It’s just cricket

Kevin Pietersen looks annoyed. Picture by Getty images at the Daily Telegraph website.

If there’s one thing that the English do better than playing cricket it’s writing about cricket.

The Daily Telegraph’s obituary for Bryan “Bomber” Wells is a good example – it recalls the joys of playing the game before cricketers took themselves so seriously.

Overweight and undertrained, Bomber Wells could hardly have looked less like a professional sportsman. This unathletic impression was confirmed by his bowling run-up, or rather his lack of run-up. As he himself explained, he took two steps when he was cold and one when he was hot; and sometimes he simply delivered the ball from a stationary position.

He once managed to bowl an entire over (by pre-arrangement with the batsman) while the Worcester cathedral clock struck 12.

You can’t imagine the current lot doing that, although I suppose it is a bit ridiculous. I once saw Jacques Kallis at Joburg International airport and, just from the way he walked, you could tell that he had an extremely healthy regard for himself. Perhaps that’s what happens to you when you’re a star, a cricketing legend. No smiles at the people gaping at him, nudging each other and whispering, “Isn’t that Jacques Kallis?” He was “in his bubble” as they say about sportspeople with great powers of concentration.

One of the things I like about watching or listening to cricket is the fact that it’s generally a soothing way of dealing with anxiety. Of course it helps that SA could win the current series against England, despite the fact that they’ve stuffed things up from similar situations before. Helping them this time is one Jeremy Snape, an English cricketer and now a sports psychologist, who can hopefully help them to avoid the pitfalls of panicking and choking, as Derek Pringle explains.

I won’t comment on the hypocrisy or greed or other negatives associated with the “gentleman’s game”. But I think Mephistopheles has a point when he says:

The beauty of Cricket does not lie in the hypocrisy surrounding it. Rather, it begins and ends inside the boundary lines. Two batsmen against the other eleven who are trying to get them out. Cricket is a game where there is room for individual brilliance within the framework of team work. The beauty of Cricket is in some of its vignettes. A bowler marking his run-up and the batsmen taking guard. The crowd waiting in anticipation while the bowler starts his run-up and then that anticipation turning to instant boredom as the batsmen shoulders his arms and lets the ball through to the wicket keeper.

Sometimes boredom is good. And there’s always time to read while watching cricket. A cuppa tea, a good book and the gentle thwack of bat against ball. As long as we win

Forty Things Surprise meme

Seen this at quite a few sites (first at Charlotte’s blog) and the surprise is that they left out three (rather odd) questions. Trust me, you won’t miss the three omitted ones.

1. My uncle once: climbed the drainpipe up to his classroom with a sackful of Cokes.
2. Never in my life: have I been to South America.
3. When I was five: I wanted to go to Heaven.
4. High school was: not the best time of my life.
5. I will never forget: the kindness of my granny when I was growing up.
6. Once I met: Kylie Minogue at a bookshop, at least I’m pretty sure it was her.
7. There’s this girl I know: who has got it all together.
8. Once, at a bar: I kissed a complete stranger.
9. By noon, I’m usually: hungry.
10. Last night: I fell asleep with the light on after reading a book.
11. If only I had: lots of time (and money and inspiration) to write to my heart’s content.
12. Next time I go to church: will possibly be at Christmas.
13. What worries me most: is when I will be able to afford my own place again.
14. When I turn my head left I see: government-issue blinds, a government-issue filing cabinet and the light shining off some leaves through the window.
15. When I turn my head right I see: a computer screen that I don’t use, a telephone (fixed again – yay), a creme wall and some more blinds.
16. You know I’m lying when: I look more anxious than usual and talk really fast.
17. What I miss most about the Eighties is: making new friends at university.
18. If I were a character in Shakespeare I’d be: tragic (or possibly comic).
19. By this time next year: I will be free of the army and hopefully still employed.
20. A better name for me would be: I’m OK with this one thanks.
21. I have a hard time understanding: indifference (and enduring hatred).
22. If I ever go back to school, I’ll: do a Ph.D.
23. You know I like you if: I bake you something.
24. If I ever won an award, the first person I would thank would be: my parents most probably.
25. Take my advice, never: ignore your gut, it’s a tried and tested way of assessing how you feel.
26. My ideal breakfast is: coffee, croissants, fruit salad and yoghurt (with the right company and something enticing to read).
27. A song I love but do not have is: anything on Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon” album.
28. If you visit my hometown, I suggest you: walk on the mountain (but don’t take valuables), drink sundowners at Clifton, eat out at a great restaurant and go to the District Six museum.
29. Why won’t people: take responsibility for their emotions?
30. If you spend a night at my house: you will have a very inquisitive dog who will sniff you, some talkative parents who will quiz you and you will wake up with a lovely view of the mountain.
31. I’d stop my wedding for: I’d rather not think about such an anxiety-inducing scenario!
32. The world could do without: religious intolerance.
33. I’d rather lick the belly of a cockroach than: eat one (gross).
34. My favourite blonde(s) is/are: at the moment that would be Mandy (with a golden retriever in second place)
35. Paper clips are more useful than: prestik.
36. If I do anything well it’s: procrastinate.
37. And by the way: I found this cartoonist the other day at http://www.mentalhealthhumor.com

