The basis of views expressed on this site

By

Stuart Yates

A little while ago, when talking to an old friend about having set up a web site, my explanations were couched in terms of what I oppose. "But what are you for?" Was the question. This is an answer to that question in terms of my fundamental beliefs that underpin my political views. There is no hierarchy of beliefs, they are inter-dependent and I believe that, whilst many can be traced back to my roots and culture, they are nevertheless individual. They stem from experience rather than handed down teachings and many flow from my learning, through experience, about myself and others in my training and work as a person-centred counsellor. There are abundant paradoxes: paradox is where opposites meet and where creation and creativity happen.

Equality

There is a current pre-occupation in the UK government with 'equality of opportunity', often spoken of by Tony Blair. Equality of opportunity is not enough. It is not enough partly because of its associations with economic potential, of employment prospects and the Pilate-like washing of hands when individuals are unable to get the 'best' job, or even any job. 'Well, we provided equality of opportunity, that's all we can do, it's then up to the individual............' There is much inequality of circumstance: birth, upbringing, health, natural ability, character etc. Equality is nothing to do with this. My admiration for such giants of humankind as, for example, Mozart, or Einstein, is enormous, yet these people were not superior beings. Their achievements were extraordinary but achievement is only one aspect of a person and an over-rated aspect to boot. Mozart was a genius and he was flawed, as we all are. In the field of music, Bach appears, in his music and his life, to be almost god-like: there is such a natural inevitability in the way his music unfolds, yet we know also he was quite resentful of his terms of employment and carried on arguments on this subject beyond the acceptable limits of the time.

We are all fundamentally equal. There is no superior person, race, belief, way of life. There are profoundly different people, races, beliefs and cultures and this is where the paradox enters. We are equal in our diversity, different yet the same. The tragedy of human conflict lies in the focus on difference rather than the recognition that the 'other' is fundamentally the same as ourselves. Distance provides a clearer focus: who outside Ireland can readily differentiate between Catholic and Protestant? They are overwhelmingly the same over virtually all aspects of their lives and ways of being, yet within the community the difference is sharply brought into focus and the vast areas they have in common are overlooked. It is simply not possible to measure difference in order to arrive at a meaningful concept of inequality in terms of superiority/inferiority. Within the inequality of our circumstances, our abilities, our personalities, we are simply human beings.

Divinity

I use the word 'divinity', but there is no one word which can be received universally: there are too many belief systems and terminologies. So 'divinity' is just a word acting as a symbol for many concepts, perceptions, beliefs. My own

belief system falls within the area called Christianity (and spills out from it, too) but the purpose here is not to explain my particular belief, much less persuade others of its validity or otherwise. Divinity here is defined by a being/force/presence/phenomenon - call it what you will - which lies both within each person and outside the individual human being and the society in which any person lives. In other words I believe that there is a 'something' which is universal and which is personal. It has to do with meaning, with purpose, with why I am here, at this moment in time. It is not wholly contained within myself but it also has a component within me (how else could I connect with it?). Connecting with it may be hesitant, uncertain and possess an absolute certainty at times. Paradoxes again. Connecting with it gives a centredness not possible by my own resources and brings with it an awe and humility coupled with an empowerment. It can be mis-used, as it is by all who practise any fundamentalist belief, i.e. Who believe they have a monopoly of the truth. Truth is bigger than any concept that human beings can create.

It is perfectly possible to lead fruitful lives without such a belief in the universal, but people who do so are, I believe, locking away a facility that could increase that fruitfulness. There is a power whose source lies outside us but which connects with a small echo inside and it is that connection which is empowering. However, because the source is outside and universal, pride in self and any achievement is mis-placed and this outside, universal, source reminds us again of our fundamental equality: we receive such connections without having to earn them or be especially virtuous. It is all here, now, if we can but receive it. This sense of the divine connects me with the universe and reminds me at the same time of my essential ordinariness.

