BANG BANG
Seventeen; life is promising.
Looking in the mirror, what a
handsome young man;
So full of dreams.
Somebody calls my name and
I turn my head to look back.
Upon return, I see myself
again, at sixty four.
Where has my life gone?
Many years ago, a 64-year-old man came to see me for psychotherapy. He was a
senior manager in a big firm, successful and handsome, powerful and eloquent.
“We were invited into a poetry workshop,” he said, “and I couldn’t get out of it.
And I wrote this poem, and since then I cannot find rest.”
Richard opened his bag and took out a piece of paper. It read:Art BLOGElaborating on his poem, Richard portrayed
a life full of safe choices in relationships.
Whenever faced with conflicts between personal
risks and fire and those of the familiar and safe,
Richard opted for safety. His family life has
been predictable and safe. He chose well, and
often veered away from women who ignited his
aliveness, keeping himself steadily successful;
and steadily absent to himself.
The tension between safety and desire, the
known and the unknowable, accompanies
many of us throughout our lives. In my clinical
work, this is one of the key issues people bring
in, conflicted, yearning, frightened. Sure, there
are extremes: On the other hand, the rigidified
idealization of safety, paramount to our culture.
Heteronormative values, consumerist culture,
conservative politics, these all come to mark
the importance of an unchanged world, of
stagnation as a way of living. This is what brought
Richard to therapy. On the one hand, and just as
rigid, we see the extreme romanticized desire –
where passion becomes a commodity through
hedonism, adrenaline craze, unhinged eroticism.
But between the two extremes, desire and love
best survive under tension. How can we tolerate
sufficient tension to keep us on our toes, to
notice the other as exciting and as magical,
and at the same time allow for sufficient safety,
enabling rest, trust, knowledge in our belonging
and unthreatened togetherness?
Rather than providing ready-made protocols
for tolerating humanity, the tension between
passion and love commands respect of the
human condition. It had better remain pulling.