Simon Mark Smith’s Autobiography Chapter 33

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Chapter 33 A Story of Love – Ideologies of Love

Moshe Shruster and Battiya Shruster (Rachailovich)

Image used by kind permission of Eduard Shruster

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This chapter will change your life. Even if it’s just because you’ll never get the time back again you spent reading it.

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Ideologies of Love Part 1 – There’s More to Love Than Eye meets I

The problem with this subject, no matter how much I write I won’t be able to do it justice. So, please forgive me if I don’t cover areas you think should be included. Hopefully, though, I will give a good enough outline, even if it’s with very broad strokes. Throughout the sections on love, I’ll be referring to ‘Idealistic Love’. This is mainly based on the writings of Aristotle and Eric Fromm. In contrast, I’ll be using the term ‘Romantic Love’ to loosely refer to various widespread Western contemporary notions about love.

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My life, and probably yours too, has been profoundly entwined with many aspects of love, even if, at times, it was the lack of it. Chuck Spezzano, the author of numerous books on relationships, states that nearly everything we do can be traced back to a desire to be loved, even acts of hate. Given love is so pervasive, it feels as if it’s solely borne of instinct, but it’s not.

Ideologies of love not only affect the circumstances in which we experience love, but they also change the nature of how we experience it. Different generations, cultures and countries all vary in their approach to love, especially when it comes to who’s considered desirable, how people become involved with each other, and the prescribed paths that relationships ought to follow. However, it goes a lot deeper than that. If, for instance, we consider sex as being one of the many ways that love is expressed and experienced, then how open a society is to it will have a profound effect on its citizens. For instance, the Japanese have penis festivals in which people of all ages dress up in penis costumes, and suck and lick penis-shaped ice lollies and sweets. For the Japanese, there is far less guilt, shame and taboos associated with sex, however, paradoxically they’re also a far more sexually passive society than many others around the world. Maybe it’s a case of forbidden fruit accentuating sexual desire in those more inhibited but sexually active countries.

In many Western, so-called, liberal cultures an erect penis is taboo and at the time of writing this in 2021, it was still against the rules for an aroused one to be shown on television in the UK. That might partly be because less than well-endowed men don’t want women to see what they’re missing out on, but it may also link to our society’s unbalanced focus on male sexual needs ahead of women’s. In contrast, the overt focus on women’s breasts in most Western societies not only echoes this disparity but also connects sex to our more child-like feelings of being at one with another human. Women’s breasts have been a powerful multilevel symbol in most cultures throughout history, but then so too have male phallic symbols. So, why have things become so unbalanced?

Ideologies around sex and love connect to the heart of our society’s deepest issues, as they do our own too. At one end of the spectrum, some cultures see sex as being solely for procreation; at the other, sexual experiences are the be-all and end-all. For some, good sex will bring about a more harmonious relationship, for others, a good relationship will pave the way for better sex, and of course, many think it’s a bit of both.

In some Chinese cultures in the past matchmakers would examine people’s facial features to work out what size their genitals were. They would then match couples based on those criteria, figuring that good sex would create good relationships. Given this method is not a popular feature on most dating websites nowadays suggests it was probably just a load of bollocks.

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Beyond basic human nature and cultural influences, there are people’s individual motivations which are often tied up with their own personal history and psychological dynamics. So, it’s no wonder the range of sexual persuasions tends to be far more all-embracing than most of us could imagine. Likewise, when it comes to assessing whether some ideologies are better than others, a lot comes down to the values of the individual assessor. For some, what matters is whether those doctrines make people happy, but even happiness can mean different things to different people. For others, happiness might not be important at all. They may, for example, make their judgement based on the effect relationships have on others, such as children or the wider circles of society. Alternatively, others might go for a utilitarian approach, where a balance of the most pleasure is set against the least suffering. Then there may be some who see the survival of their ‘group’ identity as the main guiding principle. So, not only do we have different ideologies, but there are countless ways of judging them too. Perhaps this is why people tend to feel so ill at ease when it comes to dealing with this ‘challenging’ subject.

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Elvis and Joe

I was having a cuppa with a friend of mine, Joe, a few weeks ago. We were talking about how most of the very famous rock legends probably had sex with girls who were technically underage. Then Joe said, “Elvis was supposed to be a bit of a paedophile, wasn’t he?” There was silence for a second. “Really?” I said, “I’ve never heard that before.” Joe nodded his head as if he’d just scored a point, “Well didn’t he go out with a 14-year-old girl when he was 24?” I laughed. “That doesn’t make him a paedophile. Firstly, she wasn’t prepubescent and secondly, Priscilla always maintained they didn’t have sex until she was 21. And even if they did, then that would have been statutory rape, depending on that state’s laws. But,” I paused in anger at such an accusation, then added, “that’s still not the same as paedophilia.” Again, Joe had a victorious look on his face as he said, “Yeah, but they shared a bed from when she was 14, do you believe they didn’t get up to stuff,” I shook my head and continued, “Back then and even now loads of US states don’t specify an age limit for marriage and apparently, more children under 14 are being married nowadays than back in Elvis’s day.” Joe’s mouth turned down at the corners a little, “Really, I’m surprised to hear that.” There was a bit of a change in the mood, so I added, “Yeah, there’s a drive to stop it, but it’s an uphill battle.” He still looked serious, “Do you not think 14 is a bit young to be getting married?” I shrugged, “Personally, I don’t think people should be allowed to get married until they’re 21 at the very least.” Joe laughed, “Why do you say that?” I laughed too, “Because they’re idiots, we all were, even at 21, maybe 32 would be a safer age.” Then we both looked at each other and shaking our heads in unison said, “No, still too young.” While we were talking, I looked up Google about this issue on my phone. I started reading what I’d found, “Younger brides tend to lose out in terms of their education, physical and mental health, as well as being more likely to live in poverty and become victims of sexual, physical and mental abuse.” I took a big breath and looked up at Joe, “So, yeah, I agree with you, but I’m not accepting that Elvis was a paedophile.”

I then called out to my smart speaker “Alexa, play the song, Baby Let’s Play House by Elvis Presley.

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The Complications of Complying

Hopefully, you’re getting the gist of what I’m on about regarding ideologies affecting our approach to love. One of the ones I find particularly good at illustrating this is the notion of soulmates. I’ll come back to this idea in more detail later, but if you consider the belief that only one person will be right for you, then surely that will affect your relationships. After all, if someone doesn’t fit perfectly with your ideal fantasy then won’t that result in you being very intolerant? And what if you lost someone who you thought was your one and only soul mate, would that mean it would be impossible to let someone else into your heart?

Given the complexity of the subject as well as all the philosophical opinions accumulated throughout human history, you’d think our societies would have made the subject of love part of the school curriculum by now. Sure, there’s sex education, but paradoxically, ideologies of love are far more contentious than sexual ones, hence their exclusion. On some levels, this lack of ‘training’ could be part of an ideology of love too. After all, people don’t normally hesitate when it comes to laying down social rules. Yet, outside of most of the romantic illusions coming out of Hollywood, most people keep very quiet on the subject, unless they’re religious, in which case they have their own set of rules too. My point is, so far, no one has come up with a clearly defined and realistic approach to love that is not beyond reproach. Some may believe they have, but they haven’t. Even for those who manage to strike it lucky when it comes to matters of the heart, and of course, there will be some, there may be times when they too feel the ideology they believe in doesn’t quite ring true completely.

If love is as dark as I portray it, you might wonder why people search it out in the first place. The answer lies in the alternatives. Without love and connection, we’re left with isolation and loneliness, and besides, we’re still programmed to connect, even if it’s just to mate, let alone be intimate.

Even without social conditioning, we’re born with some innate expectations about the love between ourselves and our parents. We call out and expect a positive response. Later our feelings and thoughts about love become extremely complicated, especially as we separate from our parents. At that point, many of us go out into the world, with scarcely any education about love, and through trial and error, try to find our way.

At 17 I was full of ideas about love, but I soon realised there was a mismatch between what I’d come to believe and ‘reality’. This led me to ask if these beliefs were so unrealistic why were they perpetuated so widely, and are there any others which may be more realistic? I looked for the answers in books of philosophical and religious texts, but most of what I came across didn’t ring true to me either and even years later, I felt just as lost. By then though, I’d accepted things were way more complicated than I initially thought and given humans vary so much, trying to apply a one-size-fits-all doctrine was never going to work.

The first stage of determining an ideology’s veracity involves testing it against our more irrational, primaeval and dreamy sides. Whether it’s anarchy or no sex before marriage, human nature is going to be THE major factor that’ll determine an ideology’s success, and for those with any experience of human nature, the chances are likely to be very low.

It’s no wonder then that many traditional and religiously based approaches to love will fixate on our irrationality, and consequently aim to avoid temptation at all costs. While they have a point, one can resist everything except temptation, so these dogmatic approaches by their, or our, nature tend to be met with resistance. In turn, this makes those who can’t comply feel guilty, or worse still, leads to them being severely punished. Even for those who do, there’s a high chance they’ll end up with someone they don’t connect well with and given connection often requires the glue of passion, without it, a relationship may merely feel like a lip service. Without the bond that passion reveals, passionless relationships may well lead to depression or the motivation to seek out what is missing elsewhere.

It’s not surprising these opposing approaches exist, after all, human nature is contradictory. For a start on many levels, we are animalistic. We react to molecules we can neither see nor smell and are driven by hormones aimed to do what all lifeforms do, pass on our genes. At the same time, though, we have other desires to consider. We may want someone we can share our life with, who we not only like being with but with whom we share similar aspirations and values. At one end of the argument, there’s the belief that suppressing our natural inclinations causes more harm than not doing so, while at the other, there’s a conviction that it’s better to do so as it prevents even greater suffering.

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Moshe and Battiya’s Story Part 2 – Visit to Riga

When Battiya was about three her brother, Eliezer was born, and a short while after that, Shmuel (Samuel), my grandfather, told her they were going to Riga to visit her aunt. She hadn’t been to a city before, so felt honoured to be allowed to join her father on such an adventure. The train journey from Rēzekne to Riga took 12 hours, so by the time they got there, it was already evening. Her aunt, who was very pleased to see them both, made supper then put Battiya to bed. The following morning, Battiya came down to breakfast, but only her aunt was at the table. Battiya asked where her father was. Her aunt told her he’d had to go back home urgently and would return in a few days, but as the weeks passed Battiya realised he wasn’t coming back for her.

Five years passed before she would see her parents and siblings again and when she did, she politely accepted their reasoning. They explained they couldn’t afford to look after her, but in her heart, it was beyond her that they could do such a thing to a child. No matter how much she tried to forgive them, their betrayal cracked her to the core. Maybe it was a coincidence that Moshe (Moses) was the name of the man Battiya chose to marry as it was also her father’s middle name too, or maybe it was a light within him she recognised and connected to.

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Ideologies of Love Part 2 – A Serious Affair

When love beckons to you, follow him,

Though his ways are hard and steep.

And when his wings enfold you yield to him,

Though the sword hidden among his

pinions may wound you.

And when he speaks to you believe in him,

Though his voice may shatter your dreams

As the north wind lays waste the garden.

From On Love – The Prophet

By Kahlil Gibran

I’m going to spend a bit of time looking at some of the idealistic and pragmatic ideologies of love, especially those, as I mentioned earlier, set out by Aristotle and Eric Fromm. However, just as with most other ideologies, things start to go awry as soon as humans get involved, so no matter how well-considered these theories are, they’re not going to appeal to everyone.

Most people accept the Nazis caused WW2 which killed close to 85 million people, Communism over 100 million deaths, and Capitalism at least 100 million. Meanwhile, religions are said to have killed over 195 million throughout recorded history. But when it comes to ideologies of love are the death figures comparable?

If we consider the deaths caused by depression due to rejection, physical, mental and sexual abuse, forced and non-forced marriages, not being with the right person, infidelity, and unhappy parents who stay together or separate, the numbers will indeed be very high. Then, of course, we can add the victims of direct killings caused by things such as jealousy, humiliation, and betrayal. When it comes to ideologies of love, it’s a far more serious and deadly affair than we were first led to believe.

It’s no accident that the word mad is linked to romantic desire. Antony and Cleopatra, and Romeo and Juliet, are held up as the epitome of romantic love, but given their tragic endings, you’d think people would see this as a warning, and not something to aspire to. The ancient Greeks saw romantic love as something to avoid, in fact, they feared it. When it comes to romantic love there’s an implication that it involves extreme behaviour, and sure enough, people have committed the most horrific crimes in the name of love. Killing someone out of love is not an example of ‘loving too much’ but instead of love going wrong when absolutism and extremism, rather than conciliation and accommodation, are the guiding values. So, while it can be argued that it’s not love that causes all this suffering, it’s hard to deny the ideologies related to love do play a big part in it.