James Joyce: “The Dead”

James Joyce’s short story “The Dead”, from Dubliners (1914), touches on the issue of narcissism, one which is central to the “problems of living” that many clients who come for therapy experience.

Narcissism can be defined as an excessive amount of love and admiration toward oneself but in a psychological context it has a more specific meaning. It refers to a psychological condition characterised by self-preoccupation, lack of empathy and unconscious deficits in self-esteem.

Gabriel Conroy in “The Dead” fits this label. He’s in his mid-40s, a teacher and a journalist, happily married with children. He’s well-regarded as a teacher and a journalist and is his aunts’ favourite nephew who is to give the after-dinner speech at their annual Misses Morkan’s dance party. But he’s also preoccupied with what other people think of him and appears a bit bewildered by his own emotions and his effect on people. He appears too wrapped up in himself and whether or not he is highly regarded and so is unable to empathise with others. He is over-familiar with Lily, the caretaker’s daughter, and she takes offence. Dancing with a fellow teacher, Molly Ivors, he’s perplexed that she teases him about being a “West Briton” (an Irishman who looks to Britain rather than his native Ireland). She’s effectively accusing him of not being sufficiently Irish and not taking take enough pride in all things Irish but he comes away from the encounter irritated and perplexed.

His marriage to Gretta is a happy one up to a point but the party provides an example of the miscommunications between them. When Molly Ivors invites him to holiday with them in Galway (perhaps to make up for the teasing), he says he’s going cycling in Europe instead. Gretta is delighted by the idea of going to Galway but Gabriel says coldly that she can go alone if she likes.

Later on the cab drive home and back at their hotel he longs for intimacy with Gretta but she’s full of regret for her first love, of whom she was reminded when one of the guests sang “The Lass of Aughrim”. He feels slighted and sees “himself as a ludicrous figure, acting as a pennyboy for his aunts, a nervous, well-meaning sentimentalist, orating to vulgarians and idealising his own clownish lusts, the pitiable fatuous fellow he had caught sight of in the mirror”.

However, in a moment of epiphany (which Joyce is famous for), Gabriel appears to be able to transcend some of his own narcissism to empathise with Gretta and to feel some of the sorrow that she experiences. After Gretta has cried herself to sleep Gabriel is left wondering about the living and the dead. He looks out at the snow which “was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furley was buried …. he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe, and falling faintly, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead”.

Bill Tucker, who includes this story in his “How People Change”, identifies narcissism as the central issue of the story.

Narcissism is the central issue in the psychological treatment of many patients, usually but not necessarily men, coming in mid-life to treatment for long-standing problems in love or work, sometimes accompanied by specific physiological symptoms. Like Gabriel, such men are unaware of their insensitivity to emotional issues and find themselves genuinely bewildered by the intensely negative responses they continually evoke. Like him they tend to be overly sensitive to slights and to indulge in constant monitoring of how they are perceived, with what we might incautiously compare to a teenager’s degree of self-consciousness. Gabriel is warmly regarded, but he does not feel connected to any of the other guests.

I wondered what a client like Gabriel Conroy might be like on the couch. In some ways he would be an ideal patient – intelligent, articulate, insightful and observant. He would classify as a high-functioning neurotic. Narcissistic patients tend to drone on at length about minor things (a bit like a blog!) but he is also observant enough to be able to apply insights to his own relationships and could make good use of therapy to connect with a rich, inner emotional life.

