The raw thrashed chords at the start of ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart‘ by the great Joy Division convey something of the brutality of love. In the foothills of love there are flowers and heart-shaped boxes but at the summit the air is too thin and pure. Only eagles and white light of a perfect sun belong there. And some very special humans. Few. Very few.
What happens is this. You believe at 17 that amor vincit omnia. Love is constantly reinvented on the fumes of cheap perfume and serious dancing. Oh, what it is to be young! But then, first loves fail and you never quite regain the high ground you were walking on. Some people do. Very few.
You compromise. You accept something that is quite good instead of something that is the best. You know the summit exists. You just don’t see the point of climbing back up there. Most people think that ‘settling down’ like an undisturbed packet of cycanide dust is a sign of maturity. Some people think this pusillanimous. Very few.
Good old Corinthians 1:13 says “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. ”
The even better Beatles aver that “There’s nowhere you can be which isn’t where you meant to be. It’s easy. All you need is love”
All you need is love. Love and a heroic don’t-care-if-I-die attitude to the quest for true, perfect, mountain top love.
“Where will I wander, I wonder.
Nobody knows.
but wherever I’m going, I’ll go in search of the Rose”
Some people keep the faith. Some people hold on to a resolve that makes nonsense of the crashing pillars and delapidated buildings of unsafe constructions. It’s a massive Credo. I believe. And while life may be more comfortable compromising and being what you are not I can think of few reasons not to live life as though perfect love exists. Very few.
It’s been ages since I made a blog entry. Is that due to some creeping muscle disease that paralyses the two typing fingers? Of course not. Is it a reluctance to engage again with you, Dear Reader? Come, come. Perhaps an irresistible ennui born of routine and low achievment? Ach no! We shall have none of that. No. I have been what all self-employed people, be they chefs or charlatans, plumbers or ploughmen, seek to be. Busy. I have been running around like a flying insect of azure posterior giving residential classes to the high and,more often than not, mighty.
I can not, for reasons of the utmost discretion, reveal who my clients are but I can let slip that we have studied the English for the successful exceution of negotiations, meetings, conference calls, presentations, public speaking, social English, economics and some other stuff that is TOP SECRET. So TOP SECRET we had to forget about it after we’d studied it.
I have made and mislaid friends since last we met here, Dear Reader, and I have had confirmed my agreement with Socrates’ position that ‘the unexamined life is not worth living‘. And so I have examined my life and, do you know, on the whole it has a high degree of sunsets and banana sandwiches. That is reassuring.
Next month…in two weeks actually..I go to visit that lovely old relic, England to celebrate my mother’s 90th birthday. Rejoicing shall be unbounded and so may a few things more. Watch this space.
Chary is the reason behind this series of interviews. She interviewed me for European Irish, the website for all the Irish expats and Hibernophiles living in on the Continent. So I thought I would turn tables and get to know her. She lives in Chiclana, Cádiz, a very special paradise with its own guardian, the Wind from the East (like the witch in the Wizard of Oz) that protects the area from overcrowding.
She studied Philosophy in Salamanca because she wanted to know EVERYTHING about this world, she really wanted to fully understand it, and she thought Philosophers would give her the answers she needed. Funny enough, they just had more and more questions. As one friend of hers says: we’re still at the beginning, but not as we were at the start. And I suppose that’s the important thing.
She got an Erasmus grant, and headed to Galway for a year. Not being able to stand the crazy climate in that country, she decided to come back to Spain, where the light of the sun makes life so much easier. But she brought a nice Irish fellow from Sligo who was delighted to get out of the rain. And since then, they’ve been living in Chiclana. they have two lovely children (one of them says about himself that he’s a miracle! And that he wants to be like the guys in The Beatles, have a band, become famous, but the most important thing, have long hair; and the other one says she’ll dance for her brother’s band, she just loves performing).
What is love for you?
Often answers depend on who is asking… I suppose love is what makes us BE. This is just a guess. So much has been said about this topic! I don’t exactly know what love is, but I’m aware of its effects. Love must be shown, or it is not love. Love is also irrational. And so are humans, even though it has been said they are rational animals… Nonsense. Computers experts try hard to make computers think like humans by getting them to be logical. The truth is that a computer will never be like a human being… because the essential part of humans is irrationality.
Why do bad things happen to good people?
Coincidence. This might be difficult to accept, but I don’t think there’s a reason beyond this.
What is the biggest problem facing the human race at the moment?
How to cope with intolerance, how to accept that difference is part of our lives. Multiculturalism is a challenge for us.
If you could change one thing in your life, what would it be?
