IMHO: A Guide for Opinionated Bloggers

I have lost the freedom of not having an opinion.

— Umberto Eco

“I absolutely looooove how opinionated this is!!!” — that’s how my friend and fellow blogger Aimee Wilson responded to one of my recent blog posts. Her reaction caught me off guard. I hadn’t thought the piece was any more expressive of my opinions than others I’ve written in the past few years. What interested me was the fact she seemed at least as excited by me airing my opinions as by the opinions themselves. She’s one of my closest friends and most ardent supporters, but I can’t remember her responding quite as energetically before. What was different this time? I was keen to explore it further.

Three additional comments Aimee made helped point me in the right direction. She said I do share my opinions, “but perhaps not as often as maybe me or a lot of other people do.” This is a valid point. Aimee has her own incredibly successful mental health blog I’m NOT Disordered. In the articles she posts she’s very open and honest about her experiences, thoughts, and opinions. I don’t think I’m any less honest, but I’m arguably more selective about what I disclose. This raises some interesting questions. How much of our opinion is it useful, wise, or even safe to declare publicly? What is the best way of doing so?

We’re expected to hold opinions on a wide range of topics, especially in the political and moral arenas. Politically left, right, or centrist. Atheist, theist, deist, or agnostic. For or against abortion, access to healthcare, gender rights, sexuality, immigration, criminality and punishment. The list goes on and woe betide you if you don’t know where you stand. I have strong opinions on many of these topics, but in general I’m wary of displaying them publically. There are a number of reasons for this. In many cases, my opinions aren’t well-formed or easy for me to express or defend. My opinion about opinions is that they are essentially arbitrary. If they were based on fact or logic, as we like to imagine ours are, there wouldn’t be so many different opinions on any given topic. It would be clear to at least an overwhelming majority.

In philosophical terms, I’m what is termed a moral relativist. I don’t believe in moral absolutes. For me, morality is important — vital even to the well functioning of society — but it’s a human thing rather than something offered or imposed on us from outside. This is only my opinion, of course, but it’s one which informs my perspective on all other opinions, mine and other people’s. I’m also an absurdist, in so far as I understand the philosophy of Albert Camus. It may be part of the human condition to seek meaning and purpose but I believe the universe has nothing to offer in reply. It is. We are. Dealing with that awareness without falling into despair or resorting to artificial surrogates for meaning — what Camus calls philosophical suicide — is the challenge. I don’t believe in free will, although it appears necessary to act as though it exists. The future isn’t predetermined or knowable, either in practice or principle. Leaving aside quantum randomness, everything that happens or has happened is the only thing that could happen or have happened under those precise circumstances. It’s why I have so much difficulty with the concept of regret. “If I could go back I would choose differently” makes no sense to me at all.

Aside from the difficulty I’d have in expressing and defending my opinions, there’s the question of relevance. Fran and I established this blog to explore mental health and supportive friendships. I treat those topics broadly, not least because they affect and inform our lives in many ways. We discuss friendships and relationships in general, and different ways of supporting ourselves and others. I’ve shared aspects of my own mental and physical health, as well as my take on blogging itself and other topics which interest me such as story writing, shorthand, and music.

In sharing as we do, Fran and I offer our personal experiences, ideas, and opinions in the hope others may find them of interest and value. They work for us, but we don’t expect them to be relevant or useful to everyone. Our thoughts and ideas are informed by our respective world views, but we rarely discuss our opinions in the political or moral arena unless they directly affect the topic in hand. There are exceptions. I’ve declared my atheist stance previously, for example, and explored Absurdism in some detail. I’ve likewise shared my positions on gender identity and toxic masculinity.

Aside from which opinions I might be prepared to share, there’s the question of how best to express them. At first glance, the word opinionated suggests an overly pushy attitude, but it’s clear Aimee didn’t mean it that way. “Sometimes,” she said, “being opinionated can be really distasteful, disrespectful, and hard to hear or read. But you have done it sooo soooo soooo well!” The piece in question discussed the kind of friendship I find most meaningful and satisfying. (Spoiler alert: I need to feel a degree of continuity in the connection. As I put it, “I’m not interested in sporadic news updates of what’s happened to you since we last met. I want to know who you are, not who you were. I want to share with you who I am, not who I was.”) I was honest enough that former and current friends might reasonably identify themselves in what I wrote. Aimee reassured me that I’d done this gracefully, conveying the gratitude and respect I hold for all my friends. It’s nevertheless a reminder to express my opinions with humility, recognising they represent my partial and present thoughts about the matter in hand.

