I love you Mum. My awareness of you, and my awareness of the lack of you, ebbs and flows with time. But you are always there, like the moon pulling at the tides. So what the hell is this expansion and contraction? One second is one second, right? A minute is a minute. And a year is supposed to be a year. So, how is it possible that five years have passed since the day you died? Five whole years?? I was 47 years old, but I can’t remember anything about being 47, except that’s how old I was when you died. In some ways it feels like time stopped at that moment. Except it wasn’t time at all, it was you. You stopped. Existing. In the present tense, anyway. You just froze in time. And the last message you ever sent me will always be the last message you ever sent me.
The last message.
But still, I talk to you. As if you were here. Or there. Or somewhere. Not in fully formed sentences, but more like fragmented thoughts. Like I wish, I wonder, I’m sorry, I love you. Half-formed ideas that stick in my throat, and in my heart. Because the second they start forming, I realise there’s nowhere for them to go. So they abort. They reject. They miscarry, but still, I talk to you. It hurts Mum. It really fucking hurts. But it’s OK, I let it hurt. I want it to hurt. Because hurting is better than not hurting. But sometimes the pain of missing you is so bad, that I can’t help but cry. And the crying helps, so I sob. I crumple, and I sob my fucking heart out. And the oxytocin floods my body and I feel a little bit better. But the pain doesn’t actually go away. The pain is still there, and you are still gone.
I was clueless. I didn’t know, I honestly didn’t know that I would experience it so painfully. You were so unwell, and your life seemed so stripped of joy towards the end. I had brief, guilty, cavalier thoughts that perhaps death would be a kind of blessing for you. Fuck, I actually thought that. I thought it might be better. I had no idea.
I’ve thought about you a lot over the last five years. I’ve wondered a lot of things that I will never know because you’re no longer here to tell me. I wonder what you would think if you saw your beautiful rings on my fingers. The very same rings that you wore every day, and that were a part of you. I wear them now, every day, with love and pride. Would you think it was weird to see your rings on someone else’s fingers? I wonder if I could have done more to make you feel important. I wonder how you would have coped with covid. With all the lockdowns. I wonder if you knew exactly how stunning your smile was. And I wish you knew how much I love it when people tell me I look like you. I wonder what happened that day in 2012 when you left your dirty jeans in the laundry hamper in your bedroom in the house in Greece, and then just flew back home to Melbourne for the last time. How could you know that you would never go back? That you would never see your jeans again. Or your sister. How could you know that eleven years later I would pull your jeans out, with the worst feeling of finality that I’ve ever felt in my life?
Sisters ♥
I wish I could hold your beautiful face in my hands and tell you how much I love every line, every wrinkle. Every sign of a full and spirited life. I wish I could tell you how desperately I miss you. I wish you’d known that you were so adored that your absence has created a massive black hole in my heart. I wish you could tell me how I’m supposed to go from a life enveloped by your love, to a life devoid of it? Because, when you were alive, no matter where I was I was bathed in pure and unconditional love. How do I go from that, to suddenly having it ripped away from me without any fucking warning, without any kind of preparation? I’m still grappling with that. I know that you never truly appreciated how important you were, and how much of an impact you had on people’s lives, but you were an extraordinary woman and you still are the most extraordinary woman I’ve ever known. I wish I had told you that more often. I wish I’d made sure that you knew it. That’s a regret, because I’m not sure that you did know. I’m not sure that I did convey it well enough. And now it’s too late.
I wonder about your collection of beautiful rocks and crystals, which I had to arm-wrestle Mary and Pieta for when the three of us went through all your things. I had to give up some pretty good shit for the honour of claiming them as mine. I wish I could ask you where you got them from. Each and every one seems like it must have a story behind it. I wish I knew what they meant to you.
