Sunday, 13 January, 1991
ME: Hullo, Richard; how are you?
C: Very well, thank you. And you?
ME: Okay, I guess. As you can tell, I don't feel easy about this
dialogue business. I don't quite know why, because the earlier
conversation-style journal seemed quite natural and easy. Perhaps with just
the two of us, instead of the multiple parts of my personality, plus God, and
all the rest, it now seems a little bit too intimate, as if things are too
bare now, and I don't have all those personalities like the rational mind, the
optimist, the adult, the spirit, and all the rest, to hide behind - just you
and me, in all our psychological nakedness. I think I feel a little
uncomfortable about that.
C: Well, if it would help you, I suppose you could go back to that format.
ME: No, it doesn't seem right for what I am doing now. Another thing -
when I addressed you as Richard, it seemed as fake as anything could be. I
did it out of nothing more than politeness, as if you should address someone
by name at least when you first meet them, if not later on.
Perhaps you were right in what you said when I started this journal about
your not really having a name. In any case, I'm not at all sure that I can
use the name Richard naturally and spontaneously.
C: That's all right. You can change that if you like. Better to change
now before any particular method of addressing me has become partly habitual,
rather than trying to change in midstream later on.
ME: What do you think I should do?
C: Well, I guess you could do anything you like.
ME: Well, I was just thinking to myself, "What am I referring to you as?
- I don't mean when I talk to you, but rather when I label the pieces of
dialogue to identify the speaker". I refer to myself as "ME", which means
either just "me", or is short for "Michael Edwards"; however, I have referred
to you as "C", which stands for "counsellor".
Notice that I didn't put "R" for "Richard"; maybe "Richard" just didn't
seem a natural description of you. Since "C" for "counsellor" originally
occurred to me quite spontaneously when I started this journal, without my
even having to think about it, I just wonder if I should call you
"Counsellor", and be done with it. Having a name like "Richard" seems a
little childish somehow, a bit like having a pet name for an imaginary
companion. Do you know what I mean?
C: I think I get the general idea; however, I'm not here to judge such
matters as being childish, or anything else. If you want to call me
"Counsellor", there's no reason why you shouldn't do that. Why not try it, and
see if it comes more naturally? If it does, it may stick, and might even become
an almost affectionate designation. I believe that titles can occasionally
become quite intimate between humans, in a certain way.
ME: Well, I don't know. This does seem to be a difficult problem.
Even names of people can cause me difficulty sometimes. Sometimes I find
with certain people that I feel uneasy with their name, and don't use it, and
I don't even know why sometimes.
Sometimes it happens when the name is unusual. For instance, I had a
friend called V----, whom I haven't seen for quite a while now; however, I
was in regular contact with him for over 10 years. Despite that, I never felt
easy using the name "V----"; I never really got used to it. I used it, but
probably not as often as I would have if it had been a more conventional name.
Of course, I am aware that he once had a more conventional name before I
got to know him, but I don't think that's the reason I feel this way. I mean,
I think of him as V---- T----, not T---- P---- S----, but I just don't
feel easy about the name "V----", and if that had always been his name, I
think my feelings would be the same.
C: Is it that you somehow don't think "V----" is a real name, like
"T----" or "P----" are?
ME: Well, yes; V. wouldn't like to hear this, but I think there is
that kind of feeling to some extent. But I feel that shouldn't be relevant;
what is or isn't a real name is just a matter of convention anyway, and for
all I know "V----" might be a real, ordinary name in France or Italy, for
instance.
But in any case, if someone wants to be called "V----", they should have
the right to be; and because of that, I think my feelings are a bit
irrational.
C: Feelings often are; there's no need to worry about that too much.
ME: Well, I'm not really worrying over it; since the subject of names
came up, I'm just telling you my thoughts on the subject.
But occasionally I get that same feeling of uneasiness with a name even
if the name is more ordinary. I'm thinking of the man in a pizza shop where I
sometimes go to have a hamburger. His name is Jim, or Jimmy - or at least I
have heard one or two other people call him Jimmy, even though he has never
himself told me what his name is. But I can't seem to call him that - I don't
know if it's because he himself hasn't told me his name (which may be merely
because he thinks I already know it), or if it's because "Jimmy" with the
diminutive "-my" suffix seems a little too intimate for me to use, or whether
it's for some other reason. But it seems to be true that I am reluctant to
use a person's name until I know him or her quite well. [a]
ME: Well, yes, it does rather, because it must seem jolly unfriendly and
distant and cold not even to use a person's name, and I don't mean to come
across like that.