People are sometimes criticised for changing their opinions, as though doing so reflects poorly on the strength of their convictions. I disagree. Many of mine have changed significantly over the years. In this, I’m with William Blake, who declared “The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind.” Having no interest in breeding reptiles of any kind, I’ve sought to develop my understanding by watching debates and conversations between people on either side of various issues. I’m especially interested in arguments for and against the existence of god, absolute or relative morality, and free will. Speakers I’ve come to admire for the clarity of their opinions and ability to discuss them include Alex O’Connor, Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Roger Penrose, and the late Christopher Hitchens. I find myself in broad agreement with most of them, but I also enjoy listening to Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson and the American Christian apologist William Lane Craig. I have little in common with either of them, but their conviction and ability to discuss their respective opinions is both fascinating and a challenge to my own.

It’s relevant to mention the discomfiture I’ve felt on occasion when I’ve realised people I respect and broadly agree with hold opinions I instinctively and wholeheartedly reject. I’ve had the same reaction to discovering public figures or creatives whose work I’ve admired entertain views that are repugnant to me. It’s a reminder that our opinions and beliefs are not always mutually consistent, and that genuine connection involves accepting each another for the totality of who we are, not just those bits we find pleasant or in agreement with our own.

There’s one more thing Aimee said that I found interesting. Having stated that I’d been more expressive of my opinions than usual, she said “It’s refreshing and honourable to hear you do that. Sort of stepping out of your comfort zone or at least out of the norm for you.” This resonated for me because only a few days earlier I’d encountered the following meme on social media:

Comfort is a drug. Once you get used to it, it becomes addicting. Give a weak person consistent stimulation, good food, cheap entertainment and they’ll throw their ambitions right out the window. The comfort zone is where dreams go and die.

The quotation was anonymous but I’ve seen it attributed to British actor Henry Cavill. I have sympathy for the idea that “the magic happens outside your comfort zone” — likewise Susan Jeffers’ imperative to “feel the fear and do it anyway.” It’s wise to take stock of the stories we tell ourselves from time to time to see if they still serve us or are holding us back. In my case, stepping outside my comfort zone has led to two zipwire slides to raise money for charity, volunteering with mental health awareness campaign Time to Change, performing public readings from our book, and appearing on podcasts and local radio. It’s in this positive spirit that I take Aimee’s assertion that in sharing my opinions on friendship I was stepping outside my comfort zone. I have little time, however, for Cavill’s assertion that comfort is intrinsically negative and addictive. Neither can I agree with his labeling people as weak for preferring consistency over challenge. Far from being the place “where dreams go and die,” the comfort zone — however we might define it — is the place to which we return from our adventures. It’s a refuge from the storms, a place to reflect on where we are and what we want before daring to venture once more beyond the door. It’s home.

Sharing one’s opinions publically isn’t without risk. There are real perils in raising one’s head above the proverbial parapet and declaring “this is what I believe” — especially if those beliefs are controversial or run against societal expectations. I’ve chosen on occasion to withhold my opinion where a vehemently negative reaction could be reasonably anticipated. I will continue to do so. That said, I believe I have a moral responsibility to speak and act where not doing so could be construed as acquiescence or support for views I hold abhorrent or harmful. No longer can I indulge the privilege of withholding opinions on matters because I’m not personally affected by them. In the words of Umberto Eco, “I have lost the freedom of not having an opinion.” This is not an easy situation in which to find myself, but — in my humble opinion — it’s not meant to be.

Over to You

In this post I’ve explored my relationship to opinions, my own and other people’s. I’ve considered reasons for keeping them to myself as well as circumstances in which I feel a moral imperative to speak out. I don’t have all the answers, and I’m sure I’ll want to revisit these topics in the future. I’m interested to hear your opinions concerning this blog post, my opinions as I’ve described them, and the subject of opinions itself. Please consider sharing your thoughts, either in the comments below or via our contact page.

 

Photo by Steve Johnson at Unsplash.

 

One Million Thank-Yous: Our Top Ten Blog Posts of all Time

To celebrate reaching one million pageviews (thank you!) here are our top ten most viewed posts of all time, most popular first.

