Polarity

 If you are a woman with a submissive nature, and you want to be led by a man, that is, for there to be a leader in the relationship, that man is going to require certain characteristics. In all likelihood the man will need to grow; to hone his dominant nature and to overcome any residual trauma from his childhood as well as societal messaging.

Let's assume that the woman is intelligent and well educated, and most probably perfectly capable of looking after herself. By that I mean she has the education and the necessary skills to get through her days quite satisfactorily whether she is led or not. But she chooses and desires a dominant man to lead her. For her to express her submissive nature she needs a man who is capable and willing to express his dominant nature; for there to be polarity. This man is going to be required to be evolved, mature, stalwart, calm and steady. 

We are judgmental about our leaders because no-one wants to be led by a fool. We analyze their behaviour and their decisions and as a whole we don't hold back from criticism when we disapprove.

I had a talk with someone over Christmas when I got a rare opportunity for a one-on-one conversation and I explained to him that, although it was clear his wife's behaviour was certainly triggering and sometimes quite unacceptable, he couldn't afford to give her back the same sort of behaviour she gave to him. As difficult as it no doubt could be, he needed to be that calm and committed presence in her life who was determining the standards of behaviour. 

'No, he couldn't mind the child this evening as he still had essential business calls he had to make, but he was happy to mind him on Saturday morning whilst she went to do whatever it was she wanted to do.'

Statements. No anger. No throwing words back at her. Just declarative statements. Compromise, but not giving in.

When she tried to make him responsible for something that was indeed her responsibility, he needed to note to her that she was capable of sorting this situation herself. He didn't need to be involved.

He was running around, I explained to him, trying to sort her problems, because he was capable of that, but he was training her to be dependent on him by doing so and getting angry about that at the same time.

There's no shortage of love either way and so he said to me, yet again, that the violence in her childhood home had created this scenario. He was justifying her behaviour. I understood that, I explained, but people can't spend their lives in disarray because something happened thirty years ago. He deserved peace, for one thing, and once the new training period was over, they would both be happier.

To his credit, he listened. He truly wanted it to be better, to be calm and for there to be harmony, but he had been triggered for several years by her demands and he sensed it wouldn't be easy to not be triggered again.

'Of course,' I assured him. It will take time and you will make mistakes. But you have to keep working your way towards being that man who was something like a well-built brick wall; solid and dependable; indestructible.

'She'll note the difference and won't understand it. You'll get a whole lot of stuff around how she is an 'independent woman' yadda yadda. Just stay the course. Trust me.'

Dominant men, the ones who hone their craft and character, do not get enough credit. I heard a brave man say in a podcast recently that a man has to be better than his woman in all the criteria that counted. He needed to contain her, and by that he meant he had to hold her in her hour of need. She needed to look up to him and he needed to protect her and hold her accountable to him. If she wants to be led, that's the way it works.

This reminds me somewhat of meditation advice - to let go of doing and sink into being. In the same way, I wonder if we should not let go of society's messaging and just be our authentic selves; strive to be our best selves.

Navigating our inner worlds

A  Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara came to my attention this week. In an effort to make a decision as to whether to purchase a copy of the novel I am reading reviews by people who have read it. Goodreads is a great site for this sort of thing. One reader listed the many things he liked about the novel and the things he didn't like about the novel. On the negative side, he mentioned that he found something narcissistic about a story that only detailed the landmarks of the characters' lives and not the landmarks of the historical time period. As an example, the characters were living through the 2001 time period and yet there is no mention of the economic downturn or of 9/11.

Obviously I can't yet have an opinion as to whether not including a more external world for the characters to inhabit was a good idea or not, but I am wondering about this strategy in a more general sense. For example, I rarely mention the world at large in this web journal, perhaps thinking it more appropriate not to do so. I doubt anybody cares about my opinion of the American Presidential election, for example, even though I follow the events quite closely and was thrilled for Hillary Clinton to finally have the Democratic Party nomination. She is more than qualified for the job. She is level headed with an overwhelming desire to do good. And, as I see it, there's no viable choice. But, that's an aside. The world I present here is my internal world, by and large unconcerned with the material world just outside my door.

As I think back to Nora Webster, Colm Toibin directs his focus to Nora's inner world, and the world of her family; her private life. She goes to work and we learn of the office politics, giving us a greater understanding of the substance of Nora, but by and large, that's about as far as it goes. Certainly, we learn of the slow explosion of Ireland through what Nora sees on the television. We understand that just beyond the borders of Enniscorthy there lies an unreliable and conflicting world, but it's backdrop to the story. Our concern is Nora; what she thinks, who she is, and the decisions she makes.