C: Does it bother the other people that you don't use their name, or don't
use it often enough?
ME: How would I know? They don't usually show it in any way, but they
would be too polite to say anything or imply anything about it. I can only
hope that if they do notice it, they merely put it down to some odd quirk of
mine, and that they know from my general manner otherwise that I am friendly
and considerate enough.
After all, I am not bothered if people don't use my name; in fact, I
don't like my name at all really - neither my Christian name nor my surname,
but especially my Christian name. So I don't at all mind, or even notice, if
someone doesn't use my name, and I hate having to introduce myself to another
person by saying my name.
For all that I dislike my Christian name, I nevertheless - and this is
the funny bit - prefer to be called "Michael" than "Mr. Edwards", which makes
me feel about ninety, or - even worse - "Sir". And these last two forms of
address I do hear occasionally from shop attendants of the old-fashioned type
who know what politeness is. But the fact is, "Mr. Edwards" and "Sir" make me
feel uneasy.
C: Why do you think that is?
ME: I still don't feel adult somehow, despite being painfully aware of
the years that have passed, and of the fact that the best part of my youth is
well and truly behind me, and "Mr." and "Sir" are conspicuously adult
forms of address. I think I have too many eccentric and even immature ways to
really seem properly adult, with the dignity that implies. Despite
half-hearted efforts to keep this, if not exactly hidden, at least under some
semblance of control, I think it shows.
C: If you could look into the private thoughts and lives of the many
adult-appearing people all around you, I wonder if you would not seem so
different after all in comparison. Just something to think about; it may be
possible that you are too self-conscious of your own demeanour.
ME: I don't think so; I think there is a real difference. However, I
wasn't really meaning to get into that in a big way just now.
C: Why don't you like your Christian name?
ME: It's difficult to know why; I just don't.
C: Is it because of its meaning?
ME: I don't think so; it means, I believe, something like "He who is like
God", which is not a very accurate description of my nature. [b]
But I don't think it's that that bothers me, because most names have a
meaning, and they hardly ever apply to the person himself, or if they do, it's
purely by accident, because I bet lots of people in christening their children
don't even know what the name means. And if it were the meaning which
were relevant, well, I've heard of names whose meanings I like a lot less
than the meaning of my own name.
No, I'm not at all bothered by having a name whose meaning refers to God
like that; I just don't like the name itself. Perhaps, because of its
life-long association with me, it seems to summarize what I am, and what I am
I don't like very much.
C: Have you ever thought of changing your name?
ME: Oh, some years ago, I occasionally considered it, perhaps influenced
by discussions with V., who is a numerologist, and who changed his own
name for numerological reasons. But I couldn't seem to think of any other
name that I could commit myself to, and I don't think I ever really believed
in numerology anyway.
C: Well, what about forgetting numerology, and just changing your name
because you would prefer another name?
ME: It still leaves the matter of what other name would I prefer?
Even if I forget about whether the new name has to add up to this or that
numerological total, I still can't seem to think of any other name I like
sufficiently.
In any case, this was years ago. Even at the time, the idea of changing
my name was never more than an idle thought, and since then it hasn't even
been an idle thought, and I don't think it is likely to be in the future,
either.
And also, it appears possible that the basic problem is not liking
myself, rather than not liking a name. The name itself is a quite ordinary
respectable name in objective terms, and not liking it seems merely to be a
symptom. If that is so, I would probably come to hate the new name in time,
unless I could come to like myself. And if I can do that, I should be able to
accept my present name with ease.
C: Well, I suppose that's worth keeping in mind. What about your surname?
- you said you didn't like that much either.
ME: Yes; but I don't feel as strongly about that. A surname is only a
surname, and by its nature is more distant and impersonal. Once again, it's a
perfectly ordinary respectable name, neither outlandishly strange nor too
common and plain. It's generic, rather than personal, and it's a family name
- and therein may lie the problem.