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1941 – Riga Station – Moshe and Battiya’s Story Part 3

When the plane first approached the station, Battiya felt Moshe’s arms tightly wrap around her, his chest against her back, shielding her as best he could. Somewhere in this grip, there was a reassurance of love. Had this been her last moment, then it would have been one she would have chosen. However, as the plane flew away, they checked each other for wounds, and there weren’t any. Then the aircraft approached again, and this time they moved further into the carriage, Battiya curled in a ball in front of the only available seats, and Moshe positioned himself over her, pulling their cases over both their heads for protection. “See, this case isn’t so useless after all?”  he joked, though his breathless words were fragmented with dread. She laughed, shook in panic and cried as they waited for the plane’s bullets to pierce the roof. The carriage shook violently, and then there was silence.

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Ideologies of Love Part 3 – Just one word – Love

As far as the ancient Greeks were concerned, romantic and erotic obsessions were clearly defined as a particular type of love. For us though, here in our 21st Century Western cultures, the word ‘love’ has so vague a meaning, that most of us can’t define it, let alone categorise its various forms. However, the reason we use just one word is a story in itself.

For the Greeks and Romans, there were six main categories of love. There was Eros, the Greek god of love and fertility who they perceived as a dangerous, irrational influence centred around sexual passion and desire. For those who entered Eros’s realm, no one would survive unscathed by his deeply wounding arrows.

In contrast to Eros, there was Pragma. This love came about from the deep understanding that may develop between long-term married couples. However, it also required, as we shall come to see, selfless love. Pragma was principally focused on making a relationship work long-term and involved compromise, patience, tolerance, and having realistic beliefs about one’s partner and oneself. It also required supporting each other’s needs and was chiefly nurtured in the service of providing a stable and secure environment for children to grow up in.

Although the Greeks were also very interested in the other forms of love such as brotherly love, true friendships and the love between parents and children, the ones I want to focus on here are ‘Agape’,’ Ludus’ and ‘Philautia’.

Agape could be described as a love for all humans, no matter what their connection to us is. It relates in part to our idea of charity, (in its purest sense), and is very much the backbone of ideologies such as socialism and humanism, and religions such as Christianity, Buddhism and Confucianism. Primarily, it’s unconditional love given without any expectation of reward. However, as we will see later, being altruistic still offers rewards of sorts.

While the types of love we’ve looked at so far have a gravity about them, ‘Ludus’ could be said to be the love of the lightness of being. It’s a playful type of love, that may, for instance, involve having fun with friends, courtly rituals, flirting, and dancing. Although it’s a love with very little substance its purpose is to help us get through the tedium of life.

The last of the three is self-love, ‘Philautia’, and comes in two forms, one negative and the other positive. The former is mainly concerned with satisfying our selfish desires to gain personal pleasures, riches and status whereas the latter serves to equip us to help others by understanding and caring for ourselves too. In the tale of St. Martin, a Roman soldier encountered a half-naked beggar, so he cut his own cloak in half and shared one half with the beggar and kept the other for himself. Later the beggar revealed himself to be Christ to the soldier who was later beatified for his troubles.

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Before going further it’s important to recognise that when we talk about past cultural norms, we keep in mind they were not as clearly defined as historians portray them to be. There were large swathes of people in Europe who lived very separate lives from the higher echelons. For those without property, there was rarely any need for arranged marriages, so for them, marriage, love and sex didn’t necessarily follow the same rules as the middle classes and aristocracy. To think for one second that people back then didn’t kiss passionately, marry for love, fall in and out of love, and have extremely diverse types of relationships would be highly inaccurate.

Anyone who’s read Chaucer would know he had a lot to say on the subject. Likewise, it didn’t take the distribution of ancient Chinese, Indian, Greek, or Roman images of sexual positions for people to find their way around each other’s bodies. Just as it is for us, there were common consensuses about love, as well as other more peripheral ones. Therefore, when we speak about cultural norms, remember, they were not the only ones to exist at any given time. The reason I mention this is I came across a lot of misinformation as I researched, most of it seemingly directed by current political agendas. This included the belief that Europeans lived awful lives until foreigners showed them what they were missing out on. Somehow, according to one writer, Europeans didn’t even know how to kiss passionately until Arab invaders from Spain gave life to the notion of a kiss. The fact that passionate kissing had been written about in Europe for thousands of years previously must have slipped that writer’s mind. My point is, don’t believe everything you read, unless, of course, I wrote it.

So, let’s have a brief look at how Western cultures came to amalgamate all those different types of love into one word. Our story, and it is a story, possibly begins with a thousand tales around 1000 years ago. The Tales of the Arabian Nights helped perpetuate the idea of love being a combination of Eros and the fusion of the lovers’ souls. Even if it wasn’t the first to do this, these notions possibly travelled from Spain to other European royal courts, where they certainly affected attitudes about Courtly Love.

When it came to European royal courts and aristocratic circles, strict rules acted as guides to live by for those in such privileged positions. Given their marriages tended to be loveless, the rules around Courtly Love allowed love to be expressed and experienced at least to some degree. It was during this period that Eros and Agape were combined within rituals of gallantry, chivalry, and heroic deeds. The object of the man’s attention would normally be another member of the aristocracy, however, one of the most surprising rules was she was never to be his wife or a possible future one. Mixing up love and marriage was considered a bad combination given the latter was, for all intents and purposes, a business arrangement.

For those involved in these Courtly rituals, relationships were supposed to remain chaste. Whether the ‘object’ of desire was of a higher social rank or was only to be revered from a distance, the intended result was a yearning that heightened the passion and eroticism of the situation. Maybe it was the thrill of the chase, or should it be chaste? Nowadays, unrequited love is still a major factor within our romantic narratives. Why suffer settling for someone you can have when you can suffer far more by yearning for someone you can’t? For many people, the sweet pain of romance is what it’s all about, no matter how much they deny it.

During the 17th Century marriages within the middle and upper classes started to evolve from being principally pragmatic relationships focused on bringing up the next generation, to ones in which both the husband and wife not only introduced companionship, a form of love known as Philia, but Eros too. Sex was no longer simply an act of procreation but also a pastime in which couples could share in the pleasures of each other’s flesh and heart. On the surface, this may seem a happy turn of events, but men still kept much of their erotic life away from the marital home, so let’s not get too weepy-eyed just yet.

Between 1800 and 1850 the Romantic movement was at its peak and the importance of Eros, Philautia and Ludus within romantic pursuits became paramount. Three central themes dominated the depiction of true love. The protagonist would fall ‘madly’ in love, the love should be unrequited, and as a consequence, it would lead to a tragic end. Nothing new you might say, after all, Shakespeare had written Romeo and Juliet centuries earlier, but still Goethe, Shelley, and Keats all based much of their work on these narratives.

Whilst these writers had approached these themes as a warning, the explosion of tragic romantic art and writing resulted in thousands of people playing out these roles, many of whom subsequently committed suicide. What’s more, even today, we are still peddling the same storylines as the embodiment of true love, sometimes with similarly tragic results.

Even though both the Greeks and the Romantics tried to point out that being led by Eros would result in madness, destruction and unhappiness, we continue to take no heed. Add to this our obsession with finding a soulmate, which is paradoxical given our society has detached itself so much from religion, and it’s no wonder that love and mental health issues go together like a horse and marriage.

So, here we are, armed with one word, very little education about love, a pout, a narcissistic selfie and an expectation that we can find everything we need in just one person. What could possibly go wrong?

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Mummy, why?

“Mummy, what’ll happen when I get married, will I live happily ever after?”

“Oh, little one, well, there will be some good times, at least I hope so. But…” she sighs, “there might be lots of arguments, jealousy, rubbish sex, depression, drinking and infidelity.”

“Mummy, you’re joking, aren’t you?”

“Well, for some people it’s a lot better or so I’ve been told. Here’s a tissue, come on cuddle up to mummy. Aww, darling, come on now, there’s no need to cry, well not yet. You know what sweetheart, I’m sure you’re going to live happily ever after.”

“Fuck that mummy, I’m joining a monastery”.

“Oh well, at least you’ll get more sex there.”

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Moshe and Battiya’s Story Part 4 – Enemies of the People

A few months before Battiya and Moshe were ordered to evacuate from Riga, around 15,500 ‘Enemies of The Soviet State’, including 2400 children, were forcibly deported from Latvia to Siberia. These deportees were predominantly made up of the families of people in leading positions in the government, economy and culture. The same railroad carts that’d transported those families were now attached to the back of the passenger carriages of Moshe and Battiya’s train. This time they were filled with materials destined to be used for those on the front lines as well as a lot of desperate passengers who’d paid the guards bribes to allow them on unofficially.

* * *

Once everyone was on board it became clear that even if this wasn’t the last train out of Riga, everyone believed it was. All the seats were taken, the aisles were full of people and those unofficial passengers in the cattle trucks made very little effort to conceal their presence.

* * *

As the Germans approached, the divisions in Latvian society between the Jews and non-Jews became abundantly clear. Even though no one had any idea what the Nazis had in store for them, their imminent conquest was seen as liberation by most Latvians. As far as they were concerned the Nazis were going to push the Russians out, and for the Latvians that couldn’t come soon enough. But, for the Jews, Gypsies, those with Jewish spouses, and communists, it was a different story.

* * *

The main Nazi plan for the Baltic States, known as the Generalplan Ost, was to colonise the conquered territories and deport two-thirds of the native population to labour camps. As for the remaining third, they were either to be liquidated, used as slave labour, or if deemed sufficiently “Aryan”, Germanized. After this, hundreds of thousands of German settlers were to be relocated into the area.

During a conference on 16 July 1941, Hitler clarified that the Baltic states were to be annexed to Germany at the earliest possible opportunity. With this in mind, some Nazi ideologists recommended integrating the Baltics as German provinces, titling Estonia as Peipusland and Latvia as Dünaland.

Had the non-Jewish Latvians known about this they might have been far less inclined to see the Nazis as their liberators. Instead, not only did they relish the Nazi occupation, but they also tried their very best to out-Nazi the Nazis, especially when it came to brutally persecuting and killing their Jewish countrymen and women.

Anti-Semitism wasn’t a unique characteristic of the Latvians, most of Europe had deeply held anti-Semitic views and had done so for centuries; however, when it came to acting on those beliefs many in the Baltic states excelled, and even after the war, it didn’t end there.

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1995 – Café in London

I went into a café on a side road near West Kensington Station in London and ordered an English breakfast. I was by myself and didn’t speak to anyone except the waiter. I got out a book and became a part of the background. There was a collection of people of different nationalities at another table near me who started to speak about Jews unfavourably. They openly made it clear they thought Jews were the dirty descendants of pigs who controlled the world, Wall Street, Hollywood, the Central Banks, the Media and Governments. There was no discussion about Israel, it was just plain anti-Semitism. At the time, I couldn’t believe the vitriol that was pouring from them, but a year or so later the Internet became a big part of my life and from then on such hatred became something I’d witness on an almost daily basis.

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Ideologies of Love Part 4 – Broken Hearts

After all the millennia we’ve been evolving, one would have thought natural selection would have made us far better equipped to have happy lifelong relationships. Unfortunately, evolution is only concerned with us breeding and surviving. Happiness is irrelevant unless it affects our survival, and given hope springs eternal, it didn’t need to worry.

If sex tends to lie at the root of most of the crimes against ideologies of love, then we are victims of our own success. Even between couples who are bumping (and grinding) along quite nicely, sexual infidelity wreaks havoc at the most unexpected of times.

If you reacted to that last sentence, thinking, “Well, there must have been something wrong for one of them to stray,” then maybe that illustrates part of your own love-related ideologies. You probably believe that when all is running well, neither party will go elsewhere, unless, of course, one of them is psychologically damaged. But maybe that’s just it, maybe humans are generally emotionally broken. So, to be a good partner you’re going to have to be a good person, and for most people, if that’s even possible, it’s going to require a lot of work.

* * *

The Call of Regret

A friend of mine was having a drink with one of her friends who told of getting a call a few years back from a woman informing her that her husband had been cheating on her. This was the catalyst that ended their marriage in divorce. “You know,” she said, as she looked at the light glinting through her wine glass, “Sometimes I wish that woman hadn’t told me. I knew Pete might play around but as far as I was concerned, if no one knew about it, including me, I wouldn’t have cared,” she took a sip and swished the wine between her front teeth, “but once that woman called,” she paused for another sip, “the events that followed took on a life of their own and there was nothing I could do to stop it. Oh, God! It wasn’t as if I had been squeaky clean either, but at least I made sure he never found out. I regret that call far more than I do his infidelity.”

* * *

Therapy

In therapy, the issue of holding back before getting involved with someone came up a few times. Especially during my 20’s (30’s and 40’s). There was one session where we spoke about this and I might have misinterpreted what she said, which can happen a lot in therapy. However, to me, she seemed to be pushing for me to be more cautious. Of course, that was good advice, but I generally didn’t take it. “There’s a reason it’s called Making Love,” she said, “You can very easily create a strong bond even though you are unsuited to one another.” Maybe I wanted to bond with unsuitable people as, even if the relationships were awful, the sex was good, well for a while, and the suffering was maybe exactly what my internal love doctor ordered.

