Zip It

I made it through World Mental Health Day yesterday without saying a word, except during one allocated hour of “talk time.” This feat of self-control was in aid of a campaign called ZIP IT. I’m raising funds for Orygen, a world-leading youth mental health research centre in Melbourne. As well as giving people a reason to sponsor me, part of the idea of not talking was to show solidarity with those who suffer mental illness, and share in the experience of not being able to easily or fully communicate with others. Initially, I'd thought of this as more of a campaign gimmick than anything else, and expected that my experience of silent meditation retreats would mean that “zipping it” for a day would be nothing new. But keeping quiet in contexts where everyone else is talking turned out to be completely different to maintaining silence in spaces where that is the norm.

In the morning I had a lecture to attend at uni. I decided to arrive just before it started and sit to one side of the lecture theatre, so as to avoid friends who might try to talk to me - I felt self-conscious about having to explain myself to them in writing, and didn’t want to cause offence by being unresponsive. This strategy worked, but instead of feeling pleased, I started to feel ostracized – why didn’t anyone come over to say hello? I did have a note prepared, after all. Did they think I was being snobbish, not understanding that I couldn't speak? It was a relief to meet up with a couple of friends at lunch, when I could talk at last - although only for an hour.

My flat-mates were aware of what I was doing, but it had an unexpected effect on one of them nevertheless. In the morning, he forgot and tried to start a conversation with me. I interrupted by gesturing to remind him I couldn't speak. Later in the day he whispered when he spoke to me, as if he thought I might be hurt or angry if he spoke at normal volume. Behaviour that’s out of the usual can be unsettling, I guess, and make people feel like they can’t just be themselves around you any more.

Holly Hunter and Anna Paquin in The Piano

The dynamic with my flat-mate reminded me of two films that have fascinated me: Jane Campion’s The Piano, and Ingmar Bergman’s Persona. The main character in each is a woman who does not speak, and wields a strange power over others as a consequence. It seems to me that these women respond to experiences of powerlessness or loss of identity by masochistically embracing and exaggerating their lack of effective expression. They do so with such determination and commitment that their silence paradoxically gives them the power to profoundly destabilize the people around them. This power is bought at a high price of isolation, however, and becomes a kind of trap from which the women themselves have difficulty escaping. I wonder if some mental health problems follow a similar pattern, starting off as a resourceful response to the constraints of a situation, but then developing into a self-destructive habit that becomes hard to break.

In the afternoon, a friend sent a text inviting me to dinner. I wrote back declining the invitation and explaining that I wouldn’t have been able to join in the conversation. She then offered to buy me a talk pass so I could speak for an extra hour, but I didn’t feel right about accepting this – I didn’t think she should have to pay to get me to come to dinner! But nor did I want to buy my own way out of my promise to the people who’d sponsored me. I heard recently that perfectionism is one of the main causes of mental health problems in our society. I wondered if I was perversely trapping myself in an overly rigid interpretation of my pledge, or just showing healthy strength of mind in sticking to it…

Then my mother called. I let the phone ring out, and emailed to explain why I hadn’t taken the call. She wrote back describing a small lasagne-making incident and saying that a friend of ours was having an operation. Should I have made an exception to talk to her? But then I reflected that people suffering mental illness don’t get to “make exceptions” and just decide to be fully functional as soon as they or someone else wants them to. And I was only committed to a single day of silence.

So I fulfilled my pledge and gained a new perspective on Nietzsche's remark, "It is difficult to live amongst men, because silence is so difficult — especially for a blogger." (He may have said babbler rather than blogger, but I think you'll agree it amounts to the same thing.) Keeping in mind another Nietzschean principle, that some are born posthumously, if you'd like to sponsor me retrospectively, this may still be possible...

As I write, the ZIP IT campaign is still open. To support the cause of helping kids who have mental health problems (and to find out who is in the photo below), please visit my fundraising page here.