I'm a bit of a black sheep in my family; I have nothing whatever in
common with my immediate family members - that is, my parents and brothers -
and never have had. I don't think like them, I don't have anything like the
same attitudes to life, and I'm not particularly close to them, and have even
had quite bad patches with some of them, both recently and in the remote past.
All this gives the family associations I don't entirely like, and I just lack
a kinship with the family. Even when I seem to get on all right with them,
there's a distinct remoteness, like a barrier between us, and the relationship
seems superficial. I guess my surname just calls that to mind, and sort of
sums it up.
I know I'm a bit in the dog-house at the moment with them over losing my
temper on Christmas Day, and while that may have just now reminded me of those
thoughts, I don't think it has influenced them, because all those thoughts
about the family are things I have believed for many years, regardless of any
moment-to-moment feelings that may come and go. [c]
Anyway, regardless of that, I am not at all considering changing any of
my names, if that's what you were suggesting.
C: No, I wasn't suggesting that at all; I was just inducing you to think
about it. Since you initially expressed unease at using a name you had assigned
to me, it appeared that there were several aspects of names that you felt
uncertain about, and I was just inducing you to focus on it a little.
ME: It appears that we manage to conduct our conversation quite well
without either of us using names of any sort. Well, I suppose with only two
of us, there can be no room for ambiguity. How do you feel about names?
C: I don't have any problem with names. In our first conversation about a
year ago, I told you my attitude to any name as applied to me. I have no
objection to your own name, and if in the transcript of our conversation I don't
appear to be using it, I would suggest that it may be because when I convey my
thoughts to you, they get filtered through your mind to some extent, despite
your undoubtedly honest attempts to represent them accurately, and if your mind
is used to refraining from using the name "Michael", I suppose the name gets
filtered out from what I say. Maybe one day this will not be so; meanwhile, it
probably doesn't matter, and I accept that.
ME: I guess you're right. Why, if I ever meet someone called "Michael",
as I have on a few occasions, even if I feel friendly to him, I am absolutely
unable to address him by name at all, even to the point where it must appear
quite rude. I don't mean to be rude, but I can't seem to help it, and I
wonder if this might be enough to make it very difficult to make friends with
someone possessing my own name. I often wonder how other people feel when
talking with someone with their own name.
C: I imagine that a whole variety of reactions takes place with various
people.
C: Anyway, why did you come to me and start this session? It's been just
over a year since our first conversation, during which you don't appear to have
needed to speak to me in this manner, and I feel there must a specific reason
you have started another.
ME: Yes, I suppose there is a reason. When I started this journal a year
ago, I was going to continue more or less regularly, if not every day. But I
guess the burden of actually sitting down and writing or typing my thoughts
down is what stopped me. And you would have to write or type for quite a long
time to get anything substantial down.
C: Could I suggest another approach to this matter? It appears that you
have the idea that for it to be worthwhile to have a session with me, it should
be "substantial", as you put it. Burdened with that idea, it is not surprising
that, so far, you have only managed to do it once every year.
Why not just have the idea that you can come here at any time and share any
thoughts you may have, trivial or important, big or little, and just discuss it
in a free-and-easy way, without any particular expectations? Just come and
spend 5 minutes here, if that's all you feel like, or have time for on a
particular occasion.
Surely we know each other well enough, and understand each other well
enough, to be able to do that without any obligations being created on either
side. It's not a matter of having to spend a certain amount of time with me for
fear of offending me by being too brief.
And 5 minutes a day, or every few days, would probably cover as much ground
as several hours once every few months or once a year. And if it doesn't cover
as much ground after all, it doesn't matter; we're not engaged in a race or
competition of any sort.
ME: Anyway, my reason for coming to see you now - well, before I get onto
that, it occurs to me that we still haven't dealt with my original reason for
starting this journal last year. You will remember that I didn't deal with it
then; I decided to just spend that session getting to know you.
C: Yes, that's right. But is that initial reason still important?
ME: Well, I suppose it's less important, anyway; it doesn't seem to
matter, although it did at the time.