My therapist came from a different world, one where people formally dated, got engaged, married then had sex. Admittedly many people strayed from the approved path back then, both before and after marriage, but it was also an era where people stayed unhappily together forever and ever. So, as much as I could see the sense in waiting to get to know someone before jumping into bed, where was the place in that ideology for someone like me who could resist very little temptation?

Therapist: Do you think you’re split when it comes to relationships?

Simon: Kind of, even when I feel completely in love, I still have desires for others too.

Therapist: Do you think being tempted to stray has anything to do with your childhood?

Simon: Probably, but aren’t we all a bit split?

Therapist: Have you read Faust?

Simon: No.

Therapist: Faust is a fictional character in a play by Goethe, one of the things he says might strike a chord with you.

Simon: Oh, what’s that?

Therapist: “Two souls, alas, are dwelling in my breast. And one is striving to forsake its brother.” Do you understand what he meant?

Simon: I think so, he feels like he has different parts of himself that are at odds with each other.

Therapist: Yes, that’s it. But why are people, why are you split?

* * *

I don’t think my therapist meant for me to leave that session feeling as if I was broken, but I did and, in a way, I was, but I’m not sure how much control I could ever have had. Therapy would help me a lot, but my hormone level lowering as I got older had a significant effect too. Was I broken, or was the ideology of love that says don’t rush into having sex, itself broken? As sensible as that ideology was, it felt unrealistic to me.

* * *

Moshe and Battiya’s Story Part 5 – Journey to Siberia

At around the same time that Battiya and Moshe’s train passed Rēzekne, Moshe’s parents tried to flee the town. As they approached the border between Latvia and Russia, they were attacked by a German patrol plane, so, were forced to return home. Their next-door neighbour was less than pleased to see them come back. So, as soon as the Germans were entrenched in the region, he was quick to inform the Nazis they were Jewish. As a punishment for not surrendering themselves when all the local Jews were supposed to have done so, Moshe’s father was tied to a horse and dragged through the streets until only his legs and spine remained attached to the rope, while Moshe’s mother was taken to the forest where she was murdered out of sight.

The neighbour who informed on them took Moshe’s family house for himself and stayed there until the end of the war. Soon after, he sold the property and emigrated to Australia. After the fall of the Soviet Union, there was never any serious attempt by the Latvian government to find the descendants of those whose property and lives had been stolen. As far as they were concerned this was blood under the bridge.

* * *

The carriages were unbearably hot in the day, freezing at night, the atmosphere suffocating, and there was a pungent, nauseating smell of too many bodies in a closed-in area. Occasionally there was some respite when the train stopped at stations. During those times the passengers could alight for a short while to collect food rations and buy items from the locals who gathered on the platform to sell their wares. Rations only consisted of 100 grams of bread, a ladle of oily porridge, some tea and a canister measure of water. Getting extra provisions became essential for survival.

On the platforms, the passengers would chat a little. Those in the cargo wagons spoke of etched graffiti all along the lower parts of the inside of their trucks that listed the names, ages and dates of death of those who’d died a few weeks back, along with pleas to remember them. There were even descriptions of farewell notes scattered along the full length of the journey. What they didn’t know, but probably surmised anyway, was very few of these ever reached their intended recipients. It would be years before it was revealed that 8500 of those ‘enemies of the State’ had been separated and executed soon after the journey began.

Even though Moshe and Battiya’s carriage was nowhere near as insanitary or overcrowded as the cargo trucks, it didn’t take long for people to start dying. The first person to do so was a man in his 50s. There was no sign that anything was wrong with him but on the third day, someone shook him to tell him they’d stopped for their daily rations, and he didn’t react. Once people realised what had happened a short struggle broke out between a couple of men wanting to relieve the dead man of his clothing and valuables. As the train was at a standstill and the Soviet guards were nearby, it didn’t take long for them to intervene. The body was then taken away with only its coat removed.

After the train set off, one of the men who’d helped break up the scuffle, Valdis, said loudly that the next time someone died who didn’t have any family with them, their personal belongings and clothes should be removed and shared with those most in need. The people in the carriage murmured their opinions on the matter for a few minutes, then it went quiet again. No one dared argue with him though because they couldn’t help but wonder if he was a guard in disguise.

* * *

The places where people settled in the carriages were partly defined by their allegiances and friendships and partly by a lack of options. For those who didn’t have any friends though, it was simply a gamble based on an initial feeling. In the first few hours, everyone assessed each other to a point, working out where best to settle. But, once they’d taken their positions, that was it, that’s where they stayed for the rest of the journey.

Apart from the hostility of the squabble over the dead man’s clothes, there was very little friction within the carriage, but that was more indicative of widespread guarded isolation than a leaning towards peace. Outside of people taking turns standing near the windows to breathe in the fresh air or queuing patiently for the makeshift toilet near one of the exits, there was very little connection between strangers. If this had been full of British or other Europeans there would have been plenty of playing cards, checkers or chess, even if they had to do it with makeshift boards and pieces. And when darkness fell, there’d have been a lot of chatting, some music, singing and the telling of stories and jokes. But in this Soviet world, where families couldn’t trust each other, let alone strangers, everyone was aware that on a journey to or from Hell, acts of kindness could bring a touch of heaven to their world; but on this train, in these lands, there was no room for heaven.

* * *

As the weeks progressed more deaths occurred, it was predominantly the elderly, very young or those who’d fallen sick from a lack of nutrition who succumbed. Valdis’s wishes for a fair redistribution of wealth went unheeded. For the most part, there were very few who died who were completely alone, but when they did, those nearby quietly stripped the body of its clothes and belongings, then when the train stopped, the close-to-naked corpse would be removed by the guards and thrown in a cart.

* * *

Although Moshe and Battiya had brought the wrong case they did have all their money. This meant they could buy extra food and items of clothing from the platform sellers. About 20 days into the journey there was a two-day stop-over at Kuibyshev. Those who could afford it took rooms in the local residents’ houses for the night. This gave them the chance to clean up, get a good night’s sleep and eat some cooked food. Moshe and Battiya stayed in a house belonging to an old man.

When they woke up, they realised all their money had been taken whilst they slept. After desperately searching for it, they could only determine it had been stolen by the old man or someone he knew. It was there before they went to sleep but now it was nowhere to be found. There was no point in calling the police. For Jews, involving the police would have made things worse. Even confronting the old man might have ended with them being strung up, there was nothing they could do.

Maybe the host felt guilty, but as they left he passed them a bucket of potatoes. That was it though, he gave nothing else, just a slight smile as they walked off. Fortunately, they managed to sell a few of the potatoes in the market on the way back to the station, as well as keeping some to eat in secret on the train.

Moshe and Battiya now had barely any money or belongings and over the next few weeks, they became very weak, spending most of the time huddled together keeping warm and conserving what little energy they had.

* * *

Ideologies of Love Part 5 – Ideal Love

Before setting off on this journey, I wanted to make it clear that for many people the notions of love, ideal or otherwise, that I’ll be referring to may not ring true or resonate in any way. If that’s the way you feel about them, I hope you’ll accept my apology. There are many types of love and just as many ways of living that are not touched on here. However, these were the kinds of love that I was interested in for most of my life, hence my focus on them.

* * *

Lovable Products

Are you looking for a good match, do you want to be loved, are you doing everything you can to make yourself more lovable, so Ms or Mr Right will want you? If so, then stop right there. As far as Fromm’s Idealistic love goes. You’re going about it the wrong way.

It’s hard to avoid seeing ourselves in the context of the world we live in, and we live in a very commercial one, full of consumables and consumers. When we think about finding a long-term partner, we expend a lot of resources on making ourselves ‘lovable’ and attractive, whether that be physically, sexually, socially, economically or personality-wise. The emphasis is placed on us to position ourselves so the right person can find and love us, or at least the image of us we’ve created.

One of the problems with focusing on making ourselves into a lovable product, apart from us not being our genuine selves, is just as with commercial products, standardisation comes into play. Unless we’re a high-end, one-of-a-kind, exclusive artefact, it’s safer to make ourselves into an acceptable standard item. It’s not surprising then that so many people look alike. Similar clothing, hairstyles, and bodies are not just directed by fashion but by the zeitgeist of standardised lovables.

As with all production lines, there’s a quality control and grading system that’ll categorise our level of attractiveness between luxury, run-of-the-mill, bargain basement and wonky. This, as with most commercial systems, means people of similar value can be traded against each other. Terms such as meat market, being in the market or being left on the shelf have been commonplace for decades. I’m not saying that this way of thinking is primarily a symptom of our consumer era, but I can’t help but think there’s a bit of a link.

The thing is, relationships are based on far more criteria than just appearances, so while determining someone’s core values might be possible to a degree by assessing their looks, it has its limitations. When Marilyn Munroe got together with the playwright Arthur Miller it might have shocked some people but generally, they accepted other values were coming into play in that union.

* * *

The Look of Love

I was acutely aware of the significance of looks at 17. My body didn’t fit our society’s notion of normality, so I knew for some I was never going to be of any interest no matter how successful, clever, sexy, funny or caring I was. But I was also aware some people found me attractive. That still didn’t stop me from going for the ones who didn’t want me. It was the era of the New Romantics, so I’ll place part of the blame on their stylish shoed feet, after all, Don’t You Want Me Baby was the anthem of the day and that along with ABC’s The Lexicon of Love album, pretty much told me, heartbreak was the way to go. But then so had Elvis. I was a sacrificial lamb to the god of romantic love and didn’t stand a chance from the start.

For most of us, we see love as a feeling, a feeling that may come and go with the wind. When we think of a lifelong commitment, we wonder how that could ever be possible, especially when we doubt our own feelings lasting, let alone anyone else’s. On top of that, what we believe makes us, or others, lovable is transient too. Our bodies, personalities, careers, wealth, and health are all likely to change over time, so how could love remain constant? Furthermore, there are our deeper darker thoughts and feelings, which at times we feel completely at the mercy of. How can we trust others when we’re not sure if we can trust ourselves? We are surrounded by the belief in happiness ever after, but it’s our doubts that truly guide us.

* * *

Love is a Verb

The notion that being attractive will improve our chance of experiencing ‘true love’ illustrates perfectly the difference between Idealistic and Western Romantic ideologies of love. Both Western Romantic cultures and those that place their faith in arranged marriages, share the same belief that all you need to do is bring the right ingredients together, and from then on everything will fall into place. In this way, the process of love is perceived as a response to a stimulus.

In the Idealistic Love ideologies of Fromm, it’s the other way around. Sure, there must be good ingredients, but the main emphasis is on the process. Romantic love focuses on being loved; Idealistic love emphasises learning how to love. One is about an immediate arrival. The other is about recognising potential and building on it.

For most people giving love rather than receiving it is problematic, especially if they feel starved of love in the first place, because for them, there’s very little love to give. Being loved might be the aim of Romantic love, but if so much of who we are gets lost within the process of becoming attractive, is it really us being loved? Romantic narratives say we’ll see each other in the look of love, so, as we gaze into each other’s eyes we will see the depths of our souls. But in practice, these initial connections are likely borne of fantasy and whichever way the relationship goes will be more a matter of chance than spiritual connection.

Fromm’s Idealistic Love ideology takes a very different approach. As far as it is concerned finding ourselves and being strong enough to show others who we are is one of its primary objectives. This doesn’t just mean we say, “This is me, take it or leave it.” It’s part of a much larger process that involves a lot of self-development, especially by becoming less narcissistic and more caring towards others.

* * *

Yours Pragmatically

In previous times, there was very little romance or care in long-term relationships. Even up to quite recently, such relationships were widely viewed as pragmatic arrangements that were for the sake of the children. They also kept people busily involved in what felt like a meaningful pursuit, and possibly, more importantly, helped society remain stable. Keeping most of the male population busy was one way of stopping them from getting up to no good, which, let’s face it is what tends to happen when they’re left to their own devices.

In turn, this all helped create an environment in which industry could capitalise on a ready-made workforce. Whether it was under the guise of Capitalism or Communism, the family unit provided workers with a support system and a constant source of workers for industry. However, even though some stability was brought about because of this, it would take clam-like social rules to keep these families together. Forcing people to remain with each other when they shouldn’t have, resulted in a lot of abuse, particularly towards women and children and of course, some men too. There were, after all, a lot more murdered husbands back then.

* * *

The Power of Love

From the 1950s onwards, the image of the family unit began to collapse, leading in turn to both new opportunities and a whole host of other problems. Possibly the biggest development in our society that directly offered a better way forward for relationships was the fundamental change in women’s roles within Western societies. As far back as the Roman era, women were viewed as the property of their fathers and then their husbands. It was around that time that the word ‘obey’ was introduced to the wedding vows and it took close to 2000 years for it to be renounced, and even then, that was only in some quarters. In 1922 the Episcopal Church voted to remove the word obey from the bride’s wedding vows; however, many other denominations of Christianity continue to incorporate it today, and in most weddings, fathers still give their daughters away.