I wouldn’t change a single thing. Not at all. Everything in life is so weaved that it is very difficult to change one thing without changing the others.
Do you read poetry? Why? Why not?
I think there might be a difference between poetry and poems. While poetry is felt, poems are written down. How many poems do you know that have a lack of poetry? And yet, sometimes, one single word could be full of poetry… Anyway, I used to read poems, yes… There was a time when I could read in loud voice. Poetry has to be read in loud voice; otherwise we just have loose words on a piece of paper. Life is made of different stages: you do exercise for a while, and then you suddenly stop. The same thing happened to me with poetry. Sometimes you have to leave the land fallow, and give time a chance. From time to time, someone delivers a poem for me on a tray –in the inbox of Outlook . And I’m starting to recite them… again.
What is your mission in life?
Mission? Missions have to do with heroes. And I don’t like heroes. Jesus was one of them. They all have a tendency to die because of a real necessity of stating that his ideas are worth a life, their own life, and sometimes their follower’s life. Therefore, I do not have a mission. I might have little goals…
Have you ever felt hate? If so, tell me about it.
No.
Is optimism a strength or a weakness? Explain your answer
Optimism is, without any doubts, strength. I’m not talking about some sort of naïve optimism for which everything is fine. As I understand it, optimism means being aware of reality and its faults and it entails a great effort in order to make it better.
What is your favourite recipe?
Shepperd’s Pie… but the way we’d cook it in Andalucía: white wine, onions, garlic…
If you had a motto, what would it be?
I wouldn’t have a motto. Humans are too changeable to have just one single motto in life. But“Nosce te ipsum”could be a good motto. However, Simone de Beauvoir said that “you cannot get to know yourself, all you can do is narrate yourself”. Isn’t it what I’m doing know? J
Add and answer two more questions that you would like to be asked!!!!
I had arranged to make a Skype video call to conduct this interview and what came alive on the screen was a white well-lit room. On the wall hung a cheerful painting – ‘Children of the World’- and sitting in front of it was Simone, dressed in white and smiling angelically. It was like phoning Heaven. She has a smile like spring water.
What is love for you?
Love is everything for me. Love is what I need to live. Love is what I want to give to my nearest and favourite people. And for me love is God. I’m a very religious person and I know what love is in a spiritual way and of course in a human way.
If love comes from God, why do we suffer from love?
Because we are just human beings. I studied theology in Germany and I know that we’re so little that we’re just thinking and feeling like human beings. Love can not mean for us what it means for God. So we’re suffering from a love that is not the real love that I know is the love of God. I loved my ex-husband but I loved him in a very small way compared to my love of God. I’m still on way to understanding my love for human beings and transcendental love.
Why do bad things happen to good people?
I’ll speak personally now. That’s my talent…to be personal. I am a good person and bad things have happened to me like my car accident in Preston, England on 1995 when I was almost dead. This was my essential experience. This influences me every day. I broke my pelvis in ten places and the pain was terrible. I asked myself a lot of times ‘why did this happen to me?’ I had to fight a lot and I’m still fighting against my pain but I have good faith although I have chronic pain. I hate having pain. You can’t imagine what it is. It’s like I am a bull in a bullfight and the matador is killing me. But I am still fighting and l am still living. This is my destiny. This is my drama.
What is the biggest problem facing the human race at the moment?
I have a great fear of terrorism. And I want to maintain nature. People are destroying themselves and that’s a fact and so we are destroying in our little relationships and in general. When I watch the German news I am very worried about what’s happening in the small things and the big. We need the economic crisis, I think, to be more responsible and show more solidarity. But terrorism and stupid religious mess this is what I worry about.
If you could change one thing in your life what would it be?
I’ve been thinking about it but I wouldn’t change anything in my little life. But I would go with my daughter to a poor country to help and I would change my little emotions against my ex-husband and seek mediation with him. This a complex question. I can’t answer it in two sentences.
Do you read poetry?
Sometimes. It depends on my mood. I have a lot of poetry in my room. And yesterday I read a little bit of poetry – ‘Pasión’! Love poems. We have a lot of great German poetry – not Shakespeare we have Goethe and Schiller, and I like it and I have in the other room more poetry. Ask me which poetry is my favourite.
I don’t have any favourite poems but I have one motto. In Latin it’s ‘carpe diem’. That my favourite poetry for my life. I saw it in ‘Dead Poets society’. This is pure poetry. I saw that film when I was a student nurse in Germany in 1991 I think. I and I have it in my DVD library. I love it. I am a teacher and I wanted to be a teacher when I was 6 years old. This is my passion.