I wonder if it holds any importance for a reader here to know my physical world; perhaps my choice of clothing or the kind of furniture in my house. Co-incidentally, I happened to read a short piece of writing this morning that suggested that we should be aware of the energy in used objects before we buy them, and this resonated since I often have a reaction to an pre-owned object that compells me not to buy it.

I am at this moment sitting at a dining table that we bought from a newly divorced woman in Connecticut who was moving to New York City, thirty-five years now. She told us that her family had sat around it for many happy and momentous occasions and she asked us to take good care of it. It's always had a good vibe and we've never considered replacing it. But, it's rare for me to feel this way about pre-owned objects. Somehow, on a visceral level, I understand this idea of 'energy' that surrounds objects, and people.

If objects give off energy then surely so do people, houses, neighbourhoods, news reports, the weather, the events that surround us as we go about our day. It would be a difficult thing to write about me, or perhaps anyone, without an understanding of how fast my mind thinks, and changes, moment by moment according to my environment. I might look out onto the garden and feel a glow of satisfaction that my lilly pilly hedge has finally begun to mature into a lovely shape but a minute later in walking into the boys' bathroom I may despair that they will ever be aware enough of their own surroundings to want to keep them tidy.

In terms of world events, it can be problematic to ascertain if we come to know more of a person in terms of how they relate to their world at large. I may hear of a sad event on the radio but not allow it to disrupt my day or bring me down. Whilst one interpretation is that that sounds heartless, some people can't afford to take into their soul sad news because to live so close to their skin is too painful. I suspect this is what is happening to my daughter. So much like me, she worries about the children with whom she works. On an intellectual level she knows she can't protect the children once they go home, but she would if she could, and that makes her job hard.

(Note: A day after writing this post a family member found it a part of his job to attend the aftermath of a 20 year old man who had taken his life by jumping in front of a train. I'm 'wearing' this tragedy today. It's hard to take it off and put it away, but with virtually no control or input into the lives of others unknown, we are forced to do this every day of our lives and to content ourselves with making any small impact that we can for the benefit of others.)

I remember the time of 9/11. I remember the following Saturday and talking to parents on the sideline of a childrens' soccor match and that sense of gloom that hung over the world as we talked of an event so far away, and yet we had all been in the building. 'There but for the grace of God go I', we all thought privately, I am sure. There's a natural response to keep your loved ones particularly close at such times.

At about the same time, one of my sons was attacked but the other perpetrators called the man off, thank God. Soon thereafter, someone tried to steal his backpack in the city and by then he'd had enough. He punched the man in the nose and that made him drop the backpack and run off empty handed. Now, these events did have a bearing on his state of mind and how he responds to the world. It's hard for anyone, I think, to relate to events in a meaningful way or for the events to significantly and permanently alter him or her, unless there is some sort of personal experience with those world events. We can feel real empathy and compassion for others going through traumatic experiences but it's hard to crawl inside their skin and their minds unless we've had something akin to that experience ourselves. I think it is why we read, to crawl inside other peoples' skins.

Whilst setting is a fundamental element of story, character development is what matters most in terms of a reading experience, I think. I am quintessentially Australian and that's part of my story, but how important is that to the reader when reading my words in a web journal? I suspect that the reader is more interested in the disgorgement of my mind, wherever it is placed in the world. Maybe I am blonde or brunette, skinny or wide hipped. I don't need to tell you since your imagination will fill in the gaps. You'll put me in a house of your own choosing and surround me with beautiful or garrish objects. This keeps the focus on the words and your engagement and agreement, or not, with the words.

I know that some readers want to be taken to a detailed visual world. It is something that I work on in my novel writing feeling that it has been a weakness, but still there is an instinctual part of me that feels that the intelligent reader does want to use their imagination; to relate on a personal level to the material, or perhaps simply to have a connection to the feelings expressed. It was a mistake, I think, for Hillary to wear that US$12,000 jacket because it takes the focus off her message and onto her personal choices. It says something about her, we figure; something that we'd prefer not to know. It feels like, well, it feels like a poor choice, and we don't want her having poor choices, not given the role she will play in the world. Still, if that's the worst of the choices, there is no harm done. It makes no sense to expect perfect people.

Each of us is made up of a gamut of choices; to be humble, aggressive, assertive, greedy, determined, caring; to impusively make choices for today or to take the long term view. Mistakes are inevitable. We never stop learning, if we choose to learn.  Some people have no interest in personal growth. It is a fact of life.

There is so much writing advice out there but at the end of the day, if you are going to write stories for the enrichment of other people, you just have to tell your story, exposing the complexity of being human in whatever setting your characters happen to live.