There may, of course, be plenty of women (and men) who like the feeling of being owned or bound to someone else but in terms of a relationship based on equality, such dynamics are not helpful. If you’re going to attempt developing love between two people, then one cannot hold more power over the other. All relationships involve power dynamics, so, to a point they’re unavoidable. However, if one person cannot be themselves out of fear of the other, then that is a very different matter.

* * *

Aristotle, George and Margaret

I once went to a philosophy meeting about friendship. It was held in a room above the Rose and Crown, an old-fashioned pub that stood alone, surrounded by large blocks of flats in Colombo Street, London. In this room, with its swirly grey carpet and an old wooden bar in the corner, one of the speakers talked about some of Aristotle’s ideas about friendship, including his resistance to the possibility that men and women, especially husbands and wives, could have what he termed, ‘perfect friendships’.

Aristotle’s main argument was when there is a role between two people such as a parent and child or boss and employee, certain restrictions act upon their relationship. For instance, could a husband or wife be entirely honest, in the same way they’d be to a close friend, especially about feelings they might have for someone else? In most cases, the answer would be no. For this reason, they can’t truly be themselves in each other’s company, so for Aristotle that meant their relationship had limits to it.

When I mentioned this to one of the very few couples I know who I believe have had a close-to-perfect marriage, they looked dismayed. George, who’d been a police officer, shook his head and said, “Margaret’s my best friend, I could tell her anything”, then Margaret, who was a woman of very few words said, “That Aristotle doesn’t know what he’s talking about.” Perhaps there was some truth in what she said, after all, when Aristotle considered these matters men and women were not equal at all. Maybe, for George and Margaret, there had been equality between them from the outset but for most people, this is a far more recent phenomenon.

* * *

Moshe and Battiya’s Story Part 6 – Ishim

In present-day Europe, there’s a route called the E22. One end of it starts in the United Kingdom, then passes through the Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, Latvia and Russia, where it terminates at the city of Ishim in Siberia. This too was the end of the line for Battiya and Moshe. They were over 2000 miles from Riga, and after four weeks of travelling, they were undernourished, weak, sick, and despondent, but at least they were still alive. Hand in hand, barely able to walk, they waited on the platform while a couple of guards allocated the new arrivals places to stay.

* * *

Ishim was an administrative centre in Western Siberia. The middle of it had a few grand buildings situated near the river. There was a station, a market, and an industrial area to the northeast, but apart from that, the main roads and dirt tracks that radiated from the centre had very few buildings along them. There was a surreal wretchedness about this place.

The sudden influx of several hundred ‘essential foreign workers’ was met with mixed reactions. In terms of the Soviet system, these were ‘fellow comrades’ whom the locals were ordered to take in and receive rent from for their trouble. However, they were ‘comrades’ who didn’t speak their language, so, they certainly couldn’t be trusted, but then people didn’t trust their own family members, so this wasn’t anything new. The upshot of all of this though, was they were not welcomed into the local community.

* * *

The word Ishim, whether it’s related to the town’s name or not, also refers to a class of angels in Judaism that were said to be closest to the affairs of men. The angels themselves were composed of fire and ice in equal measure. Their primary raison d’être was to extol the virtues of God and give advice to and pray for humans. But the only bit of Heaven in Ishim would be between those who trusted each other, and they were few and far between.

* * *

Some of the newcomers ended up in provisional barracks, while others, including Battiya and Moshe, were offered rooms in local residents’ small log cabin homes. It was luck of the draw as to whether they were allocated a good proprietor. Fortunately for Battiya and Moshe, theirs was a kind-hearted middle-aged man who welcomed them, and their rent. He was a widower so the promise of a bit of company and help around the house made him a little more amenable. He also let them have a patch of the garden where they could grow food, although he expected a share of the yield for doing so, and to help them get started he gave them some seeds.

The house had no upper floors and just one small communal area with a couple of bedrooms off it. There was no bathroom or toilet, just an outhouse for anyone brave enough to use it in the winter and the smaller of the two bedrooms became Moshe and Battiya’s new home.

* * *

For the ‘Enemy of the Soviet State’ family members who survived, it had been a very different story. They’d been ‘settled’ in towns not so far away, but when they arrived, they were left in a field for several days. During that time, severe storms left them soaked, cold and unwell. Those who survived were offered shelter on condition that they signed trumped-up confessions and accepted a 20-year conviction to remain in Siberia.

At first, they were housed in long wooden overcrowded barracks which were unsanitary, freezing cold, and disease-ridden. So, when farms and factories were offered as alternative places for the children to stay, their mothers agreed to them being placed there even though it meant they would be separated from each other. Essentially these children became slaves. For some, walking cattle 60 miles to the slaughterhouses was one of the easier posts, although none of the meat was ever intended to come back to those who lived in this region, however, unofficially, it did. For the workers, nice food only ever appeared in dreams and nearly everything nutritious was either sent to the front lines, the cities or the local more equal, equals in charge.

* * *

For Moshe and Battiya there was no respite either. Only one day after moving in they were told to come to the factory where they had to start working straight away. Whilst they were not confined to a Gulag, they were forced to work for most of their waking hours while being fed and paid very little in return. For all intents and purposes, they were slaves. It’s true that the place they got to sleep in wasn’t as bad as the Gulag barracks, but they were extremely undernourished, forced to work for 14 hours a day, with no days off and on top of that, they were inadequately clothed for the -40 degree temperatures. So, it was no surprise that for many of the workers, their bodies started to falter.

Outside of working at the factory, Moshe got requests from people to do jobs in exchange for food and clothing. The United States had donated lots of tools to help Russia in its war effort, so the factory and consequently Moshe acquired quite a few of them. As most of what he did revolved around working with metals, his expertise became sought after, so, from the moment he arrived at the factory till late at night he worked.

One of the food hall managers asked him to patch up some of the pans. Moshe was a bit wary of him, he looked like a boulder that might fall upon him, but still, Moshe knew he couldn’t refuse especially as the manager had ties to the local Communist Party. After Moshe completed the job, he expected the man to pay him in kind with some food. Instead, nothing was offered at all. Moshe stood there waiting, but the man just looked him up and down.

“What are you waiting for?” he said.

“I thought we had a deal,” Moshe said.

The man shook his head, pushed his lips together into an upside-down smile, and said, “I don’t think so.”

Moshe wanted to clout him one, but he knew nothing good would come of that, so he stayed silent. This was what happened when you came up against a more equal, equal.

The next day Moshe had to go to work early, so, it was still dark and no one was on the street except him. As he passed the food hall, he felt overwhelmed with anger, picked up a rock and threw it at one of the windows. As it flew through the air, he half hoped it would just bounce off, but instead, the whole pane came crashing down. For a second, he was frozen to the spot, then realising what he’d done, he ran down an alley and made a detour so he wouldn’t be seen. Later that day a police officer turned up at his work and went into one of the manager’s offices. A short while later he came out looking as if something was troubling him. Moshe tried his best not to look at him but as the officer passed, their eyes met for a second, so Moshe bowed his head.

When Moshe got home that night, he didn’t tell Battiya about the shop window. He knew it was going to come back on him and didn’t want her to be culpable in any way. This was a world where you were obliged to tell on your husband or wife if they did anything wrong. As he walked in Battiya made him some tea.

“That food hall manager, you know he’s not going to pay you now,” she said.

Moshe felt slightly faint, “Why? What has he said?”

As she passed him his tea she loudly whispered, “He’s not saying anything, well not to anyone in Ishim. He was rounded up and sent to the front line today.”

A feeling of relief travelled from Moshe’s head to his toes. “Do you know why they took him?”

“Why are you asking? You know, no one knows why. One thing I can tell you though is, he must have upset the wrong person.”

Moshe wrapped his hands around the metal cup, sipped his tea and said, “You’re right, I won’t get paid then.”

Battiya sighed, “Yes, I had a bad feeling about him.”

“So did I,” Moshe said raising his eyebrows.

At that point, their landlord walked into the room from his bedroom.

“Who did you have a bad feeling about?” he asked.

“The man who got arrested today, the one who owns the food hall,” Battiya said.

“Ah him, yes he has a lot of enemies.” The landlord checked himself. “Is there any more tea left in the pot?”

“Yes,” Battiya said, then poured him a cup.

“Hey,” the landlord was suddenly animated “Do you want to try some of my Samogon?”

They both nodded and smiled but deep down they knew this homemade alcohol was dangerous, not just because it could poison you, but also because it might lead to letting things slip.

He poured the Samogon into a couple of mugs and lifting his own, toasted, “Let’s celebrate the corrupt manager being caught.”

They only had one drink, thanked him then retired to their room, where not a word was spoken.

* * *

Ideologies of Love Part 6 – Ideal Love – Preparations

For even as love crowns you so shall he

crucify you.

Even as he is for your growth

so is he for your pruning.

Even as he ascends to your height and

caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,

So, shall he descend to your roots and

shake them in their clinging to the earth.

From ‘On Love’ – The Prophet

By Kahlil Gibran

* * *

The Patient Patient

A list of instructions on “How to have a good relationship’ would be welcomed by most of us. That way we could follow them, just as a computer does a program. However, the directions laid out by Fromm might better be thought of as a guide to creating an environment in which love can grow. To make matters worse, the suggestions he makes require lots of preparation and training. If you’re after a quick fix, then you’re going to be very disappointed. Right from the start, you’re going to need a degree of patience, and when I say a degree, I mean a very big one. I’ll be straight, this is probably going to take years and there’ll be plenty of setbacks. However, if you’re tempted to throw in the towel straight away, I’d suggest reading on as a lot of what he proposes is worth considering anyway, and even if that doesn’t tempt you, keep this chapter in mind just in case one day you find yourself all out of love for the Nth time and can’t see any way forward.

Of course, if you feel you lack patience you can always say this prayer,

“God give me patience and give it to me quickly”.

It probably won’t work, but at least you asked.

* * *

Self-Sufficiency

At the heart of preparing ourselves for love is self-sufficiency. Fromm believed that being self-sufficient will stand us in good stead to not be with others merely because we can’t bear being by ourselves. However, there’s a big difference between filling our time with distracting activities such as watching films, playing computer games, getting drunk or stoned, or even becoming a workaholic, and being happy in our own company.

The problem for many in our society is we’ve been brought up with the notion of constantly being entertained, so, the things Fromm suggested will seem alien to most people. However, they’re still worth considering, and indeed, if you feel anxious about letting go of activities you’ve relied on for so long it begs the question, why?

The kind of things Fromm believed might help us be by ourselves included meditating, reading, listening to music or talks, and amongst many other things, studying subjects we find interesting. The aim is to provide a sense of peace and structure to our lives rather than excitement and distraction. For most people, the idea of trying to instigate such a big change will fill them with nausea, but it’s possible that even after just a short time, this new way of living may be pleasurable.

If you’re someone who finds it hard to be alone it might be worth trying to work out if it’s because you can’t stand being with yourself, and if so, why? Of course, it’s not that you’re meant to put yourself in solitary confinement for months, but at least starting with small periods of peaceful time alone might be worth trying and in time extending it further. Once we’re able to spend time happily alone we won’t feel so driven to be with someone just for the sake of it and that’ll mean we’ll wait to find a person we want to be with.

* * *

Considerate Reactions

The next fundamental principle of this system requires us to become less self-absorbed, and more considerate, caring and altruistic. This includes not seeing people primarily as resources, but instead, as individuals with their own needs and problems. If we use others for our ends, then we’ll probably think they’re doing the same with us. If, however, we approach relationships with some degree of care and recognise the humanity in others, we may enter a world where we too feel genuinely cared for, or at least recognised by others as human with our weaknesses, strengths, vulnerabilities and abilities.

* * *

Reactivity – It’s Not About You, It’s About Me

It’s very easy to perceive others’ behaviour as somehow relating to us. For example, if someone’s actions have an adverse effect on us, we may immediately think they either set out to hurt us intentionally or just didn’t consider us at all, and for many, either reason is enough to feel anger. When we come up against such a situation it’s tempting to want to “teach them a lesson”, however, this risks things becoming far more explosive.

Alternatively, we can approach difficult interactions with the aim of trying to understand what is really going on. If we do, we may find we played no part in their actions at all and that’ll help us see they’re calling for love and understanding. Alternatively, if we focus only on our needs being considered then we’re likely to end up treading a destructive path; after all, most of the world doesn’t consider us, so we better prepare for being constantly at war.

The same applies when it comes to our more intimate relationships. We can choose to take everything personally or seek to understand what’s going on in those we care for. If we take the latter path not only will we nurture a more peaceful atmosphere, but those we love will most likely be touched by our consideration.