Each one a geological marvel, each one part of my mother’s story
I wish I’d spent more time with you. I wish I’d talked to you more. I wish I had been more affectionate. I wish that we had listened to more music together. I wish we’d gotten high together. Danced together. I wish I knew the recipe for your rice pudding. I wish I had made you laugh more. I wish I hadn’t been so dismissive. I wish you could hear me speaking Greek. I’m getting so good at it, and you’d be so proud of me. I’m taking online lessons with a gorgeous woman from Piraeus called Marilena, and we’ve become such good friends. Her personality reminds me so much of you. I wonder if you knew that life is a circle. Μακάρι να μπορούσαμε οι δυο μας να κουβεντιάσουμε στα ελληνικά. I wish I’d bought you a better mobile phone. I wish that neither of us had to deal with our feelings of social anxiety alone. I wish you didn’t have to worry so much about money. I wish you’d had more joy in your life. More than anyone I’ve ever known, you deserved more joy. I wonder if you know where my purple dress is? The beautiful one I made when I took up sewing after Dad died? I can’t find it and I don’t know where it’s gone. I’m sorry that David and I had a big fight in front of you a month before you died. I’m sorry I didn’t listen when you told me what you wanted, and when you told me what you didn’t want. I’m sorry I took you for granted.
Life is a circle
I wish you’d used your mobile phone to call an ambulance when the landline wasn’t working. I wish you’d pressed your medical alert. I wish you’d gone to the neighbour’s house before sunrise. I wish you’d knocked on their door and woken them up in the middle of the night. I wish you’d bashed their door down. I’m sorry I wasn’t there in the hospital with you, with Mary and Pieta. I’m sorry I wasn’t there when you died. I’m sorry I didn’t have the chance to say goodbye to you. I wish we could have heard each other’s voices, just one more time. I wish I could have told you that I love you. I wish you’d known that I was there with you. I wish you knew that you are always here with me.
My father died 20 years ago today. His death fucked me up pretty good. Actually, his illness didn’t do a bad job of fucking me up either. Watching him deteriorate from a strong and vital man into a shell of a human being, someone I barely recognised, sent me plummeting into the deepest and darkest depression I’ve ever experienced. The ten months of his illness were agonising, and the months afterwards were very much worse.
Until my father died, work was a source of great comfort for me. A place I could escape the gnawing torment of his decline. A place of relief from the anguish. I was working as a junior air traffic controller at Moorabbin, which is a busy airport full of training aircraft. It’s chaos. Delving into work, my focus was laser sharp and blinkered, all the better to not allow any thoughts of my father to seep into my consciousness. I was depressed, yes, but I was functional. In stark contrast, after Dad died, I became catatonic. I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t do anything. And I certainly couldn’t work.
I was off work for three months, and spent all that time at our family home with my Mum and sisters. I slept in the living room on a foam mattress which I made up every night, and packed away every morning. Sleep was elusive; my head filled with swirling memories and jagged thoughts that were so painful I would just sob into my pillow for hours. I was eventually prescribed sweet, merciful Temazepam to help with the debilitating insomnia, which was a life buoy thrown to me when I was drowning in a tempestuous sea of grief. My waking hours were spent staring into space. Aimlessly shuffling from room to room. I was completely numb and I don’t remember much from that time. I lost a lot of weight. I rarely left the house. I cut myself off from all my friends. My father’s death knocked me out. It was a king-hit that took me more than 18 months to emerge from.
My mother never resurfaced from her loss. When Dad died, a very large part of her did as well. She never stopped loving him with all her heart, and she stubbornly refused to live a full life without him. To my Mum, Kon’s ashes embodied his soul, and until the day she died she kept a lit candle beside his urn on the mantelpiece in the living room. She said goodbye to him when she left the house, and hello when she returned. Goodnight when she went to bed, and good morning when she woke up. It was her way of staying connected to him, even though he was gone. It was her way of keeping him alive, and that gave her comfort.