1. How to Write the Best Acknowledgement Page for Your Book
2. The Miracle of Light: An Open Letter to My Friend Marty
3. 2021: My Year in Photos and Blog Posts
4. Shhhhhhh! A Friend‘s Guide to Secrets
5. The Box on the Shelf: A Strategy for Handling Difficult Issues and Situations
6. An Open Letter to My Bipolar Best Friend
7. How Can I Best Help My Bipolar Friend?
8. Get It Right When Asking for Help with Bipolar Disorder
9. 10 Ways to Spend Quality Time with Your Friend That Don‘t Involve Talking about Mental Health
10. It‘s Not Enough / Never Enough

 

Photo by Gift Habeshaw at Unsplash.

 

I'm Not That Person Anymore

So many people from your past know a version of you that doesn’t exist anymore.

— Unknown

You know how people say they can meet up with someone they’ve not seen in years and it’s as though no time has passed at all? I’ve never been good at that. It’s lauded as the sign of a healthy friendship, but it doesn’t work that way for me. I’m too aware of how much my life, my interests, my understanding, and my very self change over time. There’s a social media meme that expresses this perfectly.

You’ve changed.

I hope so!

If we’ve not been in touch through those changes — mine and yours — then we no longer know each other. The person you think of when you think of me no longer exists. We might reconnect, but unless it’s to re-establish an ongoing, more-or-less frequent connection, there’s little point. I’m not interested in sporadic news updates of what’s happened to you since we last met. I want to know who you are, not who you were. I want to share with you who I am, not who I was. It’s the difference between sharing life’s journey and sending each other occasional postcards from distant lands.

I’ll qualify that a little, because it might sound as though I need to be in constant touch with someone for the friendship to be worthwhile. Frequency is part of it but it’s the sense of being present in each other’s lives that matters most. Each friendship has its natural rhythm. When circumstances permit, Fran and I connect several times a day. I’m in near daily touch with several other close friends. One long-time friend and I exchange letters every week or so. Circumstances might necessitate a temporary pause or change in how often we’re in touch, but in each case the friendship returns to its natural beat afterwards. There are a few exceptions. One friend and I work brilliantly despite going weeks or even months without hearing from each other. I’m not sure how it works so well, but it does! (Hi, Louise!)

I saw a social media meme the other day that read MAKE A HABIT OF REACHING OUT TO PEOPLE JUST BECAUSE THEY CROSSED YOUR MIND. I get the idea, but I don’t necessarily agree. A few months ago I thought of someone I was friends with in the eighties when I lived in London. We kept in touch after I moved north, but it must be thirty years since I last heard from them. On a whim, I found them on social media. They looked happy in their present life. For a moment I considered reaching out to reconnect, but realised how little point there was in doing so. If they accepted my friend request we’d exchange catch-up messages, bullet pointing the intervening decades. Where we’d lived. Where we’d worked. Partners. Family. Mutual friends. Highlights. Lowlights, maybe. Health. Illnesses. But they’re not the person I knew all those years ago in London. I’m not the person they knew.

You may be thinking, but they might have been delighted to hear from you. You’ve both changed, but you could begin a new friendship from where you are now. That’s true, of course. But our past connection is no guarantee we’d get along now. Maybe there’s a reason our friendship lapsed. Maybe they’d rather not be taken back to those days by an out-of-the-blue request from someone whose name they associate only with the past. Reaching out to people because they crossed your mind might be good advice if it’s someone you’ve not heard from in a few weeks, but it can be intrusive — even toxic — in other contexts. I can think of several people I’m pretty sure wouldn’t want to hear from me, despite them often crossing my mind. They’ve moved on. I’ve moved on.

Disengagement happens in many ways for many different reasons. It can happen suddenly, or so gradually it’s hard to detect until some threshold of awareness is crossed. I’m reminded of a poem I wrote many years ago. It describes the creeping changes that confounded the deepest and most significant relationship of my life up to that point.

Without a word we set our backs to oneanother, walked the slopes alone,
our fields and hills pastoral: darker vales disdained, pretending
not to see the forests moving.
Till one night unseen some secrets in the guise of
willows crept into the stream we called our bed,
took root, and in the morning we awoke to find between us
woods impregnable.

— “What happened to the Lovetrees?”