The Radiant Narcissism of The Maids

Blanchett and Huppert in The Maids

John Macallum described the recent Sydney Theatre Company production of Genet's dark play, The Maids, as “radiant” and found nothing to fault in it. Did he not notice that Isabelle Huppert’s delivery of her lines was frequently so hard to follow that you just had to let it wash over you, giving up the attempt to understand the words? Did he not feel that perhaps the actress had abandoned the attempt to communicate the text? But maybe this came later in the run. On the night I saw it,  there seemed almost to be a note of defiance in the way Huppert tossed off her speeches, as if getting through them as quickly as possible, looking forward to the end of this production (only days away at that point).

For much of the play we watched two sisters, the maids of the title, engaging in role-play in which one (Cate Blanchett) mimicked their wealthy mistress, while the other (Huppert) took the part of the other maid. In the process, they acted out the nasty power dynamics, the admiration mixed with envy, humiliation and murderous desire for revenge that characterized their relationship with their beautiful young employer.

At the same time, they demonstrated how this dynamic had also infected their love-hate relationship with each other, and by implication, even their internal senses of self. Genet's psychological hall of mirrors (or mise en abîme) is a neat depiction of how oppressive power relations have a tendency to multiply, transforming relationships between people who might have been united in solidarity, invading even their individual senses of identity, so that the struggle against oppression is won or lost as much within as without.

In keeping with the themes of the play, I began to wonder whether Huppert's apparently impatient attitude might even have been a somewhat perverse response to Blanchett's "radiant" domination of the stage. It is likely that in choosing the adjective "radiant," Macallum also had Elizabeth Debricki's youthful beauty and vivacity in mind. Blanchett's influence was strongly evident in her talented, younger colleague mannerisms, however; at moments Dubricki's mistress seemed to have copied Blanchett's maid, rather than the other way around.

Debricki and Blanchett

The "radiance" of this production of Genet's dark play also extended to the set, designed by Alice Babidge, full of light and glass and mirrors and space (“a flamboyant nod to aspirational Sydney,” as Alison Croggan suggested). Video cameras gave us close-ups of the beautiful women on stage and their perfect stomachs (and other body parts), blown-up and projected onto a large screen above the stage. 

Even when the cameras followed the actresses into the small bathroom at the back of the set, they did not evoke any strong sense of claustrophobia or interiority invaded. On the contrary, we sensed that these women craved visibility as much as the audience wished to see their every move, and the perfectly clean “smallest room” appeared almost spacious when projected onto the large screen.

The rapid-fire delivery of much of the text and the equally frenetic movement of the actresses did build to create an impression of winged insects flinging themselves senselessly against the glass walls – or the invisible fourth wall (breached once by spittle) - of their airy cage. However, in some tension with Genet's text, here this seemed less a response to exclusion and oppression, than a sheer product of competitive narcissism.

Jean Genet

Perhaps this was director Benedict Andrews’ point: under conditions of contemporary capitalism, the explicit class oppression that divides the women of Genet’s text between and within themselves is less relevant than a form of self-inflicted oppression that is harder to see, but no less damaging. It is narcissism that tears women apart, leading us to pursue a social conception of the female self as a perfectible sexual commodity, competitively traded on the viciously “free” market. 

I say, “perhaps” this was Anderson's point; it wasn’t clear because the production provided no obvious vantage point outside this perspective from which to recognize it. Rather, the narcissism of the characters was hard to distinguish from the professional narcissism of the actresses, which was hard to distinguish from the narcissism and star-struck consumerism of the audience. 

This insidious “radiance” enveloped us all – except perhaps Huppert, whose strong French accent and intonation, and unexpectedly difficult, irritating performance threatened the general air of self-satisfaction and let us feel the presence of Genet’s shit-stirring ghost even as his words were blurred in translation.

On the evening I saw The Maids, at the end Blanchett softened visibly with pleasure while taking her bow, and Debricki beamed. Between them, a more restrained Huppert gave the enthusiastic audience a smile that seemed mildly ironic, as if to say, well, look at you.