My mother’s death hit me very differently. Firstly, even though I knew she was sick, I didn’t know that she was at death’s door, so I was totally unprepared. Secondly, she was my mother, not my father. And thirdly, after Dad died, I still had my Mum around for another 15 years. But when she died too, suddenly they were both gone and I experienced not just the loss of a very important person in my life, but the loss of my roots, my anchor, my family unit, and my very foundation. And the loss was profound. I didn’t get depressed, like when Dad died. Instead I succumbed to an extreme and overpowering sadness, the depth of which I could never have imagined possible. The sadness that I felt was not normal. My whole life leading up to this event, sadness was a room on the ground floor. Maybe when things got really bad, it went down to the basement. But suddenly, when my Mum died, I realised that it was not the lowest, or the worst, that I could feel. I learned that there were twenty cavernous levels below the earth that could fill up and overflow with my sadness. It’s like when people say you don’t know how much love you can truly feel until you have a baby. Well, maybe you don’t know how much sadness you can feel until you lose your mother.
I’ve spent the last four and a half years since my mother’s death fiercely grieving her. I miss her deeply and still sometimes cry myself to sleep when it just hits me in the chest that she’s gone and that she’s never coming back. I think of her every single day. I see her picture on my bedroom wall every single day. And every single day something reminds me of her, and I’ll say emphatically, “I love my Mum”. Because I really fucking do.
Conversely, in the last four and a half years, I have hardly thought about my Dad at all. Deplorably, I haven’t had any room in my heart for him. And I feel so incredibly guilty that the all-consuming grief I feel for Mum has completely supplanted the grief that I was holding for my Dad. And of course, intellectually and emotionally, I know (I know!) that I still love my father and I know that I miss him and I know that I grieve for him. And of course it’s not a competition about who I love or miss the most. But I am grateful that this, twentieth anniversary of his passing, is an opportunity for me to once again focus on my Dad, and to once again make some room for him in my heart where he belongs.
My parents were very different people, and had very different parenting styles. My Mum was all heart, loving, open and warm. My Dad was more outgoing and filled the room with his personality… which could sometimes be a lot. He had been raised in a household where the man was in charge, the man was the be-all and end-all, the man wore the pants and the man had the last word. My Dad’s gentle nature prevented him from becoming the kind of authoritarian parent that his own father was, but still he could be pretty strict and uncompromising, especially when my sisters and I were teens. I think that when his three daughters started growing up, it triggered an internal clash between his easy-going personality and the stern parental conditioning he’d grown up with. And this started causing a rift in our family. Being the first born child, being the one for whom rebellion simply wasn’t an option, I accepted all the rules. I was the good girl. And I’m grateful to both of my sisters, for being significantly more ballsy than I was and smashing down the barriers that had been put around us. I’m grateful because, even though it caused a great deal of heartbreak and strife and tension in the house at the time, it was the catalyst for our father to change. As a parent, and as a man.
I have to give my Dad props for being able to shed generations of toxic masculinity, and to look inwards and realise that he no longer had to be so overprotective and controlling of his daughters. He understood that if he didn’t make changes within himself, he was at risk of pushing us away, or even losing us completely. And he changed. He just did it. He softened, he became more accepting, and he became more affectionate and open and loving. He became more himself. It was a truly remarkable transformation. Over the years, my relationship to my Dad evolved from worship, to reverence, to fear, to shame, to disrespect, to ambivalence. And then I went back, and I got to know him as a person, as a human being. And I started loving him again. And finally, at the end, after all that, we were friends. I’m so grateful that we had the opportunity to complete that circle while he was still alive.
I have so many beautiful memories of my extravagant and irrepressible father, whose extraordinary zest for life left an impression on everyone who knew him. Even though it may seem trivial, a memory that I hold very dearly is of how gentle my Dad was when he put my hair up in a ponytail when I was a kid. As opposed to my Mum’s confident and efficient method of whisking my hair up and quickly twisting the hair-tie around the ponytail, my entire head fit into my Dad’s enormous hands as he tenderly stroked my hair, trying so hard to not pull even a single one as he lovingly gathered it up on top of my head. And I knew, I just knew, even then, as a five, or six, or seven year old, that it was a special moment between us. I cherished that moment when I was a kid. And I cherish it now.