Frequency of contact isn’t everything. A social media post I saw the other day declared that “Real friends keep sending you memes even if you don’t react to them.” There’s a certain truth to those words. Regular low-level contact can keep a friendship going through difficult times when we might be unable to engage more meaningfully. Memes, good morning texts, and such remind us that the other person’s there, that we’re thought of. They’re insufficient to sustain a meaningful connection on their own, however, especially if the frequency no longer aligns with the rhythm of the friendship itself. In that case, what began as a gentle ritual becomes a habit you’re loathe to break for fear there’s little else left. There might also be a reason the other person isn’t reacting. Maybe they’re tired of being bombarded by essentially empty messages. Maybe they’re busy. Maybe they need a break. For these reasons amongst others, I’m wary of formulaic contact. It’s content that matters.

It’s worth pointing out that gaps don’t have to mean a friendship is in danger or at an end. I’ve written about this previously in Supportive Disengagement: How to Be There for Your Friend When They Need Space.

Supportive disengagement is for situations when your friendship is taking a break rather than broken, when disengagement is less than total, and — crucially — where the lines of communication remain open.

I don’t write a friendship off just because there’s been a break or a pause. I’ve picked up again with friends, sometimes more than once, after break-ups lasting anything from a few weeks to many months. Where this has been successful, it’s because we were both committed to reestablishing an ongoing presence in each other’s lives. If there’s been a significant gap, I find it helps to approach reconnection like starting again from scratch, rather than assuming things will pick up again from where you left off.

I’m aware that not everyone views friendship the way I do. I’d venture to say I’m in a minority, based on conversations I’ve had on the subject. Most people seem able to pick up with friends after months, even years, of little or no contact. I envy them a little. I’m sure I’ve missed out by feeling a friendship has ended for me, where others would have kept things going, albeit on a less frequent basis. It helps to explain why I have few very long-term friendships. Of those I consider present in my life today, the longest friendship is some fifteen or sixteen years old. It amazes me that people my age still have friends from school or college! It’s not a case of others being right and me wrong, or vice versa. The point is that people have different ideas about what’s important to them in a friendship, what constitutes a pause or break-up, and how and when to reconnect. On a deeper level, we have different perspectives on who we are, how we change over time, and the significance of those changes to the connections we make with other people who are also changing. Acknowledging these differences can lead to a greater understanding and empathy for others, and indeed ourselves.

I’m grateful to all my friends, present and past, for inviting me into your lives and for being present in mine. Whether we were friends for a short time or many years, what we shared enriched my life. I hope it enriched yours. I’ll close with an exchange I had with someone years ago.

Do I add value to your life?

If you didn’t, you wouldn’t still be in it.

The response caught me off-guard at the time, but I understand now. It helped me become the person and the friend I am now. (Thank you.)

 

Photo by Vladyslav Tobolenko at Unsplash.

 

Beyond the Hotline: New Approaches to Suicide Prevention

If I mention suicide prevention, it’s a fair bet that the first thing you think of is some sort of telephone hotline. The first call to an official suicide helpline was made in November 1953 to the Samaritans. The first US Samaritans branch was established in Boston in 1974. Helplines run by charities and other bodies around the world are a vital part of the safety net for people in crisis or thinking of suicide, as well as offering support to friends and family members.

As vital as they are, hotlines are not enough. World Suicide Prevention Day reminds us of the need to raise awareness about suicide and suicidal thinking. It also challenges us to think how we can do more, individually and collectively, to help people stay safe. In this blog post, we’ll explore a range of approaches to suicide prevention. We’ll see how modern technology, community initiatives, and wider policy changes all play a role in developing more holistic strategies for saving lives. Technological approaches in particular are not without potential issues and we’ll look at those too.

The Role of Technology

Modern technology impacts almost every aspect of our lives, and health and mental health are no exceptions. Information, help, and support are now widely available, often with just a few taps on our phones. It’s important to acknowledge the risks of relying too much on online resources and services, but they can offer significant benefits if used wisely.

Mobile Apps for Mental Health Support

“There’s an app for that” was launched as an advertising slogan by Apple in 2010. It’s been widely parodied, but there’s a truth behind the joke. It would be wrong to imagine any and all aspects of human live can be coded to run our mobile devices, but apps can make information, help, and support available to people living with a wide range of mental health conditions. Text and chat lines offer alternatives to traditional telephone hotlines. These are more accessible for anyone living with speech or hearing difficulties, and allow people to reach out in ways they may be more familiar with, or which feel less intimidating. Text-based services also mean it’s possible to access support without the risk of conversations being overheard.

