Ego and emotional maturity

Reacting to a video in which a martial artist was testing himself against other martial artists, one person commented that the man in the video was playing "patty cake". The man in the video replied that the commenter had shown by his comment that he had not trained in martial arts. The commenter then went on to repeat his original criticism, adding that others who had been kinder in their responses didn't know as much about fighting as he did.

When I was younger, tact and diplomacy weren't strong points - it was only when I realised this, and worked on correcting it, that my interactions with others improved. The first step, however, was admitting that I was so often the cause of the problem. I didn't lack compassion or empathy, so the root of the problem was a mystery to begin with. After reading psychological, philosophical and spiritual works extensively, and reflecting on what I read, I had the answer - I hadn't learned healthy ways to express anger. The authors of those works have long been forgotten, but I'm grateful to them for so freely sharing their wisdom.

I won't go into great detail about my early years. The main point is that those close to me often pushed me to the point where anyone would probably feel angry. When the anger inevitably surfaced, the same people were quick to say that my anger was inappropriate and I had a problem. It's a story with which many people might be familiar. When those around us give the impression that our anger is unreasonable and maybe a little frightening, we learn to suppress it. Unfortunately, as Freud said, suppressing our feelings only gives them more power and means they will eventually reveal themselves in increasingly unhealthy ways. In terms of anger, there is a "pressure cooker" effect. People who have learned to suppress their anger will reach a point where all that suppressed anger can no longer be contained. The anger all comes out at once, and is not in proportion to the event which apparently provoked the outburst.

We would like to see ourselves as being without fault. As infants, we are unable to survive alone, so we learn that the goodwill and approval of others is necessary. As we get older, the approval of others is not so essential, but we would still like to have friends and maybe romantic partners. As much as is possible, we would like others to have a favourable impression of us. In reality though, we have no control over how others see us. How they see us is usually more about their beliefs, values and attitudes than anything we might do. Usually, but not always.

We are all prone to bias and prejudice. There are people we choose to be close to, and others we keep at a distance. Whether it's conscious or unconscious, we make decisions about what we want and don't want in a friendship or relationship. When things don't work out, however, we have to be honest with ourselves about the role we might have played in the distance that has grown between us and others.

The man who accused a martial artist of playing "patty cake" when he was sparring came across as angry. His comment suggested that he hits his own sparring partners hard. As a martial artist with many years of experience, I know all too well why this is wrong. It further suggests a problem with anger and a feeling that he has something to prove, much as his comments did. Maybe it's easier for me to spot because I've been where he is before.

When we are not in control of our ego, our ego has control over us. We suffer greatly because of this. Rather than having healthy boundaries, we become overly defensive. Things which are not personal attacks against us are perceived as such, and we might even go on the attack against those we unreasonably see as a threat to our sense of who we are. Our suffering leads us to cause the suffering of others. At its most extreme, the ego leads us into narcissism.

Our sense of who we are will not be matched by how others see us. Two things we should not try to control are how others see us and how they see themselves. Winning approval is not a good motivation to do good things. In fact, I've learned to be extremely wary of those who most loudly proclaim their virtue - experience has shown that they usually have the most terrible dark side.

My intention isn't to preach. I'm far from perfect, and that's the point. In accepting and acknowledging our capacity for darkness, we take away much of its power. If we see fault in others while being unaware of our own, then we are helping no one. We can't really alleviate the suffering of others if we have not first dealt with our own.

Changing the rules of engagement

Some years ago, I was in a pub with a friend. He had brought someone else he knew. Let's call this acquaintance Darren to protect his real identity and simply refer to my friend as "my friend".

Darren quickly got onto the subject of how many fights he'd had. He took great pleasure in detailing the many ways he had caused bodily harm to others. He had, in his estimation, knocked a number of people unconscious. As he continued, some of his claims started to sound a little exaggerated, but I chose not to challenge them. His sense of who he was seemed to be linked with his ability to cause bodily harm while keeping himself relatively safe from harm. In that respect, he was far from unique.

I started to wonder whether my friend had told Darren about my involvement with martial arts. In that context, it could have been that he was trying to impress me. He might have believed, quite wrongly, that I would respect someone for their ability to harm others. Maybe he expected that I would join in and tell stories of my own battles. The truth is, if I ever talk about the few times when I've found myself in those situations, it's always with the sense that something went horribly wrong: something which should have been avoidable became unavoidable.

My friend excused himself and went to the men's room. He had been affirming Darren's claims, but I got the impression that he was tired of doing this. It was at this point that I was asked whether I had been in many fights.

"Not for a long time. That's not the way I do things now."

Hearing this, he became silent for a moment. He then agreed that fighting wasn't the best way to settle things. What he said next lent an air of truth to the claims he had made earlier.

"I wish I could stop."

The truth is, hearing everything he had said, I knew that the majority of the fights he'd had were about his ego or that of someone else. His sense of self was indeed linked to his ability to cause harm, with how "tough" he was. By asking about my own experience, he was inviting me to compete with him and probably to eventually bow to his greater perceived skill. He wanted me to compete with him on his terms, or give such a contest up as a lost cause.

