Adrian Scott Counsellor Supervisor MBACP Accred

Copyright Adrian Scott North London Counsellor Blog 2019
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This article is designed to provoke argument and critique

The Price is a Henry Miller play about two brothers. One chose to care for their Father, the other to escape and forge a succesful career. It takes place in the deceased Father’s loft where one brother is trying to sell off all the furniture to an assessor. It is a play showing the family dynamics of loss, responsibility, choice, & the purpose made to life.

The audience was in rapture seeing the emotional dysfunction play out. The main character playing it safe disappointing his wife’s higher expectations. The two brothers trying to understand each others view point. The more successful brother offering to give the other brother all the proceeds of the sale. The Price.

The audience’s interest in paying to see emotional dysfunction is a function of the arts. To see how other people cope with their lives, even if the people are imaginery helps us to come to terms with our own lives. Someone else’s pain on the stage or screen doesn’t involve us, our loved ones or our lives. We can be more objective and learn more.

Or is it a place of voyeurism? We cannot tolerate the pain of our own lives, so it is pleasureable to see others act it out for us. We can touch on the pain that resonates but we know the play will end and we will have relief. We find a temporary satisfaction in wiggling the tooth and then not wiggling it. But then not to wiggle is unbearable.
The Price

Our human relationship to pain is to avoid. We spend a lot of time trying to resolve our pain in a way that is marginal. We act out pain to resolve with no resolution.

Litima is a Ugandan word for an overwhelming anger that compels an action of grabbing or taking. The idea is that this adolescent sexual male energy needs redirecting away from bad behaviours towards women. It is useful to have older men role models around who can remember those urges and how to contain them.

Arthur Schopenhauer‘s philosophy states that getting what you want will not make you happy. But not trying for what you want will not make you happy either. No Win.

If you get what you want your purpose is over: futility and boredom beckon. If you are obsessed with projects, you are living in the past or the future. Not the present. Arthur was well known for his work on the futility of desire. Life ‘swings like a pendulum to and fro between pain and boredom, and these two are in fact its ultimate constituents’.

“Telos” is the Greek word for purpose. Telic activities have a beginning middle and an end. While Atelic purposes have no ending. Like seeing friends or going to art galleries. In other words Telic activities are created to be completed. While Atelic activiites are states of being. Finite and Infinite. Doing and Being.

It is significant that research suggests that young and old people are happier than the middle aged. The young yet to start projects, the old finished. The middle aged in the throes of Telic projects.
The trick might be to find a balance between the two. To alleviate the swing between pain and boredom.
Purpose

The History of the Bass Guitar is filled with unknown pioneer bass players who were not content to use the instrument as a drum support. But created a back beat and melodic bass line together.

James Jamerson was the Motown Bassist giving simple but melodious bass lines to the most famous tunes. Largely uncredited but always plonking along behind the tune subtly enhancing the sound.

Carole Kaye a woman bassist who worked with Sonny & Cher, The Beach Boys, Frank Sinatra, Frank Zappa, and Phil Spector to name a few.

Herbie Flowers most famous for the Bass line on Lou Reed’s Walk on the Wild Side. He created the riff with double and electric bass to become one of the most memorable bass tunes in popular music.

Bernard Edwards co-creator of Chic with Nile Rodgers played another famous bass line on Good Times. Ripped off or a Homage by Queen’s Another One Bites the Dust. Disco always seen as less than was dominated by his funky bass lines. The famous riff was used by the Sugarhill Gang’s track Rapper’s Delight credited with being the first single to take rap to a worldwide market. The list goes on ….
Bass Players

Fiona Bruce on Question Time, Teresa May and Brexit, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez beating the Democrats, & Andy Murray supporting women in tennis. Women on the front line of politics.
Women this Week

News is when women are intelligent, tough, & successful. Successful men in the political is usual. More like unsuccessful men?
Fiona Bruce not letting polticians wander off the point. Taking over the programme from a male stalwart of political comment might be a challenge. She made it look easy.