Unfortunately, in my case, it generally was because I had actually pissed them off, and when I suggested that it was anything but me that might be the cause, well, that didn’t help matters either.

* * *

Extra Punitive

If we are prone to taking things out on others, even though logically we knew it was completely our fault, then we probably have a propensity to be extra punitive. If we don’t check ourselves for such reactions, we can all too easily, and unfairly, take things out on those around us. This too requires us to consider other people’s feelings, and personalities. I often find myself quick to think this way, but I’ve found I can consciously tell myself it’s not someone else’s fault, and that tends to help a little.

The same is true if we’re primed to believe people will let us down. If we think that way, then we’ll be far more likely to see others as unreliable, whether they are or not. Being aware of our presumptions and expectations can help us to stop continually jumping to the wrong conclusions. Still, this kind of awareness may take years of study and self-analysis to develop and no matter how hard we try to be objective, we should always keep in mind that we only ever have a partial picture of what’s going on in others and ourselves.

In many ways, this caring approach lies within the realm of Agape-type love and requires truly loving others, recognising their essence as humans, and understanding them as best we can, even when they are being difficult. This doesn’t mean losing ourselves by falling into them but holding both ourselves and them in a light of love and care. Now if you believe you can’t feel for others at all, that you have no empathy or sympathy, then again this may require years of work, but at least recognising it’s an issue will be a step in the right direction.

* * *

Self-Discipline and Commitment

If we’re serious about having real love in our lives, then we must be prepared to put in the effort. Any attempts to change ourselves will have to be backed up by self-discipline, patience, and commitment.

* * *

Concentration

Concentration will also be essential, not just in terms of learning and thinking, but also when it comes to dealing with others. Being able to concentrate means we can focus more fully on our friends and loved ones. Again, this will be an important skill when it comes to loving someone, as we learn to listen more carefully, we’ll be able to hear what people are telling us and pay attention to their needs.

* * *

Values

Reassessing what characteristics in ourselves and others resonate with our own core beliefs will help us identify what values we’d like to develop as well as the negative ones we ought to work on. Even just thinking back on our past experiences we may remember people who touched us in a good way. The more we do this, the more we’ll be able to find ourselves, and the more we do that, the greater confidence we’ll have.

* * *

Confidence

The consequence of becoming more focused on seeking the truth will be having a conviction about what we believe is right. This doesn’t mean we can’t accept we’re wrong, quite the opposite, if we seek the truth then we must welcome adjustments. However, instead of blindly following the herd and believing something just because everyone else does, we can spend time rooting out the truth.

* * *

Faith in Others

The more genuine confidence we attain, the more faith we will have in others, including our loved ones. When we recognise in them their passion for the truth, then we can let them make their own decisions, knowing that they are doing so with the best of intentions. This doesn’t mean they won’t get things wrong or there’s never going to be a risk of betrayal, there will be. The thing is, we’re going to have to make leaps of faith when it comes to love, and accept no matter how well we know someone, there will always be the possibility of them letting us down. But, when we know we can be trusted, we’ll recognise this virtue in others too.

If we believe we can’t be honourable, then we’ll find it very hard to have faith in anyone else. What’s more, when others sense our trust in them it will inspire them to flourish, whereas if they sense our distrust then they will most likely stumble.

For those who don’t have faith in others, there will be a temptation to take control through domination and power, but this kind of forcefulness is the result of fear. If we are to love, then we must have courage and accept the possibility of pain and disappointment. Apart from being anxious about the dangers we may face as individuals, just loving someone will mean we’re also concerned with them too. If we’re going to love someone, we have to accept it won’t always feel good.

* * *

Fear

When we say, “We’re scared of not being loved”, we ought to remember we are also scared of loving and all the risks it involves.

* * *

Did you get all of that? I will be writing more about it a bit later, but if you want to read more about this in-depth you may find Eric Fromm’s book “On Love” of interest.

* * *

Moshe and Battiya’s Story Part 7 – Winter – Ishim

During the autumn months, the landscape turned from green to brown. Many people lost their shoes in the thick, muddy fields, so to cope, they bound their feet with cloth which soon became sodden and cold. For some, it would be years before they would ever wear shoes again and in the meantime, their feet would become permanently damaged.

Before the snow fell, people collected as many nettles and shrubs as possible for the soups they’d make through the winter. The rations weren’t anywhere near close enough to provide the calories and nutrition required to keep people working, so pilfering and bartering became essential for survival.

In a land of nothing, something extra had to come from somewhere or someone, otherwise, everything would have collapsed. So, it fell to the more equals, the local police, soldiers, and officials, to provide that extra little bit of something, and to turn a blind eye when it suited them. This put them in extraordinary positions of power and furnished them with quite a bit of wealth. For those who were chosen to be caught though, the punishments were severe. One mother took two cabbages and got six months in prison. No doubt her real ‘crime’ was her refusing the advances of a more equal, equal. Her children were then left to fend for themselves. There were no social services or goodwill, especially to the offspring of the criminal classes.

As the landscape turned to white, this first winter was especially cold with temperatures dropping as low as -40 degrees. Moshe and Battiya’s extra shifts and work on the side meant they could ‘acquire’ good enough clothing to survive. But the lack of rest and nutrition saw Battiya’s immune system start to weaken, so much so, that one day her body gave up and she fell ill.

Their landlord recognised the symptoms immediately, he’d seen it before. The stiffness in her joints, the spinal abscesses, and the paralysis from the waist down. He beckoned Moshe to come out of the bedroom and whispered, “I’m sorry, but I’m pretty sure It’s skeletal tuberculosis. We have to get her to the hospital.”

Moshe looked at him and asked, “How do you know?”

“Because,” he paused and looked down at the ground, “Because my wife had it.”

Moshe frowned, “But you might be mistaken.”

The landlord pulled his top lip in between his teeth, then nodded slightly and said, “Yes, I hope so.”

It was impossible to get her to the hospital there and then, the weather was vicious and there were no horses or carts available. Battiya’s condition worsened with every passing hour and by the morning she had fallen into unconsciousness. None of the neighbours had vehicles, so, Moshe ran to the factory where he asked if one of the drivers would help. “I can’t,” came the reply, “not without the manager’s consent.” So, when Moshe approached him, he wasn’t surprised when he’d only agree to do so on condition Moshe worked 30 extra hours the following month. What he meant by that was Moshe would have to pay him the wages for those hours and do the extra work.

The Soviet health care system far exceeded that of the pre-civil war Russian Empire. However, the Second World War had already taken its toll, so, while Battiya was given medical attention soon after arriving at the hospital, the responsibility for feeding her fell on Moshe.

Moshe had to work 16 hours a day, not only to pay for Battiya’s ride to the hospital but to make up for the shortfall in their wages. There was no sick pay, so, no work meant no income. After leaving the factory he’d buy food, or procure it through barter jobs, then make his way to the hospital, after which he’d return home to sleep for a few hours. Then he’d repeat the whole process over again.

* * *

The main ‘cure’ for tuberculosis back then was rest, a good diet and fresh air. This had been the principal approach since the 1880s when research showed this had a positive effect.

One evening Moshe came to the hospital to find Battiya’s bed empty.

A man’s voice called from behind him. “Mr Shruster, Mr Shruster?”

Moshe turned around. A doctor was standing a few feet behind him.

“Yes,” Moshe said.

The Doctor looked at him. “I’m afraid I have some very bad news”.

* * *

Ideologies of Love Part 7- Ten Things That May Help Love to Develop

Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself.

He threshes you to make you naked.

He sifts you to free you from your husks.

He grinds you to whiteness.

He kneads you until you are pliant;

And then he assigns you to his sacred fire,

that you may become sacred bread for

God’s sacred feast.

All these things shall love do unto you

that you may know the secrets of your

heart, and in that knowledge become a

fragment of Life’s heart.

From ‘On Love’ – The Prophet

By Kahlil Gibran

* * *

So, with the preparations explained above, here’s a list I’ve collated from the writings of Plato and Fromm, regarding some of the higher ideals that may help develop true love.

1 Accepting our initial feelings are not grounded in reality allows us to resist making commitments too early. For instance, by not rushing to get married, buying a property or having children together.

2 Letting go of the belief that love will come from ‘enjoying’ the experience of each other. I can love ice cream but I’m not going to marry it, although one brand of salted caramel flavour was a contender. Separating these two things will help us focus on what love is truly about. In other words, we should avoid seeing those we love as a source of pleasure, a means to an end.

3 We must allow ourselves to be truly who we are and not hide behind a facade. Unless of course, you’re a psychopathic killer, in which case none of this is going to help much. Likewise, we should avoid becoming a clone or seeking one out, but instead spend time working out what we value in others and ourselves. Even if our work is pushing us more and more to act as automatons, being able to be ourselves is an important factor in our relationships with others and ourselves. It’s better to be disliked for who we are than liked for who we are not.

4 Apart from dealing with the traumas and stress that life deals us, we should aim to be as happy as we can, to love ourselves unselfishly while helping our friends and loved ones to be themselves too. This may involve us connecting with our deeper creative parts, whether that be via the arts, cooking, decorating, fixing cars, you name it, there are probably many things that you like doing in life. This is part of being yourself but also makes space for you to help others be themselves too.

5 Avoid approaching a relationship as a deal. Seeing one another on an equal basis is of the utmost importance. That doesn’t necessarily mean you should both share everything equally. It’s about recognising and respecting each other’s strengths and weaknesses and, again, not seeing the other person as a means to an end.

6 We hear a lot about being independent, but maybe interdependency is a better way forward. An interdependent individual acknowledges the value of vulnerability and is able to create emotional intimacy between themselves and their loved ones. They also hold dear a sense of their self and their loved one’s self, allowing each other to be themselves without any need to compromise who they are, or their values.

Once again this is more about creating an environment in which things can grow, whereas when you feel dependent you’re more likely to have expectations and demands. Ultimately, being dependent will lead to you not getting what you want, so instead, try to let go and give, but give without expectation.

7 If we focus on giving to others when it’s needed, we allow ourselves to feel a greater pleasure than when we take. So, in a selfish way, giving can make us feel happy and potent. On a slightly less selfish note, we can tap into our more empathetic capabilities and by making others happy, feel happy too. Whether we choose to see giving as a selfish or altruistic undertaking, either way, it lies at the heart of love.

8 By trying to understand ourselves more, and yes that is no easy task, we can love others in two main ways. Firstly, we can recognise when our destructive patterns come into play, and secondly, we can try to understand our loved ones because we realise they are prone to being irrational, just as we are at times too. By stepping back, being less reactive and more considerate in our dealings with others we can help bring about a more loving environment.

9 Respect. The word respect comes from the Latin to look back at. When we look at or see those we love we should strive to see them for who they are. We must become knowledgeable of them to their core, but with a motivation of care, not power. We should know them as much as we can, inside out.

10 Having faith in our loved ones doesn’t just mean trusting them not to betray us. It also means trusting them to do what is best for themselves. Likewise, trusting ourselves to do what is best for us and them too. Our attempts to help them develop must not be for our sake, as in we mustn’t mould them to our taste, but help them be who they truly can be.

Many of us, including me, may well have tried to control our partners, to prevent them from going off with someone else or getting involved in something that we believe might not be good for them. Without our trust in our loved ones, we will more than likely damage if not destroy love. In other words, there is no choice. One must have faith in others and ourselves, and accept if they or we act against the relationship, then so be it, we’ll have to cross that bridge and see what it means then.

I’m going to take you on another detour, don’t worry, we’ll be coming back.

* * *

Ideologies of Love Part 7 Continued – Betrayal

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.

Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain…

… Much of your pain is self-chosen.

It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self.

Therefore, trust the physician, and drink his remedy in silence and tranquillity.

For his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided by the tender hand of the Unseen,

And the cup he brings, though it burns your lips, has been fashioned of the clay which the Potter has moistened with His own sacred tears.

‘On Pain’ – The Prophet

By Kahlil Gibran

* * *

There’s a story about a father teaching his child to be more courageous. He gets the child to jump from the first step of a staircase into his arms. He does this again, this time the child jumps from the next step up, and then again until the child is on the fourth step. At this point, the father steps back so the child lands flat on their face. The child gets up, their nose is bleeding and they cry from the depths of their soul.

It’s very hard not to react to this story as an act of child abuse. That’s the way I felt about it when I first heard it. Even though the point of this act is to teach the child those you trust and love can literally let you down, it’s almost unbearable to think of our children being treated this way. Still, this story has value. It isn’t just about treachery, it’s also about learning to deal with our falls, even horrific ones. And accepting that our children’s biggest lessons in life will most likely be painful ones.

There are many paths we can take when reacting to the blows life deals us. We can feel victimised, persecuted, and full of anger, or we can learn other ways to react. Amongst these are trying to accept that often these things have very little to do with us and we were just unlucky. Equally, there may be times when we have played a part in our demise, and by coming to terms with that we can improve ourselves.