Despite their convenience, services such as these have some potential drawbacks. The relative anonymity they offer can be a barrier to providing more personalised care and offer appropriately targeted support and guidance. There’s also a risk that we may come to rely too much on such tools, rather than seeking support from professional mental health services.

There’s a growing range of apps which offer a broader support to people at risk of suicide or self-harm. Funded by teenage mental health charity stem4, the Calm Harm app aims to help people manage urges to self-harm by offering coping strategies developed from Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT). Apps such as Better Help act as a front door to licenced therapists who offer online counselling sessions. These technologies are part of a growing trend focused on preventative care to manage mental health symptoms, rather than relying solely on crisis management. Potential issues include the quality and regulation of apps and the coping strategies and support they offer.

The Role of Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence (A.I.) and machine learning are likely to play an increasing role in suicide prevention. Social media providers and search engines are already developing tools to identify people who may be struggling or at risk, based on their online activity. As valuable as such approaches may be, they raise legitimate questions about privacy and the potential for malicious or discriminatory misuse of the information gathered. Setting aside the uncertain distinction between monitoring and surveillance, there are risks of bias and misinterpretation by the A.I. engines themselves. These could lead to people being incorrectly referred to crisis services, or someone at genuine risk being missed. The latter might appear more serious, but the former is no less important. Someone who has been incorrectly subjected to a mental health intervention might avoid accessing information or support in the future, in case the same thing happens again. Not everyone experiencing thoughts of suicide or self-harm, or seeking information about such topics online, is at immediate risk or in need of intervention.

Similar technologies underpin chatbots such as Woebot and Wysa, in which people can engage in chat conversations about how they’re feeling. These apps us A.I. to provide respond in real-time depending on what the person has shared about their situation. These tools are no substitute for talking to a real person — a friend, family member, or professional — but they can offer an outside perspective, especially if the person feels unable to discuss what they’re going through with family or friends. In addition to the risks and limitations already mentioned, these services can only be considered a partial solution. No matter the sophistication of the machine learning involved, a chatbot is unlikely to be capable of responding appropriately in highly complex or emotional situations. This limitation applies to humans too, of course. No matter how much we care and want to support our friends and loved ones, we may not always pick up on the clues or respond in the most helpful or appropriate way. Human professionals are not infallible either.

It Takes a Community

Technology has an important role to play, but human connection will always be at the heart of effective strategies to keep people safe.

Peer Support

Whether online or in person, peer support networks offer space for people to share their experiences and support one another. Groups are often led by professionals or trained volunteers, and counter the isolation many people feel concerning their situation, experiences, thoughts, and feelings. Community initiatives often offer social activities such as local walks or other events, building a sense of belonging in addition to providing emotional support, advice, and guidance.

The Role of Education

There’s an increasing acknowledgment that mental health education needs to start early. Integrating mental health awareness into our schools, colleges, and universities helps combat the stigma and discrimination that still surround mental ill health. It also helps equip young people with the information and tools they need to recognise when they, or their friends and loved ones, may be struggling and need additional help and support. A generation of people brought up aware of and educated about mental health is the best strategy for suicide prevention in the long-term.

Courses such as the internationally recognised Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) certification, Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training (ASIST), and many other mental health and suicide prevention courses are now widely available. These are often provided free or with costs subsidised by employers or other organisations. It’s never been easier to learn more about how to recognise the signs that someone might be struggling, and offer meaningful help and support.

Policy Changes

As important as these approaches are, they do not and cannot operate in a vacuum. Policy changes and advocacy are needed to create and maintain a culture in which mental health is prioritised, with appropriate resources available and accessible to everyone who needs them.

National and Global Initiatives

National governments and international organisations such as the World Health Organisation (WHO) are increasingly focusing on mental health. In many countries, recent policy changes have aimed at improving mental health services by expanding access to care, increasing research funding, and incorporating mental health into their broader public health policies. It remains to be see how effective these changes will be, but it’s encouraging to see initiatives such as the WHO’s Mental Health Action Plan and the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals highlight how crucial mental health is to humanity’s overall health and well-being.

Advocacy and Awareness Campaigns

Awareness events such as Time to Talk Day (February), Mental Health Awareness Month (May), World Suicide Prevention Day (September 10), and World Mental Health Day (October 10) play an important role in changing how we think and talk about mental health and suicide. Social media campaigns like #StopSuicide and #ItsOkayToTalk help reduce stigma and encourage open conversations about what have for too long been taboo subjects. These campaigns often go viral, reaching millions of people and spreading messages of hope and support. Grassroots movements are driving change at the local level. Organizations like To Write Love on Her Arms (TWLOHA) and Project Semicolon have built strong and committed communities around the message that suicide is preventable and help is available.

