Correction

Shutting up that voice

A couple of weeks back I met up with somebody that I’ve corresponded with for a few years, on various political and philosophical matters, but never before met in person. After about 30 minutes they confessed to being quite relieved. Having become a regular reader of this Substack, they’d experienced some anxiety about what I would be like in person. Yet rather than being utterly broken and miserable – as might well have been expected – I was something like the opposite. I think “chipper” was the word they used.

I don’t blame them for their trepidation. After all, the material I post here is bleak. (I have long been somewhat bemused that anybody other than me reads it, given how grim the content.) The result is that I probably give readers the impression that I’m more miserable than I actually am. Or at least, more so than I have (gradually) become, in recent months.

In part this is a function of the nature of having something to write about (and where my recent lack of new posts is itself a positive sign). The truth is, hardships are interesting, and give me something to reflect on – whereas when things are going okay, there just isn’t much to say. This blog tends to focus on the bad stuff, because the bad stuff makes for material. However that doesn’t mean that my life is all bad stuff, all the time.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not happy. I’m mostly bored, frustrated, and very much still grieving the life I lost. I’m also pretty dubious that things are going to change on this front, even in the long term. On balance, it seems to me indisputable that it would have been better not to survive than to have to live like this. But I’m not, for the most part, subsisting in agonised daily misery (anymore). So, consider this a corrective to the overall impression that my writing is otherwise likely to give. Things are bad, but they aren’t as bad as I might lead you to think.

In addition to this wider picture, there is also the fact that the sheer activity of putting myself in the company of others materially changes the way I feel, and hence the way I act. I have lost count of the number of times, but especially when I was still in hospital, where I have been stewing in my own self-pity, anticipating the arrival of a visitor, and planning to unload a torrent of misery upon them. And yet as soon as they arrive the presence of company immediately lifts my mood, and the thought of subjecting them to a tirade evaporates. It is not so much that I cease to want to bring others down to my level, as that I spontaneously feel my own level rise, and there is no longer anything to bring them down to.

Of course, there is nothing special about me in this regard. As so often, Adam Smith, writing in The Theory of Moral Sentiments, was perceptive about the dynamics in play:

The mind, therefore, is rarely so disturbed, but that the company of a friend will restore it to some degree of tranquillity and sedateness. The breast is, in some measure, calmed and composed the moment we come into his presence. We are immediately put in mind of the light in which he will view our situation, and we begin to view it ourselves in the same light; for the effect of sympathy is instantaneous. We expect less sympathy from a common acquaintance than from a friend: we cannot open to the former all those little circumstances which we can unfold to the latter: we assume, therefore, more tranquillity before him, and endeavour to fix our thoughts upon those general outlines of our situation which he is willing to consider. We expect still less sympathy from an assembly of strangers, and we assume, therefore, still more tranquillity before them, and always endeavour to bring down our passion to that pitch, which the particular company we are in may be expected to go along with. Nor is this only an assumed appearance: for if we are at all masters of ourselves, the presence of a mere acquaintance will really compose us, still more than that of a friend; and that of an assembly of strangers still more than that of an acquaintance.

Hence in turn:

Society and conversation, therefore, are the most powerful remedies for restoring the mind to its tranquillity, if, at any time, it has unfortunately lost it; as well as the best preservatives of that equal and happy temper, which is so necessary to self-satisfaction and enjoyment. Men of retirement and speculation, who are apt to sit brooding at home over either grief or resentment, though they may often have more humanity, more generosity, and a nicer sense of honour, yet seldom possess that equality of temper which is so common among men of the world.

It is not just that I act less miserable when I’m in the company of others, compared to when I’m writing (by myself). It is that I am.

Which I guess is why I often feel embarrassed – guilty, even – when people bring up this Substack “in real life”. When I’m in the company of others, my mood is so radically transformed that I struggle to identify with who wrote those miserable posts. In turn, I feel acutely self-conscious, as though I’ve been caught out in a kind of deception: that I’ve been banging on into the ether about how broken I am, and yet here I can be found, interacting more-or-less like a normal human being. Hence I worry that people must think I’m faking it, one way or the other.

I’m not faking it. It’s just that there is a yawning chasm between how I perceive myself when alone, versus self-perception as refracted through the gaze of others.

An unpleasant irony being that these days, I spend most of my time alone.

Which is why I try to make a conscious effort to force myself to be in the gaze of others.

Despite the voice that tells me not to bother; to turn down offers of a visit; to make no effort to reach out first; to simply stew in isolation.

The voice that writes blog posts.

The voice that shuts up, at least for a little while, when there is somebody else to talk to.

The dance goes on.