This week, BBC 2 showed ‘The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas’, one of the most affecting pieces of “childhood” drama I’ve watched in a long time. Roughly ten days earlier, the Beeb showed a new one-off (‘The Man who Irritated Hitler’- apols if title wrong; I’ll amend later!). This showed the real-life drama of a Jewish barrister who called Hitler as a witness in a stormtrooper trial in the early ’30s. Meanwhile, London’s brilliant (and under-funded) Tricycle Theatre has just housed the pre-West End run of Arthur Miller’s 1994 play, ‘Broken Glass’ starring Anthony Sher, about an American Jew struggling with both his wife’s reaction to Kristallnacht and his WASP boss’s ill-hid and growing antisemitism.

As I say, it might just be me.

But even so, there’s value in questioning. Why now? What can we, in Britain today, take from 1930s Germany? I don’t have answers enough to commit yet, but I raise the flag and encourage comments…

Pick a stranger to look at. If they catch your eye, hold it. No aggression. No immediate smile. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Now you can smile. No flirting.

What happened?

“May you live in interesting times”

- a Chinese curse, that. Apparently.

Anyway – the Imp is doing just that: living in interesting times (well, aren’t we all?). And one of the moments on the horizon is that I’m about to spend the night in a near-empty theatre, writing a 20-minute performance piece, from scratch, for 6 actors I’ve yet to meet, to be performed 24 hours after we wet our pens. Dead excited, but also nervous.  The whole thing goes up on the main stage – and it’s filling up (this ain’t no teeny theatre).

Cor – the unknown – and I don’t mean Rumsfeld’s unknown knowables….

We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns — the ones we don’t know we don’t know. And if one looks throughout the history of our country and other free countries, it is the latter category that tend to be the difficult ones.

Beautiful….’cos what could I possibly have to worry about, having read that?!

I suspect half of this desire for the cave is about writing. In the last few weeks, I’ve spewed out plays of 60 and 15 minutes. That’s not to say they’re good; they will more than definitely need work, but the act of squeezing them out is quite intense (and throughoutly enjoyable – lucky me this time, as it can be merry hell). I’m also now reworking an earlier, incomplete work, and seeing how weedy and flawsome it was – also a good feeling, but….So, yes: engagment with the outer world is going to take me away from this lovely writing.

Better get back to it, then!

• My web access has been madly impaired this last month (temporary location change = lack of wifi = broadband dongle virginity being lost = dongle antennae ‘experiences ‘= absolute, screaming, frustration = invention, of a sort, being born of necessity
• New life experiences (the Imp’s now a step-parent to delightful mini-imps) and new extended family relationships
• A new eye on old memories – now I’m on the other side of the parent / child fence (“good God – I did that all the time- that’s terrible! My poor parents!”)

So, lucky you – you get to share my shallow insights, as I sit here with two computers (the family desktop PC with magical tinterweb and my hissy-fit laptop with all my files on it, refusing to find a web connection), two mice and two keyboards, aimlessly (resultlessly) hitting one then the other and swearing.  It’s good to be back.

There’s nothing like life changes to make you see yourself, I now think.  Perhaps I should say, to force to you ‘connect’; to widen your world view, empathise, and take deep breaths.

There I was, this time last year, happily imping, just closer to 40 than 30, with cash, time and liberty. Now I have school runs, after-school clubs, weekends in with the giggly box (mind you, there’s some wonderfully inventive kids’ theatre out there – thank you, Kneehigh!) or out with the rollerskates – and it’s alright, actually.  There’s a great deal about it, in fact, that is jolly fine, when you’re not investigating the depths of your navel!

But there’s this business model thing – you might have heard of it : “form-storm-perform” – and it certainly applies to my inner experiences (inner child foot-stamping vs. any issues with playgrounds or packed lunch-making). The form/storm/perform idea, briefly and perhaps inaccurately, is that when a new team comes together (a family as much as a work team), they go through periods of squabbling / anger / boundary pushing, before they can really come together as a great team to perform. It’s all about boundary testing, creating, forging, understanding one another. 

And with this new team as a background to my life, it’s been my ideas of me fighting my ideas of me! IE, having to accept that I’ve moved up into the next generation, without actually having made it so myself (by deliberately sprogging) ; accepting that my childhood/teen fantasy me being an Imp entirely in charge of her own destiny has – from necessity – had to leave now, become a past experience, because I’m responsible for other people. And it’s been fascinating to watch my self deal with this  (narcissistic? the Imp?! “Don’t you know who I am?!”)   

I didn’t realise that we – naturally – grieve in some ways when we change. Even though change is necessary and very good for us – we ought to go through periods of ‘storm’, of chrysalis-breaking. And when I look at it that way, when I see I’m not leaving something very enjoyable behind, but rather building on it, I’m happy to accept it; excited about the future, instead of lamenting the (completed) past.