One family story that became legend over the years demonstrates how meticulous and fastidious Dad was about certain things. He always took such great pride in the way that he looked, and in particular the clothes that he wore. His sisters, Dimitra and Sophia, recently recalled the story for me, setting the scene at a large family dinner. Dad, Mum, aunts and uncles and friends of the family were all there, gathered around the table. Someone was carving and serving a large roast chicken, and a few droplets of gravy splashed onto my Dad’s shirt. As was his wont, he became very upset. Everyone there was accustomed to witnessing Dad’s over-the-top reactions whenever he got even a minor stain on his clothes. But this time, apparently, he became so melodramatic about it that my Aunt Sophia (who was up to here with Dad’s histrionics) lost her patience, and lost the plot. Wild-eyed, she pushed her chair back, walked around the table to where my Dad was sitting, grabbed the chicken drumstick off his plate and furiously started rubbing it all over his shirt, yelling, “It’s just a fucking stain, Kon!!!” As you can imagine, everyone was so shocked at the unexpected insanity of the moment, they all burst into laughter. Everyone, that is, except my Dad, who sat frozen like a statue, staring straight ahead with a stony look on his face.
Hello police, I’m dressed to kill and I’d like to report a murder.
Thinking back, I remember lots of stories from my Dad’s youth. Like the time a tree he was standing right next to was struck by lightning. Knocked out by the impact, my father lost his sight and couldn’t see for hours afterwards. When his eyesight returned, he went back to the tree, which had been cleaved in two, and found a stunning gemstone in the cradle of the split trunk. The stone was a brilliant azure blue, and I remember seeing it and holding it and being in awe of it when I was a kid. My Dad treasured that gemstone, and I wish with all my heart that I knew where it was.
My father’s family were so poor that his parents couldn’t afford to feed all six of their children, so when my Dad was 17 years old, a deal was struck to foster him out to some neighbours, a rich family that lived just down the road. Until then, my father had never even worn a pair of shoes. So the pride that he took in his clothes later on in life makes total sense to me. The couple that “adopted” my Dad were in their sixties and didn’t have any children, but they promised to secure him financially and to love him like their own. The first few months went smoothly, and Dad helped them on their farm and generally did whatever was needed around the house. He even used to drive the couple to church every week. In a village where most families couldn’t even afford a bicycle, this was a big deal.
After a while though, the couple started talking about weddings, suggesting that Kon marry their niece, but he wasn’t interested. So the old guy started imposing a curfew, saying that my Dad (who was 19 years old by that time) had to be home by 10pm on Saturdays. Obviously this was total bullshit and Kon justifiably stayed out until the wee hours of the morning that first weekend. He did the same the weekend after. And on the third weekend in a row that he came home late, he found the door to the house locked. And that was it, that was the end of the deal. That Sunday morning, his younger brothers and sisters woke up to find Kon sleeping on the floor next to their beds, and the whole family rejoiced that he was finally back where he belonged.
Beloved siblings (Back row: Roula, Kon & Christos and Front row: Stavros, Sophia & Dimitra)
Kon Stathopoulos was a singularly brilliant man. He pulled himself out of abject poverty in Greece, and created a whole new life for himself in Australia. He completely rewrote his destiny. My Dad was a dreamer and a big thinker! Sure, he drove trucks, and then later taxis, but my Dad was too big to be a taxi driver forever. He worked some shitty jobs to make ends meet, but in his spare time he was an enthusiastic entrepreneur. Bow ties, light up yo-yos, silver screens for cars, decorative ceramic tiles. He tried a whole bunch of innovative business ideas before finally starting his own company, Plastercraft Contractors.
A one-man show, my Dad took solid plastering to the next level, turning it into an artform. Within just a couple of years he had built such a great reputation in the industry that he was asked to singlehandedly restore the exterior of a large church in Ballarat. He was also commissioned to create a new plaster cast emblem for the Red Eagle Hotel, in Albert Park, the very same bar where Kylie Minogue had her 21st birthday party!!! He then landed the extremely exclusive job of re-designing and building the beautiful and iconic fountain at Government House in Victoria. Every year on 26th January, Government House opens its doors to the public, and thousands of people get a chance to peek inside the stately home and to roam through the gardens. There are also monthly tours of the 11 hectare garden which anyone can book, so why not go along on one of these tours and see for yourselves the amazing sculptural achievement created by my very own father.
The construction phase.
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The standing ovation phase.