What I did was to refuse to compete with him on his terms. It was interesting that, in the absence of an audience, he instead agreed to my terms.

We shouldn't allow others to dictate what is valuable to us, or on what terms they will find us acceptable. Friendships and other relationships are built on compromise, and on accepting the things in which no compromise can be found. I don't care about being "tough". In fact, my work has fundamentally changed my understanding of the nature of toughness. There's nothing particularly difficult about giving in to our anger. I value being reasonable far more highly.

I do wish someone had taken a picture of the expression on my friend's face, when he returned from the men's room and noticed how the atmosphere had changed.

A quiet place

I see what's happening. I've felt out of step with the world for a long time. Maybe I've always felt that way. In fact, it has reached the point where I haven't made any particular effort to interact with friends for quite some time.

People talk about what disturbs them or has disturbed them in the past. Those things are what I hear more than anything else, in my work and in my time away from work. It didn't take long to join the dots, as they say, and realise how things are.

Old and ancient wisdom is widely dismissed now, simply because it is old and ancient. The problem with that approach is that, although the world is different, some of the things we experience were also experienced by those who were here before us. Reading some of that older wisdom has saddened me, because it helps me understand what is currently happening in the world, and that understanding just makes me want to disconnect from it all sometimes.

The key to understanding is knowing that our beliefs, values and attitudes can be helpful or harmful to us. They can also be helpful or harmful to others.

My role seems to be that of everyone's therapist. It's starting to exhaust me. The only way to recover from it seems to be disconnecting and sitting quietly for a while. Unfortunately, the modern world offers few opportunities for that.

Yoga at 33 percent

There are things I have to accept. Men are not usually so flexible - especially men of my age. Men also have a higher centre of gravity. These things combine to make some poses more difficult. There are further idiosyncrasies of my physique which mean further modifications have to be made. All of this has been taken on board.

Feeling half dead during a practice is something I can't accept though. On the plus side, I had managed to do side planks, which aren't usually readily achievable for me. It's more about balance than strength, really. Unfortunately, the wrist pain which sometimes troubles me made a return, meaning some other things weren't possible. About 30 minutes in, the zombie phase of the lesson began.

It felt like the loss of energy was radiating out from my lower abdomen. In all honesty, to say I suddenly lost energy is something of an understatement. I would happily have spent the rest of the lesson lying on my side, in a fetal position. The dull ache and my desperate attempts to prevent explosive flatulence left no doubt about what was happening.

I missed the previous week. The booking for the lesson was cancelled due to a severe bout of food poisoning. It's not the kind of thing I want to discuss in detail here, but it certainly left me feeling drained. In truth, it feels like my digestive system still hasn't recovered a week later. Up until the yoga class, however, I had no idea of how ill I was still feeling.

The whole experience a week earlier left me wondering about going vegetarian. As a lifelong omnivore, there are the usual concerns about maintaining nutritional balance when switching to a vegetarian diet.

I hope next week's lesson is better.

What we value

I like Japanese music. A number of young Japanese women noticed that I liked Japanese music. They wanted to connect on social media, and it wasn't long before I noticed the provocative poses they made in their photos. Sometimes they were posing in clothes which barely covered anything. Sometimes they brought designer goods, expensive holiday destinations and luxury items to everyone's attention. They were sharing these things on social media, hoping to gain the approval of others.

When we were forced to isolate ourselves here, in response to the virus, I connected with another aspect of Japanese culture. "The Zen Teaching of Homeless Kodo" sat beside my bed, and I read a few pages each night before I slept. In doing this, I ensured that my mind would work through what had been read as I slept.

The question to ask about the young women showing their figures and their wealth is what it is that they want. There are people who tell them they are beautiful, and they seem to like this. There are people who express admiration, or envy, for the luxury items they possess. Their apparent beauty and their wealth are not, it would seem, enough to make them happy. These things are simply tools to help them get what they really want.

There's a strange notion that higher socioeconomic status makes us better than others. Rather than being specific to one culture, this seems to be an innate part of the human psyche,  The problem is, there is some validity to this. During a self-esteem and assertiveness course I attended, the host proclaimed that the appearance of being successful often brings opportunities our way. What he said was very much an acknowledgement that style makes more of an impression than substance.

Put another way, other people feel their status and possessions make them better than us because we allow them to believe it. We pursue the things they have, increasing their perceived value.

A recent trend has been for people who have gained some fame or notoriety to describe themselves as "influencers". The implication is that they believe the world should pay attention to them. Well, here's a middle-aged guy that no one really notices, grouping them all together, to tell them that believing we have any particular influence on others, or that our voices should be heard above others, will only bring suffering in the long term. Human history bears witness to this.