Teresa May standing down the braying mob of the House of Commons. Tories and Labour ready at any point to stick the knife in.
Alexandria attacked for winning the vote by releasing a college video of her dancing. This was to put her down and ridicule her. But it had the opposite effect! The people of New York love her!

And Andy Murray supporting women in Tennis. He speaks up against the biased structure of English tennis.
And correcting a journalist speaking about his male tennis achievements which were less than some women tennis players’ achievements. Patriarchy taints and slants what we see everyday.

Seeing women as less than makes it seem worthy of comment when they are more than.
Women this Week

London Mayor Sadique Khan is introducing an Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) in London covering the present congestion zone this April 2019. Then eextending the zone in Autumn 2021 to the North and South Circular Roads. Or the Whole of Outer London!

The Mayor’s office expects 100,000 cars, 35,000 vans and 3,000 lorries could fail the higher emissions standards. Click here to see if your car meets these emissions standard.
Urban Fresh Air? or Draconian Nanny State?

Depending on what you believe. Some say our children are suffering medical issues which is like passive smoking. Others that acknowledge the problem but think their vehicle ought to be exempt. Business, having to drive elderly relatives around, or just love thier car.

What will happen to young classic cars? Any vehicle built after 1979 will not be exempt from the zone. A keen entrepreneur might be buying up land just outside the extended zone so that young classic car owners can park their cars there!

Like a lot of human endeavours the problem is known about but nobody wants to do anything about it.
In Politics – a vote loser. Not until the problem becomes overwhelming that something has to be done.
A Crisis Looms. Drastic Measures are needed.
Urban Fresh Air?

John Broadhurst murdered his partner. This fact is overlooked by the idea that his partner deserved it. Liking rough sex, and sending her pics to other men, meant that John Broadhurst could not be prosecuted for murder but (wo)manslaughter. He could be free in 2 years.

The Crown Prosecution Service thought there was no way they could secure a murder conviction. This might be true. There is a downgrading of events in this country involving violence against women. The evidence and arguments are incontroversial. Yet the violence continues.
Patriarchy? Male Power? Institutionalised Prejudice from one half of the human race to the other?

Yet more men claim fragility and feeling out of place. Their position insecure.
Their situation attacked and undermined.
Not enough?

John Broadhurst murdered his partner. This fact is overlooked by the idea that she deserved it. Liking rough sex, and sending her pics to other men, meant that the he could not be prosecuted for murder but (wo)manslaughter. He could be free in 2 years.

The Crown Prosecution Service thought there was no way they could secure a murder conviction. This might be true. There is a downgrading of events in thsi country involving violence against women. The evidence and arguments are incontroversial. Yet the violence continues.
Patriarchy? Male Power? Institutionalised Prejudice from one half of the human race to the other?

Yet more men claim fragility and feeling out of place. Their position insecure. Their situation attacked and undermined.
Not enough? John Broadhurst.

Do we need David Hume reluctant philosopher more than ever? Not as famous as others he was an ordinary man leading an ordinary life. But that example not easily sold and packaged is why we might meed him more than ever. He did not like fanaticism and led his life sensibly and moderately. His moderation it could be argued make him boring.

After a period depression he created what was a good life. He was sober about his profession. ‘Be a philosopher, but, amidst all your philosophy, be still a man.’

His philosophy disputed our belief in cause and effect, religion, and reason. He was a Skeptic in the Skepitcal Tradition. He saw human beings as animals with no describable I or self. This echoed the Bhuddist idea anatta “no self”.
He showed us his life by living it. A moral life that was predicated by recognising the interests of the another.

He prized a life of friendliness, modesty, generosity of spirit and hospitality. He put the response to human need above beliefs and rigid doctrine. He was not heroic or extraordinary. This kind of life does not make headlines or heroes. Which in this time we seem desperate to cling to.