In some ways, this story is similar to the fall of Adam and Eve in the Bible. Surely God knew they would eat from the Tree of Knowledge and therefore fall from Paradise. Was God being cruel for cruelty’s sake, or was God laying the ground for humans to realise that putting our trust in the earth beneath our feet, to have blind faith, is a mistake? Was God’s love in the Old Testament the conditional love of a father, which at times can be cruel, and the New Testament one of unconditional love, the love of the mother and holy mother? Both types of love have their negative and positive sides, but somehow, it is unconditional love that seems more divine.

I’ve mentioned before the word Religion relates to a notion of ‘reconnecting’ and is generally seen in this context as relating to God, but it may also include reconnecting to ourselves. When we understand the betrayer is not just out there but in us, we get to be more self-aware and understand others more clearly. By accepting our potential to betray we discover a truth about ourselves which in turn makes us feel better known and therefore less betrayed. The more we deny who we are the more we betray ourselves, and others. Therefore, once betrayal is seen as a part of ourselves, life and love, the more prepared we are to heal the wounds we must bear when confronted with it.

There have been times when I have been betrayed and had I lived in a world where I thought betrayal should never occur, I think I’d have been broken by those experiences. But there have also been occasions in relationships when I have betrayed and felt the bitter taste of doing so. And then later, to find I was repeating the same mistakes, even though I’d vowed I wouldn’t, was a further betrayal, but this time, of myself too. When we betray others, we betray ourselves, as they betray themselves when they do it to us.

When we experience betrayal, we may be tempted to exact revenge, and ironically this vengeance may involve acts of betrayal. Maybe all betrayal is vengeance for previous betrayals. But as we are often reminded, revenge may incur a heavy price upon us psychologically, a further self-betrayal. If forgiveness will set us free, why do we so readily choose vengeance?

There are many costs to vengeance, one of them is we no longer see the person who hurt us as multi-dimensional. If we only see them as evil, then we can’t allow the part of them we loved, if we ever loved them, to exist. In other words, we will have to reject an uncomfortable part of reality if we deny they are human.

Likewise, if we don’t accept we were too trusting too quickly, then are we not ignoring a part of who we are, a part that had we been more conscious of, would have meant we’d have been more careful in the first place? If so, then denying our role in our self-betrayal is yet a further self-betrayal.

We may well view the father in this story as being cruel, yet deep down, for all the ways we try to make learning pleasurable for our children, we know that the greatest lessons are likely to be painful ones and if we do not prepare them for this, then would that not be a betrayal in itself?

What depth of love will they experience if they believe the arms they leap into will never let them down, what meaning would there be, what would be the point of leaping? The same goes for life, if we believed we would live forever, would love and life, feel as precious as they do? We may see death as the ultimate betrayal, but is it not also a gift that tells us not to waste our lives?

* * *

Moshe and Battiya’s Story Part 8 – Sacrifice and Betrayal

“Your wife is in surgery; we’re going to have to remove two of her ribs.”

There was only one question Moshe wanted to ask right then, and he did.

“Is she going to die?”

The doctor bowed his head slightly.

* * *

When the doctors removed two of Battiya’s ribs, both Moshe and later Battiya, had a similar thought, was this some kind of payback for Adam sacrificing his rib to help create Eve? The sins of the parents get handed to their children, and sometimes it’s with added interest.

Carl Jung spoke of ‘quandaries’ that are passed down through generations in families. For him, I think he was referring to more philosophical questions than personal psychological ones, but even so the same can be applied. Just as we may seek to resolve issues in our own lives by repeating difficult scenarios, ever hopeful that one day we will bring things to a more preferred conclusion, maybe some issues get passed down through family lines. The idea that one generation seeks to escape the bondage of the previous one is nothing new. Whether it’s escaping poverty, abuse or abandonment, it’s precisely those things that cause the next generation to experience the same things too.

In my family, the women seemed to suffer far more than the men, and probably because of them too. Boris’s father, Samuel, who’d been damaged by World War One, may have been predestined to be a gambler, womaniser and irresponsible father. Was this caused by genetics, his parents, or something else, we’ll never know. Both Esther and Battiya suffered as a direct result of Samuel’s behaviour, and who knows if the other children were affected adversely too. Boris certainly took on some of the same traits as Samuel, as I did as well. Were these betrayals caused by betrayals or was it already in our nature?

* * *

Ideologies of Love Part 8 – For Better or Forget it

There’s someone I know, they’re not a friend, but a relation (through marriage) of a friend. This person married a man a good bit older than herself. They both went to church and liked to appear as upstanding members of the community. But when in his late 80’s he fell ill, all she could do was complain to him that he was ruining her life, that she never had a moment to herself, and all he ever did was call to her for help, and she’d had enough. This was despite there being a live-in carer and plenty of other support.

He had been a good provider, and they were certainly not short of money, so, as he got progressively frailer, they also paid for an extra nighttime carer. Now there was close to 24-hour help at hand, but still, as he became more and more scared, he’d call out for her, and she would just shout at him to stop. Then she started shouting at the carers for not doing their job properly. Consequently, after a few weeks, she’d gone through most of the agency’s employees as she’d either sacked them or they’d left as they couldn’t stand the abuse. Then one day he became very disorientated and kept whispering the word, “help.”

His wife said, “I’ve had enough of this, I’m going out to get some space.” Fortunately, the latest carer kept an eye on him and soon realised he was spiralling down very quickly, so she called an ambulance. The paramedics arrived soon after and within minutes diagnosed an infection. He was rushed to hospital where after a few days of antibiotics he was ready to go home.

“I promise to be good this time, tell me how I can help,” he pleaded to his wife.

“I just need to have a bit of time for myself, that’s all.” She said, as he reached out his hand towards her and like a very sorry child anxiously said to her, “I love you.”

“I love you too,” she coldly replied.

Of course, within hours she was telling him to stop calling for her, at which point the carer went up to my friend and said, “She has no use for him anymore, now he is just a burden to her.”

From the other room, he shouted, “I love you,” and with a sigh, his wife shouted back, “Yes, and I love you too.”

For a short while after that, things looked like they’d settled down a bit. A new routine began to take shape which mainly involved his wife having as little to do with his care as possible. Even so, she made it known that the little she did do was close to intolerable for any normal human being.

There were times in the day when the carer wasn’t necessary. This day the man’s wife was tending to the garden. She hadn’t left his walking frame near him, so he decided to make his way to the toilet. As he was on a mezzanine floor, he had a choice of either going up or down a few steps to get to the loo. He thought it would be safer to go up a flight given his balance was not good, but halfway up he fell backwards onto the wooden floor. It was sometime before his wife came in and by this time he was semi-conscious. She called for an ambulance and once again he was taken to the hospital.

His wife didn’t want him back, she insisted that he mustn’t come home because she couldn’t bear him anymore, that she hated him and besides, all the savings were getting used up so she wouldn’t be able to pay for any more carers. That turned out to be untrue, it’s just she didn’t want their money being wasted on him any longer.

When I looked at their wedding photo, they were an attractive middle-aged couple, she was grinning a big toothy smile and he looked relieved. They’d signed the legal documents. The deal had been done. But a certificate of marriage is not a certificate of love. For all her betrayal of him, he’d equally betrayed himself. I had only met her a few times but still got the measure of her, so I couldn’t help but think he knew what he was getting himself into.

* * *

Moshe and Battiya’s Story Part 9 – Love

During the first days after Battiya’s surgery, Moshe wondered if his life would be worth living if she was to die. Then as she started to regain consciousness, he watched her body convulsing in pain and felt awful for her, but all he could do was gently stroke her face to calm her, wet her lips when they were dry, wipe the sweat away when the fevers came, and quietly speak so she’d know she wasn’t alone.

After a week, she became conscious of her surroundings, but then when he wasn’t there it felt as if she was in an ocean of loneliness, and when it came to him going home, they would cry, not just because they were going to miss one another, but because they realised just how much love flowed between them. The day they married, they thought that would be the pinnacle of their love, but now they understood it grew greater with every moment.

In this frozen wasteland, where one wrong word might be your last, where the State and those around you do their best to strip away even the tiniest modicum of trust, their love and belief in each other grew stronger.

* * *

Ideologies of Love Part 9 – Deal or No Ideal

But if in your fear you would seek

only love’s peace and love’s pleasure,

Then it is better for you

that you cover your nakedness

and pass out of love’s threshing-floor,

Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh,

but not all of your laughter,

and weep, but not all of your tears.

From On Love – The Prophet

By Kahlil Gibran

* * *

Beyond the realms of Ideal Love, there must be innumerable other approaches, including alternative versions of ideal love. I thought I’d end this section by looking at various other ideologies, both good and bad. Again, it won’t be wholly representative, but hopefully, it will help people consider these issues further.

For millennia marriages have been dealt with as loveless transactions. They were fundamentally deals, and that was it, and even now it’s no wonder people still think of marriage as a deal. While deal-based relationships might not reach the heady heights of romantic or ideal love, they may still have value, especially when they’re a key ingredient of a happy life, even if for some, it’s based on a lie. Of course, for others, these relationships can be the cause of great physical and mental suffering. At that end of the scale, we’re talking about the complete antithesis of ideal love, where one human is pouring evil onto another. Even if we see evil as a symptom of psychological dysfunction, it is still very hard to accept that so many of these relationships go unchallenged throughout the world. Up until relatively recently, rape within marriage and domestic abuse in the West was met with a blind eye by much of the public and the authorities. In the early 90s, I once called the police when I heard a neighbour screaming for her partner to stop hitting her. After the police left, one of my other neighbours told me I should have kept my nose out of other people’s business.

Still, on a negative note, don’t worry I’ll end on a high, many people become resigned to a pragmatic relationship in which they are generally unhappy. While not on the same level as the more abusive ones, there is still a lot of discontent involved. There’s a song by Paula Cole called Where Have All the Cowboys Gone in which the character’s romantic notions of love are juxtaposed against the mundane aspects of an unequal and unfair deal-type relationship. She sings of doing the laundry if he pays the bills, of doing the dishes, while he goes to the bar. Meanwhile, she’s left holding the baby wondering what happened to all those dreams of a perfect man.

From a psychoanalytic point of view, one might ask whether people sometimes choose the difficult situations they find themselves in. While it’s tempting to brush that aside because for many there is no choice at all, many of us have issues that pull us towards painful relationships. Untangling our self-destructive tendencies requires help and skills that are rarely available or will take too much time to resolve for most. Still, for some at least, there may be ways to escape and move forward to a better life.

Given there’s so little questioning about relationships nowadays, certain narcissistic tendencies seem to have become aspirations of modern love. One of these is the notion of possession. There were times in my life when I found myself believing that if someone truly loved me, they’d want to be possessed by me. The fact that they didn’t, made me think they didn’t love me. So not only did I want to possess them, but their love for me was my primary concern.

The other day I read this on a friend’s Facebook wall.

“The most appealing thing to me is effort.

Somebody who really desires to converse with me,

See me, and make me a part of their day.”

In a strange twist, one could argue that idealistic love does require a desire to converse and make someone else a part of one’s day, but the difference is, that it wouldn’t be demanded by either party. It might be natural to have such desires, but there’s an expectation or a demand in those lines, and in that light, I hear it as a warning bell now.

There are other issues regarding possession that are worth touching on here because it’s far more central to a destructive ideology than it first appears. In my more lothario times, there was a paradox when it came to possession. During the early part of a relationship, there would be a moment when a woman would make it clear she wanted me. At the time, I didn’t pay much attention to it, but later, especially if I’d become involved with her, I would look back at that moment as extremely meaningful. There was something in the period when someone else wanted me that touched me to the core. Maybe it’s the power of moments of submission to another that makes infidelity and seduction so addictive.

I probably don’t need to point this out to you now, but wanting to be wanted, while very natural, has a somewhat narcissistic edge to it. The ironic thing about focusing on being wanted is, the person being desired is just an illusion, especially when people hardly know each other. Even so, illusion or not, for the participants, it’s still filled with powerful emotions rooted in their psychological issues, biological nature and romantic beliefs.

There was a line in a drama I was watching recently in which one of the characters said that after he ejaculated, he’d either want to get away as quickly as possible or stay with that person forever. While the latter feeling might indicate the potential for a relationship to grow, there’s something very self-centred in gambling on there possibly being a good outcome, especially given a bad one risks hurting the other. As I’ve already mentioned I was not averse to acting in this way. Had I known better would it have made any difference? There were plenty of times I got told I shouldn’t have gone that far with someone if I wasn’t sure. My answer to them was I never told them I wanted to be with them properly and they knew what they were getting themselves into. But maybe all of that was part of a dance and you know what they say about the Tango.

The issue of possession and wanting to be wanted cuts both ways when it comes to men and women, and again has its foundations in biological, personal and social motivations, but from wherever it comes it is not in the service of love. Yet, romantic love tells us it is. 