What’s your mission in life?
My mission in life is to be still alive and to make this life full of life and full of love. I need people to love and be loved by. This is quite religious but it is what I am for. And also to be a good mother. My daughter is the best thing I ever did. I hope I can love to be a hundred. My new decade – I am now 40 – and I think every decade has its own energy and in 2010 I am 40 and very happy to be!
Is optimism a strength or a weakness? Explain your answer
Both. I think I’m optimistic but I know how hard it is to be optimistic if you’ve got in your surroundings pessimists and people who cannot use their intelligence because they are jealous and selfish. When you are optimistic and in a very good mood and you have success, and then because…oh, how to explain it in English?! I’m optimistic but sometimes I feel quite weak. Or it could be because…no I’m not pessimistic..but I am sometimes weak because I have all the constructs in my head that I am not good enough and I don’t do what society expects me to do.
What’s your favourite recipe?
I don’t have any favourite food like children but my Mum is a good cook and so when you ask me this I am thinking of her to ask her for a good recipe. Yesterday I cooked something with potatoes and mushrooms and it was good. And I like pasta and Italian food bit this is not my favourite recipe.
You have already told us that your favourite motto is ‘carpe diem’…
My motto is ‘carpe diem’ and in Facebook I put a motto one and half years ago – ‘I love to live and I love to love’ . I put it in German and it’s a nice wordplay.” Ich liebe mein Leben und lebe, um zu lieben…!”
What does the future hold?
Well, I will have a man in my life but I don’t know if he will be German, Basque or Spanish. My mission is to help people, this is my energy. I have some photos of over sixty people who have stayed here in my place and I am saving up to buy a hostel. I have about 8 years to go. Everything I try, I do! I am Capricorn. I will call the hostel Besarkada , a Basque word, which means something like ‘hugs’ or ‘meetings’. So that will be the future; hugs and meetings in my house!
From November 2002 to October 2009 I wrote weekly articles for the website www.weeklyletter.com and every Christmas I would make predictions about what the next twelve months had in store. I predicted, truly, the month and year of Pope John Paul II’s death, I predicted the name his successor would take and I predicted the assassination of Benzir Bhutto.
Here are my predictions for next year.
The Queen of England will substantially curtail her public appearances after something, possible something very permanent, befalls her husband the Duke of Edinburgh. There will be talk of abdication but she will refuse.
Manchester United will win the English Football Leage Championship and Chelsea will win the European Champions League.
There will be a surprise General Election in England in late March and the ruling Labour party will win it but with a hung parliament.
There will be an Irish presence at all the French games in the South African World Cup – which will be won by Spain after they beat England 3 -2 in the final.
Penelope Cruz will marry Javier Bardem discreetly and something sad will happen to another famous Spanish actor.
There will be a major development in battery technology that will rewrite the rules for laptops.
Osama Bin Laden will be detained or killed by US soldiers in late April.
On Friday we will hear if Madrid has been awarded the 2016 Olympic Games. We deserve the Games. We want the Games. But what we don’t want, are the professional cheats.
Athletes are supposed to be role models for children. At least, when I was a child they were. They represented the triumph of will over adversity. Work hard, be faithful and you will, if not win, at least compete with dignity. That was the message.
How things change! The Olympic ideal of ‘mens sana in copore sano’ is as laughable as a bald man’s comb
There have always been cheats – people who confuse crossing the line first with winning. But it was in 1988 when ‘doping’ became an international issue. Ben Jonson, in the 100 meters race in the Seoul Olympics, used steriods to win a gold medal . He was supposed to use his legs.
Cycling may never fully recover from the shock of the entire Festina team being banned from the Tour de France for having suitcases of doping material with them. There were rumours of doping in that race for many years before.
Such is the effect of these elite cheats that doping is now appearing in amateur sport. School students are finding that steroids are cheap and easily obtainable. In the USA 4% of teenagers (mainly boys) have used anabolic steroids in the past year.
We are used to cheating in football. Every time a player falls down pretending to be fouled we get angry (if it’s their player) or shrug (if it’s ours). Football stopped being sport a long time ago.
But the Olympic Games are supposed to be noble. We’ve all seen “Chariots of Fire”. Surely we all know the story of the Jamaican bobseligh team who fought against all ridicule and technical problems after their first Olympics Games in Calgary? They went on to beat the USA and Russia in subsequent competitions. No drugs. No cheating.
And they don’t even have snow in Jamaica!
But what can you do? Now some athletes take ‘masking agents’ which hide illegal substances. For every drug test developed there will be some cheating chemist finding ways round it.