Drawing it all Together

Preventing suicide needs a broad approach that goes beyond the provision of traditional mental health hotlines. While these will always remain a vital resource for people in crisis or needing immediate support, building a robust and effective safety net for everyone at risk requires us to think and act creatively and on a wider scale. On this World Suicide Prevention Day, let’s recognise the importance of both innovation and caution in developing effective strategies. By supporting comprehensive suicide prevention efforts that include both traditional and modern methods, we can work towards a world where everyone has access to the support they need when they need it most.

Further Reading

You can find details of World Suicide Prevention Day at the International Association for Suicide Prevention. Our resources page includes links to crisis lines, support organisations, training resources, and books. UK mental health charity Mind offers a range of help and information if you need support or are concerned for someone else.

Photo by Jenna Anderson at Unsplash.

In a World of My Own: The Gentle Art of Losing Myself

In what the misusers are fond of calling Real Life, Escape is evidently as a rule very practical, and may even be heroic.

— J. R. R. Tolkien, “On Fairy Stories”

Most of my blog posts are inspired by conversations but this time it was an e-mail. My friend Karl got in touch to let me know he’d achieved his black belt distinction in martial arts. One sentence in his e-mail really caught my attention.

Going to the gym is my “quiet place” where, despite the blasting music, I can shut out the noise of external life and just focus on one thing.

You’ll hear more from Karl because I invited him to expand on what his martial arts sessions mean to him. For now, though, I want to explore that one line. I’ve never been inside a gym and can’t imagine doing so. Nevertheless, what Karl said resonated strongly with me. The focus. The sense of being in a world of one’s own. In my case, it’s not gyms and martial arts, though. It’s coffee shops and writing.

I’m there almost every Saturday. (Here, in fact, because that’s where I’m writing this piece right now.) After breakfast I order a second coffee to see me through the coming hours. I catch up on my diary, then set that aside and assemble my writing station. Android tablet and phone on their respective stands. Bluetooth keyboard and headset. I hotspot my tablet to my phone, open the document I’m currently working on, and begin writing. It’s not uncommon for four or five hours to go by. That’s not four hours writing without a break, but for most of it I’m head down, lost in what I’m doing. In the past I’ve said that the main reason I write is because I’m scared to stop. Karl’s e-mail helped me realise, however, that there’s more to it than that. I value the process of writing, the getting lost in the moment. My Saturday session at the coffee shop is the highlight of my week. I take days off work and spend them there, in this world of my own.

Now that I think about it, writing has always offered me this opportunity, no matter what I was working on at the time. Poetry, articles, short stories, the books I co-wrote with Fran, and now my blog posts. It happens less with my diary. That may be because that’s focused on the here and now of my life, rather than being a creative escape from it. It hasn’t only been writing, though. I remember my six-month university placement in Norwich, losing myself each weekend in the novels I picked up at the market. In Bradford and London, hours dissolving as I worked on painting portraits of my friends. When I first moved to Newcastle, my house-mate and landlady calling goodbye in the morning as I settled down at the dining table to work on my clay models. She’d return in the evening to find me still sitting there as though no more than an hour or so had passed. In more recent years, I remember losing myself working with Photoshop and web design.

The phenomenon is hard to describe from the outside, because by definition it’s characterised by being divorced from present reality. For me, the key features are an intense focus on what I’m doing, and an environment such that I’m not disturbed or jolted out of it. Although I’m focused on what I’m doing, I’m not consciously thinking about the next step. I’m more or less on auto pilot, following my creative instinct wherever it leads. I find background noise a boon rather than a hindrance. I’ve always found low level sound relaxing, especially conversation at a volume just below my ability to follow what’s being said. The background hum of the coffee shop helps me enter the almost meditative space I need. I’ve tried ambient noise apps but there’s no substitute for the real thing.

I was interested to note that Karl’s experience in the gym takes place in a noisy environment (“despite the blasting music I can shut out the noise of external life”). That probably wouldn’t work for me, although at times I’ve achieved success listening to certain music tracks on my headphones, loudly on repeat. I mentioned that I’d asked Karl to expand on his experiences. He gave me permission to use any parts I found relevant but I want to share it in full.