Nietzsche wrote of possession:

“He asks himself if the woman, when she gives up everything for him, is not doing this for something like a phantom of himself: he wants to be well known first, fundamentally, even profoundly, in order to be able, in general, to be loved. He dares to allow himself to be revealed. – Only then does he feel that the loved one is fully in his possession, when she is no longer deceived about him, when she loves him just as much for his devilry and hidden insatiability as for his kindness, patience, and spirituality.”

Nietzsche’s lines above challenge Fromm’s ideas about true love. Not so much through their logic but their passion. I think for many of us, this passion is extremely seductive at times as it makes love seem exceptionally real, whereas Fromm’s Ideological Love appears almost passionless. But doesn’t this cut to the heart of the matter? We already know if you want romantic love, you can’t have peace, but how much distress, anxiety, agitation and conflict can you stand? For those who want peace, then perhaps a more pragmatic, non-possessive approach is the way forward.

Alongside possessiveness, the issues of domination and submission also come into play. I’m sorry to be repetitious, but you may remember me mentioning Sam’s ideas regarding domination in an earlier chapter. For him, the dynamics of dominance were integral to a relationship’s success. While most of us hover somewhere between being dominant and submissive in different situations and with different people, he proposed that if both members of a couple were predominantly dominant or submissive, then the relationship was destined to fail. As far as he was concerned, it would be better if a dominant and submissive linked up, although even then, it would be essential for the dominant partner to be receptive to the submissive’s needs. His definition of a dominant was someone who liked making decisions whereas the submissive wouldn’t, but instead preferred to work in a more supporting role. I’m not advocating this, but it shows another ideology of love that many of us have probably never considered.

* * *

Moshe and Battiya’s Story Part 10 – Back to Life

For close to 3 months Moshe followed the same routine. Then one day the doctor said she should go home. That night they slowly walked back to the house. As she entered, she started to cry and quietly said to Moshe, “I thought I would never come back.” He drew her close and said, “There is a light here now, and that light is you.” She looked up at him and gently touched his lips.

* * *

Ideologies of Love Part 10 – No Sex Please, We’re Religious

I haven’t spent a lot of time on religious ideologies to do with love. One might be tempted to point out that many of the leading religions practice sexual abstinence, with an ethos that couples should get to know each other before making any commitments. In some ways, this sounds similar to the direction Fromm’s Ideal Love ideology takes.

The problem with no sex before marriage is one might love someone for who they are but when it comes to sex it might feel wrong. For some that would be an irrelevance, but there are many for whom it would be a problem. Just because we fit together in lots of ways doesn’t mean we’ll do the same when it comes to sex.

This might explain why some religions not only mandate no sex before marriage but barely any afterwards too. Sex might be allowed for procreation, but pleasures of the flesh are off-limits, and this may be because they don’t want to risk destroying the pragmatic relationship, which could well be the result if either party felt they were not sexually compatible. While this might be an astute way of keeping couples together, it does so at a price. Again, for some, such things may be of no significance, but it’s probably no coincidence that so many men of the cloth are commonly referred to as ‘father’.

In contrast to this, there are those who are completely fixated on excitement and sexual pleasure, especially concerning the first stages of a relationship. For them, the constant repetition of seduction and ending will most likely weigh heavily in time and they’ll seek something deeper. However, seduction is seductive, and no one is more perfect than a perfect stranger, so, until they change themselves, they’ll keep getting pulled along by their patterns, unable to move on. Filled with the excitement of a train passing at speed, but never able to get on it and see what awaits beyond.

When Detective Frank Drebin states to his co-worker in the Film The Naked Gun 2 ½ that he envies him having the same woman for 30 years and that having to have a different 20-year-old every night is somewhat of a hardship, audiences all around the world laughed uncontrollably, especially when they saw his co-worker in a state of apoplectic envy. We are, after all, only human and recognise that we are driven by many, many conflicting urges.

* * *

Moshe and Battiya’s Story Part 11 – Endings and Beginnings

Within a week the factory manager ordered Battiya back to work. It was a time of war and people were dying in their millions, so she was of no significance to anyone but Moshe. There have been philosophical discussions for millennia about the importance of the collective’s needs over those of the individual. During times of war, the emphasis generally tends to move more towards the collective, but for Battiya there wasn’t even the tiniest gesture of care from her comrades in the factory. Likewise, her manager made no effort to make things easier for her.

When it came to exploiting workers, there was very little difference between the Capitalist West and the Soviet States. Even before the war, Stalin aimed to turn the Soviet Union into a ceaseless productivity machine. From 1941 all holidays were cancelled due to the war and the working week was seven days long with no time off, and any unauthorized absconding could mean sentences in the Gulag from five to eight years.

New Year’s Day was the only holiday allowed. For Moshe and Battiya there was almost zero socialising and even invites to a New Year’s drinks party to listen to a gramophone represented a deadly threat as far as they were concerned. They once went to one but felt on edge the whole time. No one tried to befriend them as everyone knew making friends was dangerous. Even their landlord couldn’t be trusted, so, they were always very careful about what was discussed in front of him. They were cordial but kept a safe distance, as he did them.

The journey to and from work in the summer months was one of the few opportunities to walk hand in hand and chat quietly with each other, but besides that nowhere felt safe. All walls might have ears pressed up against them, so at home or in the factory, every word was considered carefully before being uttered.

* * *

One day, late in 1944 news of the Russians pushing the Nazis out of Latvia brought a glimmer of hope that one day they might be able to leave this god-forsaken place. Although World War Two would continue in Europe until September 1945, the Soviet Red Army secured the surrender of Nazi forces in Latvia during the first weeks of May. It had been more than six months since the Nazis were pushed out of Riga; however, they, and their Latvian regiments, held out in various areas of the Baltic states until finally the Russians, and their Latvian fighters, forced their hand. 200,000 Nazi troops were then deported to Soviet prison camps along with the 14,000 Latvian soldiers who’d fought alongside them. Tens, if not hundreds of thousands of Latvians, both civilians and soldiers, fled to Sweden and Germany from where many ended up in exile in places such as Australia, North and South America and various other countries in Europe.

* * *

I frequently find that my awareness of time is dramatically altered by my direction of travel. Often the return leg of a journey is far quicker than the outgoing one. Maybe it’s because I just drive faster, obviously, if you’re a cop, I didn’t write that.

For Moshe and Battiya the return journey still took close to 30 days, but this time they were prepared. Their landlord, who was genuinely sad to see them go, helped them stock up on food for the journey and came to see them off from the station. As the train pulled away, they waved goodbye to each other as holidaymakers who were sad to go would, but in their quietly excited hearts, they were happy to see the back of Ishim.

They realised the Riga they were returning to would not be the one they’d left, but they still weren’t prepared for the magnitude of devastation that confronted them. All the bridges had been destroyed, as had nearly every building. Some of their Latvian ‘workmates’ were greeted at the station by surviving relatives, but for Moshe and Battiya there was no one. They went to the place where her sister had lived but there was no one there. At first, they had no idea what had happened to their family members and friends, but rumours soon began to circulate that all the Jews had been taken away or massacred earlier in the war. Moshe and Battiya hoped in time that those who’d gone missing would walk up to them, hug them and tell of their adventures surviving. But in the meantime, there were practicalities to attend to, such as getting food and finding somewhere to sleep, albeit amongst the ruins. Even here, in Riga, every moment of the day was taken up with survival.

* * *

Latvia’s population decreased by around 25% during the War. Hundreds of thousands of Latvians were killed fighting for both the Nazis and Russians, there were those who ‘emigrated’, and thousands were sent to the Gulag or deported as part of the Soviet policy of forced population transfer. Over the next few decades, hundreds of thousands of Russians were moved to Latvia, so, by 1991, when the country gained its independence, just 62% of the population were ‘ethnically’ Latvian. These actions were repeated throughout most of the countries in the USSR and would eventually come to be recognised as acts of genocide.

Close to a hundred thousand Latvian Jews were murdered by the German Nazis and Latvians during the war. Afterwards, a few hundred who’d escaped came out of the forests or homes of brave sympathetic Latvians where they’d been hiding. About 1,000 more returned from the Nazi camps, and several thousand who’d escaped to the Soviet Union also came back. All in all, around 97% of Latvia’s Jews were murdered during the war.

* * *

After a few weeks camping out, Moshe was approached by a soldier. The soldier stood over him. As Moshe looked up his heart filled with dread.

“Are you Moshe Shruster?”

Moshe stood up and nodded.

“I hear you’re good with building things. Is that right?”

“I’m okay,” Moshe said tilting his head from side to side very slightly as if he were calculating something.

The soldier looked up at the building they were standing near.

“If you can fix this roof and make the place watertight you can have one of the apartments in it, anyone you want.”

“Where will I get the materials from?” Moshe asked.

The soldier looked to his left, paused a second, then to his right and looked at Moshe.

“This is all the materials there are.”

“Ah,” Moshe said.

The soldier put his hand on Moshe’s shoulder.

“Have we got a deal?”

Moshe nodded in agreement.

“Yes, we have a deal.”

* * *

Moshe still had some of the American tools he’d got from working in Siberia. So, bit by bit he made the ladders and scaffolding. He didn’t ask for any help. It was better for him to work alone, although Battiya did what she could. He was also aware the factory he was told to work in would want him working there very soon, so the window of opportunity was getting smaller by the day. Sure enough, just before he started on the last section he got called to the factory, as did Battiya. With no one to keep guard, not only was their temporary home at risk but so too were all the repairs he’d done. He asked for some time off, but his boss couldn’t spare him. When they came back that evening, their shelter was gone, as were his ladders. Fortunately, he still had his tools, money and food. They stayed with him always.

That night, they angled a board against the wall and lay on the ground. As they tried to get to sleep, wondering if someone might slit their throats, Moshe said under his breath, “There’s nothing sacred, nothing pure here.” Battiya paused for a moment then kissed him gently. “Okay”, he said, “There’s a little bit of sacred and a tiny bit of pure.” She tapped her finger on his nose and laughingly said, “What are you saying Moshe, are you saying I’m not pure?” He looked at her and laughed too.

A voice from nearby called out as if it was calling a pet, “Hello little rats, what are you laughing at?” Battiya froze, Moshe grabbed his knife and sat up, his back against the wall. Then again, the voice taunted, “I’m coming to do what Hitler should have done, here little ratties.”

There was a thud then the ground vibrated a little.

In the darkness, Moshe could still make out Battiya’s face. She was petrified. He positioned himself so if the board was moved, he could lunge at the attacker with the knife. Outside of a kind of “oomph” and the sound of something or somebody being dragged across some debris, there was just silence. After a few minutes, Moshe slowly poked his head out to take a look, but there was nothing to see. He stood up and walked to where he thought the voice had come from, but again, there was nobody, not even a trace of someone having been there.

The next day Moshe made another ladder, but from then on, he hid whatever he left behind. After work he’d rush back, the nights were getting longer, so he worked on the roof until he had to stop. Battiya sharpened his tools, and prepared and sawed the wood. It took a further three weeks, but finally, the roof was watertight and from then on they slept in the building, where they barricaded themselves in until all the doors and windows were completed. This Frankenstein monster of a building was ready, not just for them, but for other people too.

The soldier kept his word and provided them with the correct documentation and over the next 26 years, Moshe and Battiya lived in this apartment. The building served its purpose, it sheltered them, kept them warm and saw their two sons come into being, but the hatred that visited them that night was never far away. Besides the constant threat of falling foul of the Soviet system, there was the extra danger of being Jewish in a society that had done its best to rid itself of nearly every Jew living there. And all around, there were still plenty of people who wanted the job finished.

Even though Moshe became highly respected in his field, their two sons, Yakov and Eddie would grow up being constantly bullied for being Jewish. They too kept their heads down, studied hard and didn’t cause any problems. But for some, their very existence was an abomination. While overt attacks occurred now and again most of the time everything was done in secret, that was the Soviet way. Things only went your way if someone in the background agreed to it.

Twice a year, fearing that one day something awful would happen to them, Moshe applied to emigrate to Israel. For eleven years, his application was refused, then in July 1971 permission was granted. They were given 21 days to leave, if they hadn’t left by then they’d have to reapply again in six months. The emigration department looked at Moshe’s finances and thought he’d have no chance of raising the money for the flights, but there was another secret world and after 11 years of applying to the Israeli embassy for a visa, they, the Israelis, let him connect to it. Moshe made it clear to them that he didn’t have the funds to pay for the flights, but they said they’d lend him the money. This time Moshe and Battiya felt it was going to happen, that somehow, they’d escape.

When Yakov, their son, said he wanted to stay in Riga with his girlfriend, Battiya insisted that there was no way she’d split the family up. She would never be a party to doing what her father had done to her. Either they all went together, or they stayed. Yakov asked his girlfriend if she’d move to Israel too, and she said yes, but her parents wouldn’t allow it. To him, this girl was the love of his life, and he didn’t want to leave her. Moshe couldn’t believe Battiya wouldn’t let Yakov stay by himself. He didn’t argue, but he couldn’t speak to her for days.