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The current phase.
Later on, due to the success of his business Dad expanded into larger scale projects like apartment building construction sites. He often invited me to join him and earn a little bit of extra cash, and I once hit the jackpot, making $400 in one week being an elevator girl, asking big burly construction workers wearing hardhats, “Which floor?” for eight hours a day. It was here that I first saw the man that my father had to be when he wasn’t with his family. For the first time, I heard him casually throwing around words like, “fair dinkum”, “bloke”, “smoko”, and I even heard him say “fuck” a few times. My brain exploded. As a 21 year old I’d never heard my Dad swear at home, yet here he was cursing with such ease and regularity. It was surprising, but also kind of nice, to discover this other side of Dad that I’d never seen before. It added yet another dimension to him.
My Dad left his mark on some pretty important buildings, but his passion project was building a holiday home for our family in Ancient Korinthos, in Greece. The construction took him several years, and was (mostly) finished just before he was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2002. His dream was for the five of us to holiday there, as a family. But tragically, he never lived to see that happen. The house is still there, an empty monument to one man’s vision.
Mum and Dad hard at work. Literally building their dream home.
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The dream. With Greece’s only Hill’s Hoist.
I have a cute little blue urn on my bedside table, which holds a little bit of my Mum’s ashes and a little bit of my Dad’s ashes all mixed together. I thought that having my parents close to me when I sleep would provide me with some sense of closeness to them, like my Mum used to get from having Dad’s ashes near to her. But I was wrong. I get nothing from it, except an academic understanding that my Mum and Dad’s cremated remains are next to me when I’m in bed. I have no response to it at all, emotionally. Sometimes I’ll shake the urn, and listen to their bone fragments rattling inside. I know what’s in there, I know that it’s them, but even so, there’s no connection to who they were when they were alive. I wish there was.
Hello Mum and Dad, it’s me, Chryss.
My Dad really shaped the first 32 years of my life. His first job in Melbourne was in the inner-city suburb of Carlton. So naturally my father was a Bluebagger. Therefore I am a Bluebagger. Dad inspired my love of tennis, and I played competitively for years, even aspiring to turn professional when I was sixteen. He taught me all the tricks of how to play a solid game of backgammon. When I was 15, he taught me how to drive a manual in a rusty old Land Rover on a hilly farm with no roads. And once I’d mastered that, he took me to an abandoned industrial estate in Springvale to learn how to drive his crappy work van. The one with the dodgy clutch and the sticky column shift. And once I could drive that, I could drive anything. I’m pretty sure that the reason I love to throw epic parties (and I really do love to throw epic parties) is because I inherited my Dad’s passion for entertaining, and showing people a good time, and living large. It’s funny, what gets passed down from father to child. Being a sports fan can be one of those things. Wanting things to be just right, might be another. A house in Greece, another still. But maybe a zest for life and knowing how to dream big are the most important things a man can pass on to his daughter. Thanks Dad.
Do you place any meaning in life, either for you or for our species, and what philosophy do you apply to living your life? Funnily enough, I do have some Words With Chryss® brand ideas of what life is about. What it means to be alive, why we are here. And what happens when we die. My philosophy about life (and death) has evolved in recent years, and is still evolving. An ongoing search for my life’s “purpose” has led me to much introspection and internal deep-diving. It has guided me towards meditation, therapy, yoga and lots of reading and learning. And all of that has led me to the basic conclusion that life is a bizarre phenomenon that we cannot explain using the information that we are in currently in possession of. Which goes some way towards explaining why the idea of a god that actually gives a shit about people has gained so much traction over the millennia. So, god. A fantastic being that isn’t just omniscient and omnipresent, but also (cue fireworks and harpsichords) omnipotent as well. Seems a little convenient, don’t it? Look, I just don’t buy into all that jazz. It feels nonsensical to me, and in the absence of any evidence, I’m happy to risk eternal damnation for my disbelief.