Stellenbosch wrapped

I’m a sucker for artistic statements, especially when someone (in this case landscape artist Strijdom van der Merwe) takes the trouble to wrap all the oak trees in Stellenbosch’s historic Dorp street. I don’t really care that it’s raising money for charity. I just like the way it looks. That old cliche about Stellenbosch (and CT for that matter) being a city of contrasts is incredibly true. On the way in to Stellenbosch you can’t help notice all the sex-workers on the side of the road with their short skirts. But the city itself is respectability personified. The architecture is lovely (for want of a better word) and it’s a quaint, vibrant, beautiful university town. Someone described it as an island of wealth in a sea of poverty. But today I’m just admiring the oak trees. My mom’s comment was, “I hope those trees can breathe.”

The write couple

Our parents provide us with a template of what it means to be a couple, as Adam Phillips reminds us in Going Sane, and this can be very helpful and also quite depressing. For most of my life I’ve grown up with the idea that relationships don’t really work, at least not in my family. And I’m really hoping that I can improve on this sometime soon! I know it takes a lot of time and patience and effort (and a good sense of humour) but I think I could also do with a bit of literary inspiration here.

So I’ve been racking my brains to think of famous couples — in fiction, in movies and on TV. Here’s what I’ve come up with so far (in no particular order, and mixing media): Elizabeth and Darcy; Hope and Michael (from Thirtysomething); Beauty and the Beast; Homer and Marge; Julia Roberts and Richard Gere (in Pretty Woman); Heathcliff and Catherine; Romeo and Juliet; Anthony and Cleopatra.

The first couple I thought of was Elizabeth and Darcy from Pride and Prejudice. Not surprisingly, some psychologists use this as an example of “Cognitive Therapy” – how misperceptions and “faulty cognitions” lead to, well, pride and prejudice. And how emotions can change once those thoughts are addressed and proved to be incorrect. Psychologists have also used Hope and Michael in couples therapy – showing husbands what it’s like to be a bit more sensitive for example (this was the early 90s after all). I’ll leave Beauty and the Beast to another time maybe – but as with Cinderella and her Prince there’s a strong transformational element here (and also some perceptual issues). Homer and Marge? Well, Homer’s basically an overgrown boy but he loves Marge and he makes it up to her so I suppose they make it work. Pretty Woman is a variation on the Cinderellas theme. And here is where I confess that I’ve never actually read Wuthering Heights. Shocking I know. The closest I’ve come to that is hearing my sister play the Kate Bush song “Cathy I’ve come home” about a million times. Romeo and Juliet is a whole discussion in itself but there are a number of different levels to this – invididual vs family and society, how love is stronger when it’s forbidden, and how pleasure is amplified by anxiety perhaps.

From a therapy point of view, I get to see many examples of what not to do in a relationship – all the disappointment, the settling for less, the frustration and resentment and bitterness. But I’m interested in couples that manage to make it work. Not so much the smug-marrieds as the inspirational-marrieds. Let me know if you have any enlightening or inspiring books I can add to my couples-education reading list.

Friday fessing

Well it’s been an up-and-down week. The cold and the rain was a downer and the upper came in the form of a quite surprising date which I don’t want to jinx by talking about here! I will say that dating is a terrifying (and also great) experience. The joy of a returned email (with promising signs of more dates), the anxiety of further dates and the despair of long delays. I think Emily is right when she says men are a romantic lot. I’m sure the object of all this emotional turmoil is happily going about her day and not sighing dreamily and wondering what she’s going to say at the wedding

On the writing front, things are progressing slowly (distractions aside). One article down this week, one to go (and then a few next week). In line with Charlotte’s goals, I want to exercise more, which I’m convinced will give me the energy to write more as well. (We’ll see.)

On the reading front, Phillips got bumped out of the way by the latest edition of the London Review of Books. To my horror and fascination, an author who I quite admire had some quite scathing things to say about Cape Town. You can read Jenny Diski’s article on her “awful, really awful” trip here.

My reaction was mixed. On first read I thought “she’s right” and asked myself if I really shouldn’t be making plans to live in a better country. But then I talked to my mom and dad about the article and thought about it some more. I’m still not sure if Diski dislikes all white South Africans or if she just had a bad holiday or if she thinks South Africans generally are just awful.

But in true South African fashion, I think I was pleased that someone (a prize-winning author) bothered to write about us at all. And I respect the fact that she was being honest about what she experienced. Cape Town is a city of contrasts and the legacy of apartheid — economic disparities, discrimination (now going the other way in terms of affirmative action), racial tension, fear of crime, poor leadership, a culture of entitlement, poor standards of education (at the lower levels) and so on does not make for a lot of good-feeling when you think about it.