It concerned an old friend of our family, Shirley R., who is a yoga
teacher, and involved in spiritual or consciousness-type matters - what, for
want of a better term, you might call "New-Age" thinking. I talk about such
things with her from time to time, despite my scepticism in recent years.
She did a "Reiki" on me a few times, and it was in connection with one of
these that I started this journal. I don't really understand this "Reiki"
business, but I gather it is a method by which Shirley can somehow get in
touch with my "higher self", and ask it questions relating to my life, and she
can then tell me what she found out. This can only be done if my higher self
consents to it, which it apparently did, so an invasion of privacy is not
involved.
C: Do you still feel it is important to go into this now, a year later?
ME: No, not really. Not in depth, anyway; I just want to briefly clear
it out of the way.
C: I wonder if that is necessary; still, go on, if you want. It's up to
you what you want to share with me.
ME: I don't even remember the details of this Reiki very well (as Shirley
later related it to me), except that Shirley got the idea (presumably from my
higher self) that I somehow wanted to escape from certain difficulties in my
life (and I still think that can be a completely reasonable and rational thing
to want to do), and that the reply she got from my higher self, sounding (to
me, anyway) like the voice of doom itself, was to the effect that "THERE IS NO
WAY OUT, NO ESCAPE". Just from the way Shirley said it, and the context she
put it in, I could hear the capital letters in every word, and it scared me a
bit - at least to the extent that I believe in this sort of thing anyway,
which I don't think I do all that much. Because of this scepticism, I suppose
I wasn't seriously scared.
But in any context, it is a bit unnerving to get messages like this,
regardless of how many doubts you may have about their authenticity. Perhaps
it's just as well I have what I call a healthy scepticism, because if I
totally believed in these sorts of things, I think some of this stuff could
get a bit heavy at times. New-Age philosophy may lack the hellfire and
brimstone and judgement stuff of orthodox Christianity, but with its
reincarnation and
karma philosophies, I think in its own way it can get a bit
too gloomily laden down with the voice of doom, and I don't like it.
If the evidence for it compelled me to believe it, I would accept it
regardless of my feelings about it, but the evidence doesn't so far compel me,
so I am not (until then) inclined to go out of my way to accept something
which I find so gloomy and frightening.
I make no bones about the fact that if I get interested in the spiritual
pathway, it is because I want it to do me good; if following the spiritual
pathway is going to cause me much difficulty, pain, and heartache, I am not in
the least interested. I have enough difficulty already, as things are; I
don't need more, for the sake of pursuing spiritual truth. If at times I do
seem interested, it is only because at that time I feel there is a chance it
may help make life easier in some way.
C: Well, I think it's good that you can talk about it honestly, anyway.
ME: I try to be honest about it. I have certain prejudices, but on the
whole I don't consider myself particularly pro-New-Age, nor do I feel
particularly antagonistic to it. [d] But I think there are severe doubts about
it, which can't (and shouldn't) be brushed aside for the sake of "having
faith" or "transcending logic in order to open up to your intuition", or
anything like that. The same goes for orthodox Christianity too.
In fact, if there is a universal philosophy or truth, I do not believe it
has yet been discovered, and I have no indication that either orthodox
Christianity, or so-called "New-Age" philosophy, is any closer to Truth than
the other. In fact, I have never come across any religion or philosophy that
comes anywhere near embodying the understanding and compassion that I would
expect (or at least hope) the ultimate truth would encompass. [e]
Christianity has in its favour the idea of forgiveness, which I consider
an expression of compassion, of letting a person put wrongdoings or mistakes
behind him, without the pointless exercise of making things balance up for the
sake of the balancing-up itself, in an eye-for-an-eye fashion; [f] but it is
blighted with the grovelling concept of humans as "miserable sinners" in
relation to God, and, even worse, the outrageous (when you think of it without
preconceptions) idea that non-believers in Christ (however that is to be
defined) suffer eternal punishment, or separation from God and heaven. (The
exact concept of hell varies widely, but the factors always present are that
there are no valid excuses whatsoever for unbelief, that hell is exceedingly
unpleasant, and that it is forever.)