But hey, speaking of atheism, have you ever thought very deeply about something and formed a belief structure around your efforts only to discover that an olde worlde Dutch philosopher by the name of Bucher Spinoza came up with the same idea almost four hundred years ago? LOL, me too. Of course there are huge differences in the complexity of our ideas – mostly because he spent his entire life in deep, critical thought and I spend all my free time binging Netflix. And yet… we still somehow landed on the same idea. That the closest thing to “god” in physical, scientific reality is the universe that surrounds us. The universe that is a part of us, and that we are a part of.
When people think of the universe they think of galaxies and stars and black holes and the big bang and dark matter. But everything on earth is composed of elements of the universe that existed billions of years ago. We are literally all made of stardust. If I did believe in a god, that would be it. And I don’t mean to brag, but Einstein was totes on the same page. He famously said, “I believe in Spinoza’s God, who reveals himself in the lawful harmony of all that exists, but not in a God who concerns himself with the fate and the doings of mankind.”
Everything that exists in the universe, everything, is a part of the universe. Including us. I think that sometimes we tend to identify as observers of the universe, rather than understanding that we are inextricably woven into its fabric. Personally, I subscribe to the notion that human beings are expressions of the universe, and that the minutiae of our lives are absolutely irrelevant, serving only as distractions to our attention. I believe that the true purpose of our existence is to shrug off those distractions in order to focus our attention on the present moment, and to be fully aware of ourselves and our own awareness. And… to simply release everything else. What do I mean by “distraction”? I mean breaking your favourite mug, being hungover, your car breaking down, people gossiping about you, failing an exam, being bullied, running late, overdue bills, headaches, pulling a muscle at the gym, an argument with your partner, being overlooked for a promotion or getting mugged. And if you want to level up, distractions can also include divorce, cancer, or being thrown in jail and tortured for your political beliefs. I mean, sure, that’s some Mt. Everest shrugging, but it is possible.
I believe that the universe breathes life into us, in the form of energy flowing through us. And I believe that we die when that energy ceases to flow. For the most part people tend to live their lives in a kind of weird denial of the fact that we are only here for a finite time. Which is a shame because far from being a morbid preoccupation to think of your own death, it can actually serve to crystallise the fact that this moment (in potentially being your last) can be transformed into something extraordinary.
How would I see the world around me, the room around me, the people around me, if I knew that my next breath would be my last. I honestly think that right now, I could take a deep breath and look around and feel happy, knowing that I’ve lived an amazing, textured life. Knowing that I’ve lived true to myself. Knowing that I’ve been loved. Knowing that I’ve loved others, and loved myself. And even if I weren’t ready to die, if I did know that it was coming, I would be grateful for everything that came before. Every moment is a beautiful gift. And the gift is that we are here to receive it. The gift is that we are here to experience it. And I’ll say it again, because it bears repeating: the gift is that you are here.
What do I think happens to us after we die? I think that’s it. The end. Lights out. We return to the place we were before we were born. We return to oblivion. Darkness. Nothingness. We simply cease to exist. And after a significant amount of time passes, even the memory of us will disappear. Nothing of us remains. The universe is vast, it is powerful, it is everywhere, it is everything. It is old. It is beautiful. The universe is us, and we are the universe.
What do you dream of achieving? Transcendence. That may seem like a flippant answer, but I promise you it’s not. Apart from retirement, I don’t really have very many corporeal ambitions. Every single day, however, I toil to break free from the binds of being “only human”. This is going to sound pretty new-agey, but I feel like I’ve figured out what my purpose in life is. In simple terms, it is to be present and aware of this moment, because that’s all I have. The long version is that I aspire to rise above (transcend) the dramas and emotions, the ups and downs, the constant rollercoaster of the human condition, and to identify with the purest, most unadulterated version of myself – my consciousness. My awareness. My life force.
So what does it mean to “be present”? It simply means that while I am writing this, I know that I’m writing. It means that when you’re reading it, you know that you’re reading, almost like you’re watching yourself doing it. Being present doesn’t mean that you can’t think about anything else, it just means that when you’re doing that, you know you are doing it. It means that you don’t lose yourself when you’re thinking about those other things. You remain here, and now. Being present means not leaning into the next moment, and not clinging to the last.
