Life Matters

 

As I entered the house, stale musty air filled my senses and quickly revealed that no one had been living there for some time. After opening a few windows I sat in a lounge chair and surveyed the scene. The grandfather clock in the corner beckoned and reminded me of times past by a flood of memories that were released in my mind. I closed my eyes and 35 years were erased in a moment. The room was suddenly alive with sound, my grandparents, parents and many uncles, aunts and cousins were all there. We were eating sweet cake and biscuits, laughing, telling jokes and stories. I could see their faces so clearly and I chuckled as the film played on. Then without warning a tide of emotion swept over me with a deep, deep yearning that induced tears. Take me back grandfather clock, wind back your old black hands and let me once again revel in the innocence of childhood. The happy faces, the laughter, the innocence – the sense of belonging – oh what a treasure it was.

I was transfixed by the emotion and I knew it was a ritual I must complete. I went to each room, sat down and the film would start again, the faces, the laughter, the belonging, the hunger to go back. It was a way of saying goodbye.

This old house owned by my grandparents was the only thing in my life that had not changed. It was the one constant and though old and musty and slightly run down, it held a treasure of memories that I needed to relive. My grandfather had died and my grandmother had just been moved to a place where she could receive proper care, so the house was soon to be sold.

I have often found myself chasing this treasure of memories. I recently traveled to a place I lived when I was a child and I just soaked up the sights and the sounds, visited my old home and relived the memories. Memories of Dad and Mum, my sister and I, sitting around the lounge, memories of going running with my Dad, memories of playing with my friends in the creek, climbing trees and riding bikes. I know that the memories are slightly ‘rose glass tinted’ and there is an incredibly strong bias to only remember the good times, but it feels so good and satisfying.

Building and protecting this kind of treasure safeguards the health of communities and gives hope to generations yet to emerge. The treasures of love and affection, sweet memories laid down in family rituals and experiences are the fabric of life. Without this treasure, life has no heart and soul and is reduced to the drudgery of survival. Without a series of warm memories connected to special relationships – life is meaningless. No person can centre and stablise themselves without some place they can point to with warmth and call home.

WR was a 19-year old engineering student at a large, competitive, public university. He committed suicide on an early May afternoon by jumping without warning from the tenth floor of his residence hall room.

WR's suicide appears to have been related to his involvement in an automobile accident approximately thirty minutes before his death. WR was ticketed for following too closely – his third traffic offense, thereby making him ineligible to drive. The other driver suffered a minor whiplash injury, and was visibly "in pain and nervous" while being prepared for transport to the hospital. Damage was done to the front of the car WR was driving. That car belonged to his sister; WR's mother had told him not to drive it.

While we can understand someone being upset about having their license cancelled and being in big trouble for driving his sister’s car when he was asked not to, why would WR kill himself? How can life get so bad that you want to end it?

WR had kept a diary while at university and it gives a deeper picture of what was really going on. Let’s look at some of the entries:

The feeling in my stomach is one of turning, grinding. I can't feel more sorry for myself. Yet I want to blame my failures on others. I refuse to accept the fault as mine. I hope I'll turn to hate the other members of my class, to punish them and myself, and to come out of this. Today I felt like quitting. Tonight I'll fight on re-enforced ground and I need confidence in a victory"

“Help, I'm scared. Oh, I'm scared! I don't want to lose”

“Afraid to talk in class . . . Must impress others. Need to prove myself”

Fear!! Put there by yourself. . . You can't do it?

Don't stagnate, go forward, improve

Reality confronts the 'bottom people.' They often quit school, join the army, or find a job. Admitting the plight of being unable to handle the school system's competition requires courage; and parental or administrative psychological guidance should be available to help recognize the problem.

WR had a speech problem that was intensified by fear. Notice the following comments in his diary:

When I talk it's always bad. So I hide away

Sitting in class the other day, alone, I realized I could say anything I want. In the presence of others I block myself, I hold myself back

After my father ordered me to stop talking spastic I felt ashamed and guilty to stutter.

WR’s inability to perform correctly in his society began to make him turn in on himself. He began to suffer from loneliness, depression, guilt and anger.

I am alone and bored

Don't get disillusioned, talk to no one

Problem exists. Worried, upset, eating a lot, depressed

If the right people approach me presently I may turn God-squad

In my room-guilt. Family did not accept

I still get selfish moods, but now I try to catch myself

If we look closely at WR’s value system, he had a belief that achievement meant acceptance and failure meant rejection. He appears to have had limited support from his family. His father’s comments about his inability to talk made him feel ashamed and guilty. Firstly, can we assume that WR took things too seriously and that his suicide was unfortunate but simply part of our environment and that you just have to learn to cope?

It might be easy for some to assume that WR was simply weak-minded but when you look at the statistics on depression and suicide, it begs us to look at little deeper. Have a look at the following statistics from 1998:

• 1 million suicides every year
• 10 to 20 million attempts every year or up to 38 attempts every minute
• Suicide in the US for males between the ages of 35-49 is the number three cause of death
• Australia’s youth suicide rate is the highest in the world.

WR did not have a family treasure of memories to provide a buffer for him during a difficult period, in fact his whole approach to life was driven by achievement based outcomes that he expected would grant him acceptance and good relationships.

The question that must be asked is, what is driving these trends? What principles are at play in society that is causing this breakdown in building a family treasure of memories? What is driving the rising levels of isolation, depression and suicide? We might offer some surface level response of needing to spend more time together and I could give you a list of things to do (which you already know) that could greatly benefit your family treasure building but I guess that would be like offering a mop to clean up the mess rather than pointing to the place to turn off the tap. I believe the issues are much deeper than a simple list of things to do.

How do we build a value system in society that will enhance family relationships and friendships and minimize the negative impacts of failing to achieve goals and performance based outcomes? Our journey begins with our assumptions about life source. We will look at this extensively in the next chapter. But for now we will lay some foundations. When thinking about value systems I believe there is one main ingredient we need to consider that immediately brings two other ingredients:

Main Ingredient:

• Life or power source – Life physical, mental and spiritual. This is the essence of being. Where does life come from and how do we engage it? How do we live a life that is full and meaningful?

Secondary Ingredients:

• Relationships – the very nature of birth and infancy demands that people engage in some form of relationship. In our human existence, life is conceived via relationships. We also see the drive for relationships and intimacy due to the great aversion most people have to being alone. Life without intimacy is empty.

• Value or worth – a healthy self concept, a sense of purpose and destiny. Without this sense of purpose life becomes meaningless and the desire to preserve it is destroyed. Life without value is meaningless.

How do we connect these ingredients to build stronger relationships with an ocean full of family memory treasures? We state the obvious when we say that relationships and value cannot occur without life, but in stating this fact we see that the nature of our value and relationships are governed by the nature of our life, or in other words, where we understand life comes from.