Oh My, What a Hideous Thought

I was pleased to be rid of my rather aggressive feelings as I cycled away from Windermere and that particular lunch break.  I have noticed in the past that once such feelings take over, they tend to preclude any more creative musings, it is almost like I am being possessed by anger and I can’t shake it off or for that matter think very rationally.  I just kind of fume quietly inside and go aggressively silent on those who have offended me.  Now, as noted earlier, sometimes anger can have a creative side to it but in this case, as it was based in part on a misunderstanding, I don’t think the energy released would have done much good at all.  However, thanks to Julia insightfulness and tactful intervention I was no longer obsessed by resentful feelings and I was able to enjoy the picturesque ride along lake Windermere to Ambleside.  I was also able to appreciate Henry’s abortive attempt to come and find me.  That was an act of kindness on his part.

Thus, freed from an Elfred angry sulk, my mind wandered back to the Joseph story and in particular the part where he was reunited with his brothers. There must have been a lot of anger floating around at that time which needed to be resolved somehow or other.  As it turned out his dreams of his brothers bowing down to him came true, but what a price he paid for that actualisation.  I managed, with Julia’s help, to reconcile myself quite quickly to the group I felt had dumped me, largely because, compared with what Joseph had put up with, it was a minor incident hardly worth worrying about.  Joseph had a great deal of stuff to work through before he could become reconciled to his brothers and if you read the story, even a cursory glance shows how he played fast and loose with them before he finally settled his emotions and could gain a good relationship with those who had treated him so shabbily.

I have found that stories, such as this one, are very helpful in illuminating my own attempt to understand the narrative on my life.  In a strange way the story of Joseph and his brothers helped me by offering an alternative way of being family than had been my actual experience.  Many of my problems and struggles with relationship of all kinds in later life have stemmed not from the fact that I had troublesome brothers, or for that matter sisters, to deal with, but quite the opposite. I came to see that problems arose because I didn’t have siblings to bash up against.  I suffered therefore from what I jokingly call (many a true word said in jest) “only child syndrome” and it was this that occupied my thoughts as I cycled along the banks of beautiful lake Windermere in the pleasant summer sunshine.

It struck me that there are two main advantages to having siblings – firstly, that of being forced to fight for your place in the family hierarchy, which involves confronting your own narcissism and having to take into account others who are not necessarily either much older or much younger than yourself.  Fighting and negotiating are a vital part of being a sibling. Depending on the number and gender of one’s siblings all kinds of complex relationships arise and have to be dealt with.  This may feel like a pain in the arse at the time but it seems to me that it is quite helpful in preparing you for the rough and tumble of life beyond the family, or at least that is what people, like Julia, who have been through this experience often tell me.  The second advantage, it seemed to me, is that you have comrades to join you in the struggle against parental domination.  “There’s strength in the power of the union”, so to speak.  Now of course this second advantage is only possible once the former problems of narcissism and hierarchy have been successfully negotiated and the chances are that this will all happen at a fairly unconscious level and only become conscious a bit later on in one’s psychological development.  The only child is denied all the advantages of this type of family set up.  He or she does not have to fight others for a place in the family, it is prescribed.  He or she does not have to struggle with the fact that they are the favourite child or its opposite, they have favourite child forced upon them for all the parents’ eggs are in one basket and, what is worse, they have no allies with which to fight and outwit the omnipresent and apparently omnipotent adults.

A horrible thought came to my mind amid the beauty of lake Windermere, “Oh, God, was I, am I an odious creature, rather like Dudley Dursley in the Harry Potter stories?  No, I think I have in fact got a bit beyond that kind of hideousness.  No comments please!!

Be a Son of Encouragement

There at the T junction at Wray, bottles of energy drink were removed from the retaining racks on our bikes and we drank a toast to what we had thus far accomplished.  Then off went the others and I tagged on the back and watched them go ever further ahead of me, hoping that at an appropriate moment they would wait for me to catch up, most of the time they did, sometimes they forgot the old bloke and I was left scratching my head and wondering which way to go, however having done the ride once before, I was ok most of the time if they went too far ahead as I had a good memory of which way to go.

I got thinking about my response to the news that we were now half way and from now on there were more miles behind that there would be in front.  One thing in particular that I had been anxious about as we set off on this particular journey was my physical ability, at my age, of cycling this kind of distance, and this had a real resonance with my inner journey and the growing of my soul.  The resources of the first half of life’s journey would not be up to seeing me through the second part of the journey.  I guess that mid-life and the struggles, that for so many come with it, start when one realises that there are fewer years ahead than there are behind and when you are forced to look at whether or not you have achieved the goals you set yourself or, more important, whether those goals now have any relevance at all.  I became very aware of my mortality and upon realising that time was limited, a desire to ask myself what my future priorities ought to be, or put another way, how could I creatively spend my time given the limitations that advancing years would inevitably place upon me?  This was sobering, but at the same time creative.  It meant I had to focus and be realistic.  The fact that I was always condemned by my years to be the tail end Charlie on this trip was frustrating, but it also fulfilled an image I have had of myself in general terms for as long as I can remember, i.e. I’ll get there in the end but probably take twice as long as most other people.  This perception got challenged on this trip and I was able to face the frustration and do something positive with it.  Several riders we met on the road seemed impressed that, at my age, I had attempted this ride at all and I was beginning to be able to admit to myself that this was in fact quite an achievement.  I had in the past never been very good at giving myself credit for my achievements, I rather took the attitude, “well if I can do it there can’t be much to it, anyone could do it”.   I started to look back over my life as I cycled along and began to thank God for all those who saw potential in me and had the courage to tell me what they felt and helped me on the road to being what I have become.  As I rode along, I was hoping that I too play that role for others, it is vitally important to be, “a Son of Encouragement”.

The road from Wray descended until the village of Cressingham, where we hit a short sharp ascent and then a similarly short sharp descent after which the road was somewhat lumpy until, just shy of forty miles into the day’s ride, we descended into Kendal.  From there we took the road via Staveley to Windermere.  As normal the others were ahead of me.  Windermere was very busy with tourists and so I had to weave in and out of people crossing the road and I went wrong and ended up heading out of town on the wrong road.  I thought I had gone wrong, one of my famous gut feelings, and tried to confirm this by ringing various members of the team, all to no avail.  So, I turned around and headed back through the bustling streets of Windermere, again avoiding suicidal holiday makers, and headed out of town on the only other main road.  Sure enough, I found the others tucking into lunch in a layby next to a large Parish Church.   To put it mildly in true Elfred fashion (my parents would have been proud) I was not best pleased but didn’t really express my anger.  In fact, if I am brutally honest, I felt dumped by the others and was extremely pissed off.  Nobody apart from Julia seemed to notice the steam coming out of my ears.  She instantly picked up on my mental state and was able to talk me down to the point where I could be civil to the others and also felt like eating my much-needed lunch.  I discovered later that Henry had come in search of me when I did not turn up soon after the others arrived at the church, but we must have missed each other in the crush of humanity in the town centre.  So, my judgement of the others was perhaps a little harsh but then, when it comes to emotions, you feel what you feel and there is a need to express it and thus defuse it, particularly if it is negative and potentially aggressive.  Reality checking your feelings before responding is also in my view a good idea so I am rather glad that Julia defused that eighth day.

“Tail End Charlie!”