People are funny. We spend so much of our time engrossed in thought about things that aren’t even in front of us, things that may never happen, or things that have happened that we can’t change. We spend a lot of time responding and reacting to the world around us when, in fact, nothing is ever actually happening tous. Things are just happening. Ooooh yeah, let that sink in for a second. Nothing is happening to me, things are just happening. Taking that to the highest level, (as much as it may have felt like it) my Mum’s death didn’t happen to me. It was something that happened, but it didn’t happen to me. (Fuck yeah, and if you want to get into some ninja-level shit, it didn’t even happen to her; it was just something that happened).
The concept that nothing is happening to *you* can be difficult to grasp. You are the centre of your universe and it takes a bit of work to mentally shift your framework away from that sole point of reference. It’s only when you are able to see yourself as being part of something bigger that your reference point can change. Usually the “something bigger” is religion, right? Because it’s organised, and actually designed to provide us with comfort and a sense of belonging. It makes sense, to some degree. But where it falls apart for me, personally, is that it’s all based on fantasy. I totally get that seeing yourself as an expression of the universe is far weirder than imagining you are somehow descended from Adam and Eve, because we know very little about the mechanism behind how the universe works. There’s no handbook. Is the universe alive? Is it conscious? Is it self-designing? Is it chaos? Is it exerting a will? If we are part of the universe, is our will our own, or are we just puppets being controlled by it? If I am an expression of the universe, then….. shit, am I the universe? These are big, scary questions for which we do not have answers. My journey has taken me on a path that doesn’t even need answers. I don’t need to make up stories to comfort myself. I’m OK with the discomfort of not knowing.
I’m not going to pretend that I’m anywhere near achieving my goal of transcendence, but I’ve definitely seen some personal growth in my ability to just let shit go. My progress is hardly linear though (as I’m sure David would attest). Some days are more difficult than others, and I always do better after I’ve had a cleansing session with Zimmy. I always do better when I lay off the booze. But, I am no longer searching for my purpose. I know my purpose, so I have a head start. I just need to keep on trying. Transcendence seems a long way off, but I am prepared to spend the rest of my life trying.
What makes you angry? This was (hands down) the most difficult question anyone asked me. I pondered this question almost every single day for months, trying to come up with what felt like the right answer. It became a Gordian knot that I was driven to untangle.
On a global scale, I’m angry at capitalism, I’m angry at massive, inscrutable corporations making zillions of dollars at humanity’s expense, I’m angry at governments for allowing it, and I’m angry at the injustice of it all. I am angry that a handful of people benefit (obscenely) from the abject destruction of our beautiful earth. The climate crisis is not the people’s fault. It is capitalism which allows a very small number of people to gain everything, as the rest of us helplessly watch our home burn (and flood, and shake, and freeze, and fall apart). I am angry about the information recently published in the Pandora Papers, exposing the billions of dollars of cash and assets hidden from public view by billionaires and government officials including kings, presidents and prime ministers from countries like Jordan, the Czech Republic, Kenya, Hong Kong, UAE, Chile, Sri Lanka and Ukraine. Countries in which the divide between the rich and the poor isn’t just vast, it’s incalculable. I’m angry that billionaires even exist. Because to make a billionaire, millions of people must live below the poverty line. I’m angry that capitalism lauds religion to soothe the poor and hungry masses, when it is the capitalists themselves who keep them poor and hungry. I’m angry that despite it being a very broken system, we all cling to it because we believe that without it we may be stripped of all the nice, shiny things we’ve surrounded ourselves with under the illusion that they’ll make us happy. I’m angry at Musk and Bezos for squandering billions in their small-dick race to colonise the planet Mars, our inhospitably dusty, red neighbour, when people are starving to death in muddy slums. On this planet.
WTF!
So yeah, I’m angry about a few things. But these angers don’t burn red-hot in the pit of my stomach. I feel them more as a dull, heavy weight, compressing me whenever I think about the state of the world. It feels overwhelming, and hopeless, and I see no potential resolution for any of it. I actually envisage it becoming worse. If I allowed my anger to burn about these things, I would flame out and die.