These are sometimes things we’re not supposed to talk about, but I now find people whispering to me, because my situation is transparently unusual – and because of that whisper, we’re connecting; showing empathy, feeling relief we’re not alone in having ‘tricky’ feelings about growing up, about leaving child-free / family-lite life behind. And connecting, reaching out to one another – that is very fine indeed.

The solstice is almost upon us! Snow’s sneaking across the land and men sell woolly hats in the street.  I’m waiting on a friend from the US, who’s flying over especially for the Imp’s wintry nuptials, while other family and friends crawl their way through The Weather.

I’m telling all involved to relax, worry not, take it as it comes – which is a joke given the self-inflicted assault on my nerves of the last few weeks. But finally, the calm is coming!

What is anxiety; why do we worry? I’ve been (annoyingly) able to watch my own discalm, disquietude, and have come up with some factors of imp-angst – which is to say, they’re not necessarily anything like yours.

For me, I reckon it’s all about other people – and their reactions to one’s self.

Because a worried “what if, what if, what if, ” by itself is meaningless – it can do no harm: we’re back to “if a wood falls in the forest, does it make a noise?”  What I mean is that the worst case scenarios are usually (I’m ruling out falling off cliffs, here) about performance, acceptance, and other contributors to emotional safety / harm.

This all became clear when I found myself saying, “it doesn’t matter what happens because we’re amongst friends.” I realised that people who love me won’t think less of me if something – anything – goes wrong. Those who would think bad thoughts aren’t my friends – and in the context of my own wedding, well – they shouldn’t be there!

So – I have just seen the first snowflakes through the window. Sinatra’s on the radio (natch) and I urge all elves, gnomes, fellow imps and pixies to hug yourselves, smile at the world and remember you are loved.  Get friends around you and get festive.  Happy celebrations, one and all.

This happens, in the main, when you stumble, perhaps even fall down; when you quite possibly weren’t looking where you were going and then end up, breath knocked out of you, gasping for air, with shock-hot tears poking at your pride ducts.

And to be fair, how can you find the things that need mending unless you can see the holes?  The real sign of being grown-up, of course, is how you decide to deal with the fall, and with what caused it in the first place.  Do you sit and stamp your heels against the ground, screaming and flinging blame? Do you quietly seethe and vow to win vengeance? Or do you (because these questions must go in threes) take a deep breath, look behind you to see what happened and remind yourself not to do that again?

You never step in the same river twice, so they say, but of course, if you don’t learn from the tough times – if you then don’t grow – then the river’s going to look pretty much the same throughout your life. And that’s possibly secure, but it’s bloody boring. If you reinforce your own prejudices about the world (people are not to be trusted; I’m boring and ugly;  people never understand one another) then you’re only building up impenetrable walls and choosing to make yourself lonely and miserable.  Or boring and lonely and misunderstood and unable to trust anyone. Oh, look – a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I really admire people who can bite their tongue; who don’t need to bolster themselves in the eyes of others; who live in the present and don’t worry. But I know that some of those people find it hard to do some of the things I find easy. We’re all different and we all have different qualities: not having some of the good ones is not a failing – but it is a challenge, and after all, what else is life for?

You do something because you love it, and you do it with everything you’ve got. And then you die. What you leave behind doesn’t matter. How much money you make doesn’t matter. What people think of you doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is how you spend every fucking day of your life, how you feel about yourself – and not in the narcissistic, egotistical way. It doesn’t matter how I’m remembered, because I’ll remember everything myself.

- Ralph Bakshi

I could not agree with this quote more – I’m almost temped to delete the post that lies underneath. But I ain’t gonna. For reasons which may become clear…

It has been an interesting few weeks, hence the tumbleweed blowing across this blog.  I’ve been lucky enough to be taken under the wing (for now, at least) of a large regional theatre, who’re encouraging my writing, and that means you give it your absolute all!

Now – this is the thing. How committed are you to achieving what (you say) you want in your life?  Yes, note the cynically inserted brackets. Quite right. What cheek I have to put those there.

Allora – you want to be rich / celebrated for being a great sculptor / a brilliant friend. So what are you doing about it? Sorry? Too many other things getting in the way? Join the club – I’m totally with you on that one. There is never enough time.

BUT

if you don’t commit to your ideal, your passion – how’s it gonna happen?

If you’re too busy doing everything you promised other people (the tax man, the cleaner, the headmistress, the in-laws), when are you EVER going to have any time to keep the promises you’ve made to yourself?