But equally depressing (perhaps from a UK perspective) was the fact that the main (apparently racist) white person she spoke to had retired here from the UK eight years before. I think part of the awfulness of her trip, as she acknowledges, had to do with the fact that she came here with high expectations. This was the country where Nelson Mandela walked free from prison, a “place where minds had been changed”.

I find myself becoming defensive when reading articles like this. I think that it’s quite easy to fit one’s experiences into a pre-existing, Afro-pessimist framework. And, yes, she could have spoken to more people and had a different experience. But perhaps South Africans should also be doing more to tell a varied and nuanced story to each other and to the world. I think we focus too much on the natural beauty and not enough on what it’s like to actually live here. A destination is only as good as the stories it generates. What different stories are we managing to tell?

Incidentally, I see Jenny Diski has a blog (not updated) here. And I’d be interested to read her travel-writing in On Trying to Keep Still. Her website has this to say:

Jenny Diski’s two most recent works of nonfiction, Skating to Antartica and Stranger on a Train, described what were as much inner as outer journeys, journeys of the mind. In these books, she confessed that she is never so happy as when she is at home, and that her urge to travel is a contrary one, something she is not sure that she herself understands. In On Trying to Keep Still, she explores her own contrariness in new and challenging ways. Inspired by Michel de Montaigne, who retired to a tower in southern France in middle life and hardly ever left it, writing timeless essays which have since become famous, Jenny sets out to record her own state of mind in places as varied as New Zealand, deepest Somerset and inside the Arctic Circle.

Random thoughts on a cold Saturday

I was going to post a review of Adam Phillips’ “Going Sane” which examines the rather less interesting pole of the mad/sane dichotomy but that should probably wait until I’ve actually made enough progress with it to have an informed opinion. It’s all very well my telling you my initial impressions and what other people think but it makes more sense to think through my own thoughts first.

Having said that of course, I will make some initial observations here anyway. I like the line: “the sane don’t get any memorable lines” and it’s a nice touch to start with Hamlet, Shakespeare’s most famous ‘mad’ character. However, another initial thought is that this is not a book to read in bed on a cold night when it is late and you are tired and you have your feet on a deliciously warm microwaved happy hugger. Perhaps it’s taking me a while to warm up to the subject matter, as interested as I am, and to get my head around what exactly is sanity and what is madness. As Phillips observes, the two intersect and intermingle in confusing ways. Sanity can sometimes be a form of madness and madness an expression of a ‘true self’ and thus a form of sanity.

Commenting on the use of the word “mad” in Hamlet, Phillips says: “Madness … tends to be theatrical, even when it is not good theatre. Sanity tends the other way. Being mad, as Polonius suggests, can mean acting as if one were mad; being sane cannot mean acting as if one were sane.”

I can see that I will be grappling with a lot of paradoxes in this book. And, while I’m in a quoting mood, this is a helpful take on Phillips’ book from Gideon Lewis-Kraus:

“The problem is our tendency to romanticize madness. The mad “have traditionally been idealised, if not glamorised, as inspired: as being in touch … with powers and forces and voices” otherwise reclusive. Sanity, on the other hand, is described — when it is described at all — as a matter of moderation, self-control and mechanical rationality. It’s easy to absorb the lesson that the mad are idiosyncratic and complex while the sane are pedestrian.”

On a completely different topic, you will be pleased to hear that my dog is recovering well from her traumatic dog-bite the other day. Here she is warming herself in front of the gas-heater. I like the crossed-paws and the look of contentment that she has (although she’s not crazy about pictures).

Otherwise, I’m making slow progress with the Belgians and I also went on a date today. We met for coffee at a restaurant called “Jamaican me crazy” which has a nice ring about it. I thought things were going well enough until it came to say goodbye and she got into her extremely cool C-class Mercedez and I got into my very modest Toyota Tazz. There were some signs before this that we were not exactly on the same page but this perhaps brought it home to me in a particularly tangible way. We did, however, have a good chat about martial arts, the merits of surgery over general medicine as a career (and the public’s image of surgeons as arrogant and macho). I doubt if there will be a date number two but it was an entertaining chat.

Next time I’ll write some more about sanity and madness. Happy reading.