The Way of the Ferret

A few weeks ago, I had a dream that is still on my mind: I dreamt I was breast-feeding a ferret. I felt self-conscious about this activity – I was in a public space, and didn’t feel comfortable about baring my breast. Then I realized that I could put the ferret under my t-shirt and feed it that way. This seemed a good solution, and I felt very happy and loving towards the little animal, even though it nipped me from time to time. However, the ferret wasn’t satisfied with breast-milk; it soon got away from me, managed to break into a container holding some kind of grain, and ate the lot. By now, its little belly was very round. I was concerned that it had eaten too much, and very surprised that it had managed to get into the sealed container. I realized it would be very difficult to keep it out of anything. I woke up worrying about this.

In dream interpretation, ferrets have two apparently divergent meanings: they represent suspicion toward someone, or stand for qualities of cleverness, resourcefulness and playfulness. But perhaps these meanings are not divergent after all: a person’s cleverness might itself be a cause for wariness, if you don’t know if you can trust them. What is their agenda? Whatever it is, it seems likely that they will find the resources to get what they want, and that less worldly forms of intelligence may be no match for them. The playfulness that makes them so attractive, even adorable, might also serve to distract you from their true intentions, to charm you while with astonishing skill, they break into your precious store of grain. It’s hard to tell if they share your own moral code, or even if they have a moral code. Their strength is their flexibility, their ability to adapt to circumstances, seize opportunities as they arise, and deflect problems with a playful twist of their lithe, but muscular forms: this is the Way of the Ferret.

Some of the ferret’s qualities are typically Buddhist: being ‘in the moment,’ open and responsive to change, flexible and playful. Even its lack of any clear agenda or fixed moral code fits with at least some forms of Buddhism: Zen, in particular, emphasizes the importance of not being attached to views, and suggests, with its entertaining stories of idiosyncratic monks, that enlightened individuals transcend the bounds of conventional morality.

And yet it doesn’t seem quite right to equate the Way of the Buddha with the Way of the Ferret.

For a start, my dream-ferret was pretty greedy. It hadn’t given up craving or sensual pleasure; nor did it appear to be pursuing a “middle path.” My fear, at least, was that it would consume anything it could get its paws on, which might be anything and everything.

Also, in spite of their resourcefulness, ferrets are vulnerable animals. I’m told they make good pets, affectionate and playful, but it’s important to keep them inside: if they escape they rarely survive.

Sometimes I think that in the West we try to turn the Way of the Buddha into the Way of the Ferret. We want the benefits of meditation and mindfulness practice, but we’re not so keen on giving up on craving. Instead, we see these practices as resources, clever forms of play that can help us reach our goals, solve our problems, get what we want and avoid what we don’t want. We’re attracted by the idea that there is a way to the end of suffering, but we aren’t so receptive to the idea that this way requires the eradication of craving, the realization of no self: no ‘me,’ no ‘mine.’ Even at our most resourceful, our most ‘mindful,’ we remain greedy and vulnerable animals.

I’ve been thinking about this in relation to the way Western psychology has taken up ‘mindfulness’ as a technique to treat depression and anxiety. In most cases, meditational methods are lifted out of the ethical context and the belief system within which they are taught in Buddhism, and treated as secular tools for working with the mind, techniques that have no particular ethical framework or philosophical implications. There’s mounting clinical evidence that these techniques work: they do help to treat these problems. But, taken up in this selective way, do they lead toward enlightenment, or merely help to create more functional ferrets?

Or is this a false dichotomy? Maybe I should have more faith in the ferret – and in mindfulness practice as it is taken up in Western psychology. Perhaps all a breast-feeding ferret needs to reveal itself as a baby Buddha is a clear mental environment infused with patience, kindness and understanding. If mindfulness practice in therapeutic contexts can help to cultivate this kind of mind, then there may be no problem with lifting it out of its ethical and philosophical context in Buddhism and treating it as a secular practice. After all, the West does have its own ethical frameworks and wisdom traditions to provide alternative contexts, which may run deeper in our psyches.

Maybe, perhaps… I think I’ll have to ferret around a bit more to find out for sure.

Vinnie the ferret in a war dance jump