“Sit immovably in the place where being superior or inferior to others doesn’t matter.” ~Kosho Uchiyama Roshi

I understand attachment to possessions. Just recently, I realised that a prolonged bout of severe depression turned me into something of a hoarder. I'm currently dealing with the aftermath of that through an exercise in extreme decluttering. The point is, attachment to possessions made me even more lonely, depressed and generally unable to cope.

Every day, I hear about the suffering of others. In the attachment the young Japanese women have to their youth, beauty and possessions, I see more suffering. If I believe that anything I write here has any particular value, beyond being a simple expression of my thoughts, I will also suffer.

Spanish for Sauce

It has been 18 months since I last went to a Salsa class. In that time, I've been mulling over whether I would return when it became possible.

My absence would please a few people. The guy who, for reasons known only to him, would step in and interrupt whenever he saw me talking to a woman - he'd be happy. Actually, I had him pretty much figured out. I had to be happy with just telling myself he was a terrible human being, rather than outwardly shouting at him that women were allowed to talk to anyone they wanted to talk to. I sincerely hope I'm wrong about where his behaviour will lead him.

There's also a particular group of lady dancers from North West Wales, who took it upon themselves to decide who would stay in the scene and who wouldn't. I was just one of the dancers (both men and women) they targeted. Unfortunately, their continual quest to gain power within the scene went unnoticed, and the ringleaders now teach (not a good development, as I have seen one of them repeatedly misdirecting men she doesn't like).

Over and above the issues with individuals, the real problem is that the scene is inherently gynocentric and prone to misandry. I've heard statements of female superiority made by dancers and instructors alike. There is a tendency to shame men for the slightest of errors, which comes from many of the lady dancers but also some instructors. From the beginners' class onward, there is also the oft-repeated belief that a dance is a bad dance wholly because of the man. Women are, by way of contrast, almost universally praised, even if it is not deserved. When you see a woman leading another woman, the reaction from those gathered would have you believe it is a piece of artistry the likes of which has never been seen before.

This idea that women can do no wrong leads to some unpleasant exchanges. After four years of dancing, I had a woman who had been learning to dance for about two months tell me I was no good. I had a woman, during a class, stiffen her arm so it could not be moved gently from the wrong position. She then loudly complained that I didn't know what I was doing and, embarrassingly, asked another man (during a quiet moment of the class) to show me how to do the movement correctly.

I could go on. The point is, I have countless reasons for extending the enforced break from dancing to a permanent break. One of the few friends I had in the scene expressed anti-white sentiment during the break too.

There are reasons to return, but none of them are rational; rather, they come from emotive reasoning. Chief among those is that it feels good to dance. The quiet drive along dark roads, especially when returning home after midnight, felt good too. Maybe that one is a personality quirk. I liked the venue too. Well, the classes seem to have switched to a new venue now, at least temporarily. The structure of the evening seems to have changed too.

Maybe that's a part of my reluctance to join them again. Things change, and though they sometimes change for the better, sometimes they don't. Dancing is allowed again, but maybe it doesn't feel safe to me yet. Maybe it won't ever feel safe again.

Community

 There was a time when I saw many of my clients at a community centre in Holyhead. While waiting for clients, the staff and members of the public visiting the centre would talk to me. They shared many things about the local area and the role of the centre in the local community.

One thing that quickly became apparent was that many of the visitors came from nearby places which were relatively cut off, with comparatively low population density. Also, many of the visitors were either elderly, infirm or lone parents with young children. In short, the centre seemed to offer an opportunity for the socially-isolated to connect with others. The clubs and activities they hosted were bringing people together.

I often hear that we have lost a sense of community. I know from experience that a lot of people feel lonely. I can only offer a personal view of why this might be the case. 

The idea of a local community is quite obviously that it is based on location. A point that is often highlighted, in connection with this, is that we are far more mobile a society than we once were. Career and lifestyle choices can prompt individuals to leave a place. Of course, this makes them a new arrival at another place. Changes in circumstances lead to changes of location. The local community, in terms of those individuals present, is always changing. The opportunities to develop lasting connections are fewer.

Maybe this sense of the ever-changing nature of local communities has led to a greater connection with communities based on identity, rather than location. Modern technology has somewhat diminished the important of location in fostering a sense of connection anyway. The trouble with this is that the more we form communities based on identity, the less of a connection we feel with the variety of individuals in our locality. Unfortunately, this can limit our opportunities to interact with people we see as different, and ultimately deny us the opportunity to challenge any prejudice we might hold.

What I noticed during the coronavirus pandemic was that movements committed to creating hostility and division became much more vocal. For a while, those movements had been using technology to amplify their own voices and silence others. I've lost friends because of this. It's incredibly disturbing.

The more isolated you are, the more you will consume broadcast, print and social media. It's in the interests of those outlets, and their sponsors, that you feel isolated. It's in their interests that you see the vast majority as a hostile force working against your interests. So, those outlets will naturally promote the message of particular movements and aim to silence voices of dissent.

Ultimately, fostering a sense of local community is more difficult now. The more we focus on what makes us different, the less of a connection we will feel with others.