But it is not the chemists who take the drugs. Nor the team doctors. Nor the trainers.
The sole responsibility to take drugs out of sport lies with the athletes themselves. It is question of restoring sporting values.
In English a person who enters into the spirit of things is called “a good sport”. If you do something against the rules you are “not playing the game” and “it’s not cricket”.
Doped sportspeople should be ashamed of themselves. If they are not, we should make them be. Honesty is not something to flirt with. We must be married to it.
It should start in the home, continue at school until it eventually regains its place on a podium in an Olympic stadium. Maybe a podium in Madrid.
In most countries talking to yourself is a sign of mental instability, if not downright madness. The reason hand-free telephones are now never used outside of the car is that no-one wants to look as if they are vocalising an internal dialogue. “The voices told me to do it” is the often used plea of an assassin desperate to avoid Death Row.
As far as the West is concerned Augustine of Hippo invented the interior self of mind and memory as distinct from the exterior “self of perception”. This found its highest expression in James Joyce’s awful book Ulysses.
We all talk to ourselves and what we say is important. People with inferiority complexes are always telling themselves how bad they are, how undeserving of respect: You deserve to fail because you aren’t good at anything!. Arrogant people are always sharing their perceived superior qualities with themselves: You are easily more intelligent than these buffoons!
In both cases the interior dialogue is defective because it leads to damaging delusions. A correct interior dialogue leads to a happier life.
Harmful interior dialogues come from negative statements about yourself which sprinkle your everyday conversation, self-deprecating remarks that influence your behaviour or beliefs, negative descriptions given to you by members of your family of origin or peer group when you were younger and which you still believe.
A good start to developing a healthy interior dialogue is to make daily affirmations. Imagine that every time you see yourself in a mirror you say I am competent, I am energetic or I am a good person. These are statements about who you are and will act like affirmative antibodies on your infected interior self.
Then you can start working on your potential! I can lose weight, I can handle my children, I can be positive and I can laugh and have fun with my feelings.
Use sentences that start with I am, I can and I will. Avoid negative sentences like I will not smoke and make them positive, I will stop smoking.
Shakespeare used the technique of letting us hear the interior dialogue of his characters. One of the clearest is the opening of Richard III when the protagonist basically says I am ugly and so I will be bad.
… since I cannot prove a lover
To entertain these fair well-spoken days
I am determined to prove a villain
And hate the idle pleasures of these days
In the rest of the play we see how his interior dialogue affects the outside world.
We can be Richards or Romeos, closed gates or Bill Gates, winners or losers. So, tell yourself what you want to be and to do.
I have read The Times newspaper for years and years and I went all Radio 4ish when they changed the format from broadsheet to tabloid. As the Internet developed I started to read online and my daily dosage of media includes the Drudge Report. The Guardian and The Times as well as some Spanish stuff. But whether tabloid or download The Times has been dumbed down and offers stupid lists instead of journalism. Today we can select How 10 Classic Novels Got Their Titles, The 10 richest divorcees in the UK and Disco Ball The 15 best disco songs… EVER! That exclamation mark just adds insult to injury. Over the last week we have also been able to consider 101 Uses for a Man and 101 Uses for a Woman.
There is a place for frivolry and God knows it can come as a release in a world of suicide bombers, bent MPs and assassin Mexican swine. But not in The Times…please. What next? 50 Ways to Seduce a Nurse in The Lancet? The 10 Best Clip-On Bow Ties? in the Journal of Social & Psychological Sciences?
The raw thrashed chords at the start of ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart‘ by the great Joy Division convey something of the brutality of love. In the foothills of love there are flowers and heart-shaped boxes but at the summit the air is too thin and pure. Only eagles and white light of a perfect sun belong there. And some very special humans. Few. Very few.
On Friday we will hear if Madrid has been awarded the 2016 Olympic Games. We deserve the Games. We want the Games. But what we don’t want, are the professional cheats.
I have read The Times newspaper for years and years and I went all Radio 4ish when they changed the format from broadsheet to tabloid. As the Internet developed I started to read online and my daily dosage of media includes the Drudge Report. The Guardian and The Times as well as some Spanish stuff. But whether tabloid or download The Times has been dumbed down and offers stupid lists instead of journalism. Today we can select How 10 Classic Novels Got Their Titles, The 10 richest divorcees in the UK and Disco Ball The 15 best disco songs… EVER! That exclamation mark just adds insult to injury. Over the last week we have also been able to consider 101 Uses for a Man and 101 Uses for a Woman.