Yakov knew that as much as he loved his girlfriend, he couldn’t be the one to make his family stay, so he agreed to go to Israel too. For them, it was an escape but for him, it was a prison sentence, without her he didn’t feel whole.

The day of departure came. They had to take a very long train ride to Moscow first and from there catch a plane to Vienna. When they got to the airport the guards took Moshe into an office where they interrogated him about the money for the flights. They wanted to know if he had got it from dealing in the black market. Moshe and Battiya had been warned by their Israeli contact that this might happen and were given a number to call if it did.

Battiya asked if she could make a phone call, but her request was refused. Yakov asked if he could go to the lavatory. The guard said okay, and pointed to where it was. As Yakov walked to the toilet block, he looked for a phone, but couldn’t find one. A few guards were standing nearby chatting and smoking, they looked at him, then continued talking. When he got back, he made it clear to his mother he hadn’t been successful and it was then, she knew in her heart the Soviets weren’t going to let them go.

What they didn’t see, was one of those guards near the toilet block saw what was going on and somehow sent a signal to somebody that things were awry. Within ten minutes another guard entered the office where Moshe was being interrogated and whispered something to the guard in charge. He then looked at the other guards and nodded to them. Moshe was free to go. As the saying goes, money talks, even if it’s just in nods and whispers, and, as the guards soon worked out, interrogating people could certainly get money chatting freely, straight into their pockets.

On the 8th of July 1971, Moshe, Battiya and their two sons touched down at Tel-A-Viv airport. I asked Eddie, their youngest son, and my cousin, what his first thoughts were when they arrived in Israel. He said it was like going from a black-and-white world into a multi-coloured one.

* * *

It took a long time before they got used to not feeling as if someone was watching their every move but within nine years, they started to find their feet financially as well as socially. Yakov met a woman and settled down with her then found out that his girlfriend from Latvia had also made her way to Israel, but it was too late by then.

Eddie, like his father, became a kind of metal worker too, for him though it was as a sculptor and artist. By 1980 he was beginning to have exhibitions and started dating another artist, Miri, who would later become his wife. Life was finally coming together for the family.

One day Battiya told Moshe she didn’t feel well and within a few months, aged just 60, she died of colon cancer. Just before she died, she and Moshe were in their living room looking out at their children in the garden. “There are so many things I wish had been different,” she said. Moshe positioned himself behind her and slowly wrapped his arms around her shoulders and whispered, “I wish I could have been a better husband.”

“You weren’t so bad,” she paused for a second then added, “We were the lucky ones. And look how happy they are now,” she nodded towards their sons chatting in the garden, “They’re free.” She reached up to Moshe’s hand on her shoulder and gently took hold of it. Their fingers interlinked. She looked up at him and smiled.

* * *

At my father’s funeral, Moshe spoke when I had tried to say something, something I’d spent a long time working out beforehand, but as I opened my mouth to speak, I burst out crying and couldn’t stop, so he kindly took over. He told us of his love for my father, how Boris would come to them when they lived in Riga after the war with suitcases full of contraband, and how, now, all these years later, he wanted to say sorry to Boris for banging that stone against his head.

Moshe died in 2011 a year after Boris. In 2008 his son, Yakov took me on a long journey and at no point during it did he let me know he only had a few months to live. For Moshe, there was a penalty to living a long life, it was watching those he loved die before him. So, when it came to his dying moments, it wasn’t God he wanted to greet first but his wife, Battiya, his son Yakov, and his parents as well as many other loved ones.

I’ve often seen it written that God is Love, but maybe to most people, Love is God.

* * *

Moshe and Battiya’s Story Part 12 – Epilogue

I asked my cousin Eddie to help me with this story about his parents Moshe and Battiya. He must have had a lot of patience because every time I showed him my initial drafts, he’d tell me that what I’d written barely scratched the surface of how awful it was to live under Soviet rule. As far as he was concerned the way I portrayed Soviet citizens was far too sweet whereas, in his experience, the system made them very dangerous.

* * *

My father couldn’t find it in him to forgive the Latvians, which is not surprising. His family were persecuted both before, during and after the war by the non-Jewish Latvian population. When I told Eddie I thought a lot of Latvians nowadays were not anti-Semitic he got quite annoyed with me. He pointed out that there have been far-right anti-Jewish marches in recent years in Latvia, and just because I once visited the country didn’t mean I had the insight or right to let modern-day Latvians off the hook. But there was something inside me that wanted to push towards a middle ground. To say, okay, there may well be a lot of Latvians with anti-Semitic views, but there might also be a lot who don’t feel that way.

Then I spent a bit of time looking online and there it was, the division. The ‘Zionists’ this and the ‘Zionists’ that, and I realised that it’s not just Latvians, it’s the whole Western world that’s building up its reserves of hatred again. It’s the Jews, the Muslims, the far right, people of colour, the far left, the police, the politicians, the elites, the white middle-class men, the stupid masses, the deplorable, it’s everyone that isn’t us, it’s them, it’s the others. There’s no middle ground for people to meet on, there’s no sense of proportion, you’re either totally with us or you’re against us. If you hold even the slightest non-sanctioned views you are an enemy of the people. The Soviets may have lost the Cold War, but I can’t help but feel I’m living in a world that’s beginning to head in that direction.

* * *

Ideologies of Love Part 11 – Moshe and Battiya

Maybe for Moshe and Battiya, having grown up together, they knew each other well. Still, the Moshe and Battiya that they would come to know throughout their married life would be very different to their childhood images of each other.

For most people, even very connected couples, there may well be temptations, loneliness, hatred, anger, detachment, and, well I think you get the picture. As much as they loved each other, this was no fairy tale and there were plenty of times when Battiya would have left Moshe had she had her family around her, and maybe he felt the same way too, but they stayed together and knew something of love.

* * *

Given our lack of education about love, our problematic psychologies and our innate nature, it’s a miracle that any successful marriages ever come about, but they do. For most people, romantic love might bring them together but how they cope with the reality of being with someone, especially when the romantic image falls, will be the make or break of their relationship. Beyond that point, there will be many other hurdles that, if the couple are caring people, will bring something of Ideal Love to their world without ever having read a word of Fromm or Aristotle.

So here we are, back at the beginning. We know that taking time, not being rash, being caring, responsible and unselfish are all very sensible ways to behave, but the immediate joys of temptation are so powerful they can barely be resisted.

Elvis sang of wise men not rushing in, but he couldn’t help falling in love. What he didn’t tell us was those wise men only got so wise after quite a few lessons, many of which were filled with pain, well that and a drop in their hormone levels.

* * *

Epilogue to Volume 1

I’d originally planned to release this as one volume, but as it grew, I realised it might be easier to digest as two. Also, as the chapters progressed it was clear there was a different emphasis between the first half and the second. The first focuses on my experiences of love, hate and knowledge, whereas the second revolves around belief systems and ideologies. Of course, those themes are still wrapped around the events of my life up till 18. I’d also planned to write a third volume covering my 20s and 30s, but I don’t think that’s going to be possible now.

* * *

June 8th, 2023

I’m ill, and I have to get to A&E. Well, that’s what the advice is on the Internet. I haven’t been to the loo for several days and now I’m vomiting. It’s 2 am, Gill, my partner, says she’ll come to the hospital with me. When we arrive, we’re made to wait for about an hour before my blood is taken. After that, I’m left in the waiting area. I ask Gill to go home, that way she’ll have more energy if needed later. I end up trying to sleep on the chairs in the waiting area. Every hour I vomit, mostly air and bile. At 9:30 the junior doctor who took my blood approaches me and says I can go home.

“No,” I say, “You don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

He shrugs and says, “We think if you take a laxative, you’ll be okay”.

Again, I rebuff him, “I’ve had doctors try to dismiss an illness before and I nearly died.”

“What was that then?” he asks.

“I had a burst appendix.”

He looks a little surprised, “Oh, I didn’t realise you’d had surgery on your intestines before.”

I can’t help but feel a bit indignant, “It’s in my records, plus I have already informed you I’m due for a colonoscopy next week which suggests all is not well with my colon.”

The doctor says he’ll have a chat with the consultant in charge.

A few minutes later I’m directed to another area. There are beds around the room, so I ask if I can lay on one as I feel so ill. The consultant who’s in his 60s seems to take a dislike to me, as if I’m making a fuss about nothing, and tells me I’ll have to sit in a chair, which I do. A woman is screaming in an anti-room, begging for pain relief, and another man with mental health issues is walking around ominously. I decide to stay seated and not make any more of a fuss.

About half an hour later I am taken to have a CAT Scan done, and about another hour after the consultant stands about six feet away from me and without any privacy or decorum, tells me I’ve got a tumour blocking my colon with raised glands around it and there are multiple tumour markers on my liver too. At the end of it, he says, “You’ll have to be taken to another hospital to be assessed.”

I’d been half expecting this news, though not so bad, after I got the request for the colonoscopy. At the time I’d felt dread as well as noticing a feeling in my side where it would later turn out to be where the tumour was.

* * *

Gill has been my partner for quite a few years now. I’d finally found a relationship where I could be caring and less selfish, likewise, Gill was very caring to me too. I let her know what was going on and a friend drove her to the hospital I’d been ambulanced to. It was there we were informed that there’d be no radiologists available to perform the required surgery until Monday as it was a weekend. And so, I went through three and a half days of puking up faecal matter every few hours, feeling a lot of pain, and getting very little sleep. When Monday came, I was taken to have a stent placed in my colon to open it up. The procedure took about 45 minutes, and I immediately felt a lot better. I wasn’t allowed to eat for a few days which meant I managed to finally hit my target weight, something I’d been trying to get to for months, so at least that was one positive outcome.

It would be a few weeks before I’d get to see a consultant and when I did the first thing she said to me was, “The cancer you have isn’t curable, and we can only offer you palliative care. If you don’t have it, you’ll most likely die within six to nine months, but with it, you may get to live three years, however, it’s very hard to say, it may be less or more.”

Gill and my sons had joined me for the consultation. There was a stunned silence after the consultant laid out the prognosis, but as she showed us the scan of my liver and pointed out the tumours she paused and stood up while saying, “Don’t worry, we will do everything we can.” I realised she was speaking to Gill who was in floods of tears and as I looked at her, I burst out crying too. The thought of leaving her alone felt worse than the thought of my death.

When I managed to recompose myself, I said to the consultant, “I know this may sound a bit strange, but I realise that it might be possible when looking at me to think my life is difficult and I don’t have much to offer the world, but I love my life and I have a lot more to give, so if you ever think otherwise, please don’t.” Even though she reassured me that she wouldn’t ever think that way, I still felt I had to make it clear.

* * *

Within a couple of weeks, I had a Port-Cath surgically implanted into my chest to allow the chemotherapy and blood to be more conveniently given and taken, and then the fortnightly chemotherapy cycles started. The first day tended to leave me feeling quite sick, and then for 48 hours, I had a pump attached that’d deliver more chemotherapy. Outside of it getting in the way and occasionally getting the tubes caught on things that’d then pull on the needle inserted into the Port, it wasn’t too bad. I also had to have GCS-F injections that had a profound effect on me, including pain, nausea, fatigue, hallucinations, and tachycardia. Once that subsided, I’d get three or four days of not feeling too bad, so along with three days after the initial one, I’d feel well enough to work on getting this finished in time. I had four books all in all to edit as well as 70 songs I’d like to produce properly. However, I understood it’d be very unlikely I’d get time to do so, that there was a very real deadline coming up.

There were also practical things to get sorted, from photos, letters, creative stuff, Power of Attorney, my Will, and many other things, including tying up loose ends such as reaching out to others where some form of closure would help both myself and them. The problem was I became so focused on getting things dealt with, that I realised that although cognitively I was aware of what my likely fate was going to be, emotionally I was in a complete state of denial. 

To me, I felt I was going to get through this and live till I was 85, just as my father had predicted. But then I wondered if he’d seen 58 not 85, and not wanting to scare me, said 85, but given I’m 58 now then that if that was true, then there’s only a matter of weeks left. And then I got the news my cancer markers had been rising every week for the last month and a half. That was the first time since the early days when I felt dread again and realised, I was living under a very precarious sword of Damocles.

Most of the time I feel as I have done through most of my life, but I’ll get pangs of dread hit me as well as some form of acceptance. Conversely, I feel resentment that I’d like to have another 20 or 30 years, but in the same breath, accept I’ve had a good life and hope my end won’t be too painful.

So, for now, this is where I’ll end volume one. Thank you for reading it and I hope you’ll join me for volume two. Either way, you being there has helped me get through many a dark night over the last 18 years, so thank you for that too. And if I do pass away soon, then this connection will be among the many throughout my life which have helped me come to understand that I wasn’t alone after all.

* * *

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