And who’s most important here? (The exception, natch, being promises to your children / family / partner – as long as they’re reasonable and you’re not a self-hating, self-sabotaging doormat!)

So – what’s the promise you made to yourself? Say it out loud. Oh, go on. Eh? …thank you. (I trust you…)

Now, this is not an exercise in self-flagellation. But just ask yourself what you did to make that promise come true recently.

OK. Now think. If that was a promise to anyone else, would your committment to it be ample? Fair?

If the answer’s no, then find the time this weekend to do something- anything – to get that promise back on track. And another thing the following weekend. Or bin it. Altogether.

…whatcha fink?

I decided today only to have 3 things on the To Do list. Any more, and I feel set up to fail. I’ve still only done 1 of them – the tax stuff and the invoicing will be far more appealing tomorrow. And here’s where a key principle comes riding to my defence – Committment!

If there is something you want in your life, everything else (like tax returns, or invoicing, when you know you’re going to spin those jobs out for hours) has to come lower down the line, perhaps to the wire, the last moment, when you’ll do them really fast.

Posting on a blog, of course, that’s different…;-)

Children are educated by what the grown-up is and not by his talk

- Carl Jung

The Imp spent some interesting time doing things she didn’t like this summer. And as a (chronologically) grown-up creature, I’m not so used to that. I’d forgotten that Doing  / Wearing Things (from haircuts to buckle shoes and long socks) That You Don’t Like was a major feature of my childhood.

We adults (by which I mean probably western, and therefore relatively ridiculously affluent) have a great degree of autonomy over our own lives. That’s especially so if you’re dependent-lite (no kids) and obligation-wary (renting, cash- not debt-led) et cetera et cetera. Indeed, yay and verily, this Imp has been known quietly to compare herself with the lotus-eaters: indolent, addicted and apathetic, lounging in luxury’s lap. Here’s some Homer (Odyssey IX) to tell you something about Lotus Eaters (translated by Samuel Butler):

I sent two of my company to see what manner of men the people of the place might be, and they had a third man under them. They started at once, and went about among the Lotus-Eaters, who did them no hurt, but gave them to eat of the lotus, which was so delicious that those who ate of it left off caring about home, and did not even want to go back and say what had happened to them, but were for staying and munching lotus with the Lotus-eaters without thinking further of their return; nevertheless, though they wept bitterly I forced them back to the ships and made them fast under the benches.

Or as Nick Cave’s version put it, “Sapped and stupid / I lie upon the stones and I swoons”….

But away from this indulgence and back we go, to the issue of the autonomy of grown-ups (western and well-to-do). If you’re in such a fortunate position, you live pretty darn near the top of Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Need”. Think of a triangle. At the base are the most essential things you need to survive; as the triangle narrows, the needs become less essential to survival and more about personal growth and satisfaction:

Maslow's hierarchy of needs

So, as an adult, once our survival needs (food, shelter, water and sex) are met, we strive to fulfil other needs, such as safety (financial, personal, health), then social needs such as friendship, support, a family, intimacy. When social needs are not met, depression can set in, leading to self-neglect, where the lower needs (comfort and survival) are threatened. And top o’ the pile are the self-actualisation needs (“I want to be a train driver”) and peak experiences – spiritual, mystical, and other such insight-giving moments of the life-changing variety.

Doing things you don’t want to do is not good for many reasons – the potentially negative impact on self-esteem being key. What I mean by this is that if an adult feels that they are not in control of their own experiences over a significant period of time, then they can be reduced in their own mind to the status of a child  – powerlessness – by whatever circumstances are making them endure the bad experience (unemployment; a bullying partner; manipulative friends etc).

But of course, an adult does have free will and self-determination. There is always (in the Imp view of the world) choice, there are always alternatives. There might not be a golden ticket out the door, but there’s always another way. I hear philosophers screaming (but if I can’t see them, are they real?). But bear with me: even if it’s only changing your perspective, surely if that act changes your experience, then it is an alternative (and one that is self-determined)?

So, does it follow that Doing What You Don’t Want to Do can actually be a thing that strengthens you – aiding self-actualisation? Adversity is – I would argue – surely necessary if we’re to rise to the challenge of being proper adults (not just chronological ones)?

What’s important is that we see the tests and accept them – that we don’t just peep at them and roll over, weeping. We need to address the things that challenge us – how else can we grow?  OK, it might not be a ten-day shamanic ritual of tiger-hunting, but swallowing pride, finding the positive, or seeking a better way (of action or perception) are all the kinds of behaviours we expect from grown-ups; not running away, refusing, shutting the mind and throwing our weetabix against the wall.

It’s good, this grown-up thing – after all that hard work in getting here and putting up with being a child, don’t miss out on all it has to offer!