However, things are a bit different with the other, New-Age, view. It
has a healthier view of the status of humans (none of the miserable-sinner
stuff), and there is no eternal damnation; but on the other hand, the karma
concept seems to me to insist on an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth (I
have heard it worded in many ways, sometimes very subtly, but this is what it
seems to boil down to when you remove the excess verbiage and rhetoric of some
writers and philosophers), and in this view, forgiveness and compassion can't
have much meaning - in fact, I think they contradict the concept of karma.
And the extracting of an eye for an eye doesn't undo the original wrong it
is supposed to be balancing up for. It simply adds yet more suffering to the
world, which is an immorality that I find difficult to justify.
So, as you can see, I am not much impressed with either of these
contrasting views of life - the Christian, or the other, sometimes called
(presumptuously, in my opinion) the "perennial philosophy". (I regard this
description as something yet to be proved, not something to be assumed from
the outset.)
C: Well - you obviously have thought a great deal on these matters, and
have certain views on them.
ME: Yes; over the years, I think I have thought into these things quite
deeply, even if I have ended up at odds with both of these contrasting
orthodoxies. I'm sort of in the middle, finding things about both that are
simply unacceptable to me - both morally unacceptable, and personally
unacceptable.
I probably don't think about these things quite so much now as I once
did, as it never leads anywhere but to a lot of agonizing over the
unanswerable problems of life. I don't think there is an answer to the
tragedies and evils of life - at least, not that I've ever thought up myself,
or heard or read elsewhere - and I think I've probably read or heard most of
the conventional answers to it, both Eastern and Western.
I think the closest to an acceptable answer I have ever encountered
(leaving aside atheism for the moment, which I sometimes find frighteningly
plausible, although not emotionally acceptable) is in Rabbi Harold Kushner's
book When Bad Things Happen To Good People, although even that is laden
down heavily with reservations and qualifications of all sorts. In a sentence
or two, his view is that God is too loving to ever wish or condone the
tragedies that befall people. In fact, he hurts with us. But perhaps he is
not completely omnipotent, and is unable to prevent the things that happen.
But he will do what he can to help us if we will let him. I don't know if
this is plausible or not, but it is slightly more emotionally acceptable than
many of the other attempts to answer the problem of evil.
C: Well, you certainly got involved with expressing your views there. That
was quite a soliloquy; I think you almost forgot I was here, and just wrote for
yourself.
ME: Yes, I suppose so; maybe I've got a lot of stuff out of me now. Not
that I can say that getting stuff out has the therapeutic, releasing effect
that many people speak of so much; that seems to me to be a bit overrated. I
mean, one may enjoy sounding off about something, but if something
troubles or hurts me, sounding off doesn't stop it hurting, or even just make
it hurt a bit less.
Anyway, I didn't really mean to go into all that stuff. I was originally
talking about the Reiki that motivated our first conversation a year ago.
However, I think I am sufficiently spent on that, and perhaps we don't need to
go into that any further.
In any case, as I said before, I don't even remember the details of what
Shirley told me about it, other than what I've already said.
C: Meanwhile, what about the reason for this session? Do you want to
go on to that now?
ME: I want to go on to it; but not now, thanks. I must go to bed (the
sky is already light), and get some sleep. Perhaps after that, or within the
next day or two. I hope I don't put that off another year, like I did with
the Reiki thing. [g]
C: Well, if you do put it off for another year, I don't want you to
think that is wrong in any way. If that is what you want to do (even if the
decision is reached only by default, simply by failing to decide to deal with it
earlier), that is all right with me. However, I hope we can manage to get
together a bit more often than that.
ME: Yes, I hope so; or at least I think I do. I still can't quite
get over the idea that these conversations are an artificial thing, not real,
that even you are nothing more than the product of my own rational mind. Well
of course that's true at least to some extent; but I hope it can at least
partially lead to the reaching of something beyond. However, it doesn't seem
that way yet.
C: I suppose that feeling of it all being somehow artificial may take time
to get over.
ME: I guess so. Meanwhile, thank you for your time and understanding.
Because I don't think you are merely some part of myself (even if you may be
partly that), I don't think I would be showing undue conceit if I were to
say I find you more understanding and tolerant than I find many other people
in this world.
C: Thank you for your time, and your trust in me. Meanwhile, good-bye
until a later time.
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