But this certainly means that I will have to become much more entangled in the real world for a much longer period of time than I want to … Therefore my feeling that this blog might be dying (or changing?) was not unfounded. 

To end this on a positive note, I am getting back to the „doctor speech“. Of course this is a very subjective interpretation – it is expressly about MY OWN truth! – but I liked it so much BECAUSE the positive personal experience sits on top of a very dark one. Everybody who is „wired differently“ – especially in a way that other people can see if they want to – has to be prepared to be hated. In my case, this kind of remained under the surface because everybody had the choice to ignore the difference – and, as I usually behaved, they usually did. They just didn’t LIKE me. I thought this was alright because I wouldn’t have liked me much either, and, come to that, didn’t like THEM that much. If I did, by accident, I wouldn’t show it. It would have appeared as weakness.  

But this is exactly the problem with being  (fundamentally) different. The moment you find out, you have this feeling about yourself that THE WAY YOU ARE you should rather not exist. And this is such an incisive experience that it will remain there, buried in your system. That is how you know! And to LIVE in this way, just accepting the knowledge and trudging on – IF you want a good life! - is definitely not the path to take!

There are better ways. One frequently trodden path is to do everything so well and be so great that everybody admires you and will forget that you are different. I always was fascinated by perfectionists but somehow always knew: this is not for me. Probably just because I am too lazy to try and be perfect, but there is a slight but important difference to what Richard Armitage was saying. Being a perfectionist has a distinct anti-social aspect. It is just about yourself being better than anybody else and shine so much that nobody can touch you. Perfectionists are admired but not liked. There is a bit of this in always showing the best version of yourself because it can become an armour. And as a public person you NEED an armour. I don’t, but I believe I liked the advice so much because I was already following it. Showing people the best version of myself is also ABOUT MYSELF. It is the obvious way of BECOMING the best version of myself, which is rewarding, and it is also the best I can do as a social being because my best moral qualities will become effective. In my opinion, this is exactly how we fulfill our purpose as a human being.