As a friend put it the other day, my Sensei is my other MH [mental health] doctor. Going to the gym is my “quiet place” where, despite the blasting music, I can shut out the noise of external life and just focus on one thing.

Outside of the gym, I’m a father of two, a husband, a specialist in my role at work, but most of all a 45 year old man who suffers with anxiety, depression, anger and low self worth. Inside the gym, I don’t need to be any of those things. I’m accepted for who I am — I’m eternally grateful to the owners of my small Martial Arts gym, who have fostered such a community amongst their members — but I don’t have to “be” anything. If I want to be quiet, and only speak to the person I’m training with, that’s fine. If I want to interact with the rest of the class, that’s fine too.

All of the stresses of the day, whether they are financial, work or familial, stay off the mats. My own personal rule is that my phone is on do-not-disturb for the hour I am in class. My smartwatch remains on my wrist, but when it is tracking a workout, it blocks notifications. For that one hour, to quote Metallica, “Nothing else matters.”

It’s not even about getting rid of aggression, although there is that too, when needed. It’s the scalpel-like focus required to throw a leg-kick which lands in just the right place to impact the lateralus muscle, but to do it without the force to disable the person you are working with. It’s the challenge of doing something better this time than you did last time.

I recently completed my 1^st Dan Black belt examination, and sparring was part of the assessment. For those who don’t know, that means donning protective gear, extra padded gloves, and fighting one on one with a focus on technique and limited power. One of the instructors, who I also view as a friend, was helping out as a sparring partner and he countered almost every move I tried to make. Every punch or kick was blocked, evaded or answered with one of his own. I spoke to him afterwards, and he told me he was deliberately trying to provoke me, to get me to lose my cool, to get me to be out of control. He couldn’t, because I couldn’t — my training is my escape. I find my Zen in violence.

— Karl Douglass

I’m grateful to Karl, not only for contributing to this blog post, but for opening my eyes to a world I know little to nothing about.

As I check the time, I see that a couple of hours have passed since I began working on this post. For this all-too-brief period I’ve experienced what I call the gentle art of losing myself. I wonder whether it’s myself I lose at such times, or my attachment to everything other than myself. Karl writes of setting aside the roles of father, husband, and IT specialist, as well as labels relating to his health and wellbeing. I share some of those, and have many of my own. All are left behind when I enter my creative space, as Karl’s are when he enters the gym. I am, perhaps, more truly me, myself, and I when I’m in my little world than at any other time.

Several of my short stories — written years ago and unpublished beyond a small circle of friends — relate to people losing themselves in parallel worlds. In “Poser,” the portal to this alternative realm is a rogue computer program. The interplay between physical and virtual reality is explored further in “The Palantir of Josef Betz” and “Homeopathy has a word for IT.” In these tales, the alternative realms are perilous, to say the least. They’re a long way from the kind of inner world I’m describing here. There’s a link, however, in the quotation I opened with. In various ways, my short stories are all related to the fictional world of Middle-earth created by J. R. R. Tolkien. His 1947 essay “On Fairy Stories” was written as a defense of the genre and a repudiation of the derogatory charge of escapism levelled against it. It’s something I might explore further on another occasion.

Another hour has slipped by in the coffee shop, in my little world. It’s time to emerge, to re-engage in the real world. Whatever that is.

 

Photo by Hannah Wei at Unsplash.

 

Our Top Posts of the Month (August 2024)

Check out our top posts for the past month. Posts are listed by the number of page views they attracted during the month, most popular first.

1. Shhhhhhh! A Friend’s Guide to Secrets
2. The Box on the Shelf: A Strategy for Handling Difficult Issues and Situations
3. It’s Not Enough / Never Enough
4. I’m Weak and What’s Wrong With That?
5. I’m on My Way: Thoughts Inspired by Ed Sheeran’s “Castle on the Hill”
6. I Believe You. It wasn’t Your Fault. You Are not Alone. Being There for a Friend Who’s Survived Rape or Sexual Abuse
7. I Hope We All Make It
8. One Must Imagine Sisyphus Happy: Encounters With the Absurd Man
9. Why Bucket Lists Don’t Work for Me (But a Things I’ve Done List Does)
10. Thank You Anyway: The Gift of Ingratitude

Our most visited pages were:

1. Contact Us
2. Resources
3. Our books
4. About Us
5. News and Appearances
6. Testimonials

 

Photo by Nikolett Emmert at Unsplash.