But hey, if we’re talking about anger on a personal level, that is something I have worked on a lot. Holocaust survivor and psychologist Edith Eger mentions in her book, “The Gift” that anger is often caused when there’s a gap between our expectations and reality. And I believe this to be the root cause of all anger. Whether you are angry because you’ve lost your patience with someone, or you’re being disrespected, or you’ve suffered an injustice, it all boils down to reality not meeting the expectations that you had. So, the easiest way to solve that problem is to not have any expectations. Right? Well, actually it’s not easy at all; it’s extremely bloody hard. It also happens to be one of the tenets of Buddhism.
The Buddha considered “craving” to be the single greatest fetter (shackle, or chain) to achieving happiness and enlightenment. Aspiring to something (a possession, a relationship, a state of being) is fine. But as soon as you start to expect a desired outcome, it becomes a condition that can prevent you from being happy and at peace in your life. I want to be happy and at peace. Letting go of expectations doesn’t mean that you don’t give a shit about things or people. It just means that you can experience it all without gripping onto it for survival. When you can learn to do that, you’ll be able to experience negative emotions, like anger, without reacting to them; and you will no longer be defined by these transient flows of energy. You’ll be able to step off the rollercoaster. And that’s a beautiful state to be in.
As well as learning to let go of anger mentally, and emotionally, I’m also learning to let go of it physically. Last year, during the early months of COVID, I took up yoga as a way to keep my body moving, and I’ve been practising nearly every day since then. At the end of every session there is a pose called savasana, also known as corpse pose, where you lie on the ground with your legs apart and your arms by your side. Believe it or not, this is the single most important pose in yoga. It is the pose in which we learn to relax our body on command, and I can’t stress enough what a gift that is. Whenever I’m having trouble sleeping, I harness the power of savasana to assist my body and mind to just let go. It has also helped me in moments of anger. I might feel the anger rising up in my body, as a physical reaction, a tightness in my chest, but I am able to neutralise it, simply by relaxing my body, taking a deep breath and letting go of the tightness. This is not the same as pushing the anger down or denying it. I actually allow myself to feel the emotion, to honour it. But then I just let it go.
OK, so it’s not always as neat as I’m making it sound, and sometimes it’s extremely fucking messy. Sometimes it just doesn’t work at all, and the anger erupts and I snap or yell or tense up. Despite all my efforts, I am still only human. But I’m working on it.
Do you lash out or project your anger onto others? This is something that I definitely make a huge effort not to do. You know, I think I used to be a much angrier young woman than I am now. I think I used to stomp around feeling like I wasn’t getting mine, or whatever. I don’t feel that way anymore. I no longer feel like I’m owed anything. By anyone, not even the universe. And so, with effort I have learned to manage urges to lash out. I have learned to view the world as neutral, something to be observed. Remember; nothing is happening to me, things are just happening. And so there is no need for me to ever feel targeted or victimised by anything that happens. Ever. Instead of being personally affronted by things that would have made me angry in the past, I try to see them as an opportunity for growth. A chance to practise letting go, almost like a game. Of course it doesn’t always work, and yes, things happen that might be a hassle, or annoying, but it no longer ruins my day. I can shrug it off and even choose to be happy! And therein lies the freedom of being able to transcend all the bullshit, rather than getting mired in it. All day long, regardless of what’s going on around me, I can make the choice to be happy.
Are you angry with yourself for being taken in? I am usually less angry with myself and more disappointed if that happens.
And ultimatelycan you let it goand move on? I am always letting go. I wake up every morning with the intention of releasing everything, and not holding onto anything. I don’t need to be right. I don’t need to be understood. I don’t need to have my way, and I don’t need to prove anything. I just need to be happy, and I make that my priority.
Are you pissed off that you weren’t taught how to spot the flagsof abusers? No. What I’ve come to realise is that someone can teach you to spot all the flags, and in the end it still doesn’t stop abuse. My Mum was always a bit of a worry wort. She instilled in us the very real knowledge that there are bad people out there in the world and to never really trust anyone. It didn’t prevent abuse.
At whose feet do you lay the blame for that? I blame nobody but the abuser.
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