Measurement (lack of)

I do not rate measurement. It is necessary at the day to day existence level of life: to ensure that we receive the correct amount of goods and services for our precise rendering of money for example. Measurement is prosaic, utilitarian, quantitative. It has a purpose only at the mechanistic end of the spectrum. Measurement fails when we wish to consider quality rather than quantity. Thus we can measure, quantitatively, the nature of a sunset in terms of colours, patterns etc or a Mozart symphony in terms of instrumentation, rhythm, harmony, structure etc. These quantitative measurements fail utterly to connect with the meaning, to us at a moment in time, of witnessing the sunset, of the effects on our being of hearing Mozart. A slightly raised voice may be barely measurable physically, yet have an immense effect on the listener depending upon the tone and the intricacies of the relationship between speaker and listener.

Measurement has been raised almost to god-like status in the present political world. The Blair government appears obsessed with targets, with measuring every activity and making decisions based upon those measurements. Yet we all know, we all sense, the crucial differences between, say, one GP and another when we visit different doctors, the differences between teachers, the difference in our response to different pieces of music. None of these differences are measurable, sometimes it is difficult even to describe them in words, but we trust one doctor more than the other, we learn better with one teacher than another, we love one piece of music and can't stand another. Another person will react differently to the same people, experience, but it is not just a question of personal preference or aspects of individual relationships. The music of Mozart and Haydn, at the mechanistic level, is almost identical. I love Haydn, yet, in common with the vast majority, react to Mozart on a deeper level. There appears to be a further dimension to his music, it connects in a deeper way with aspects of myself which are themselves indefinable.

It is therefore missing a whole dimension, the most important dimension, merely to measure education (and thus schools and teachers) in terms of examination league tables. Education should indeed prepare people for life, but not just in terms of earning a living, or learning definable skills such as reading and writing, to take two very basic aims, not even in terms of learning how to relate to others, valuable (and sadly neglected) as the last is. Education is about relating: about a relationship between teacher and pupil which awakens a creative spark in the pupil, a spark which also illuminates the teacher, a spark which launches the pupil on a path which may or may not be compatible with the teacher's own intentions and way of being. We can train animals, we can train people and we can often measure such training. We cannot measure education and this makes education infinitely more significant and meaningful than training.

As with education, so with the NHS and every other human endeavour. What is more important, being cured of your illness and the quality of the care, the depth of care, the engagement with others at a meaningful level. Yes, we need to get the basics right, the statistics must reflect an acceptable level of achievement, but these are just the basics, the minimum. The danger is that, by concentrating on the minimum, we not only lose sight of the significant, we actively reduce the chances of the meaningful happening. We remember the helpful ticket collector long after we have forgotten the punctuality, or otherwise, of the train. We must avoid what is presently happening: that patients are dying because medical (i.e. human ) requirements are taking second place to the maintenance of acceptable statistics. In this climate it is incredibly difficult for medical staff to relate to their patients as human beings: that they do so is in spite of the government's strategy and a tribute to the human spirit, which values relationship above all else.

It is a useful rule of thumb: that which is most measurable is the least meaningful and vice versa.

Love

There are many forms of love and many forms of feeling that are called love but which are not love. I am not competent even to outline the different forms of love but would like simply to distinguish love from positive feelings which are not love. Love is non-possessive. That's basically it. If I feel positively towards someone but am not doing it for my own gain and can genuinely accept what the other wants for him/herself, then I love that person. I like someone because: of how they are, what they do for me or others etc. I love someone because of who they are and in spite of who they are: we meet the usual paradox. Loving and being in love are two different states. These states can also co-exist, but loving can follow being in love. Being in love and certainly falling in love has a selfish and possessive quality: the outward yearning serves to nourish us, so that we cannot contemplate being without the beloved, often cannot share the beloved with anyone else. Loving is non-demanding, it is a sort of making ourselves available for the other (sometimes with clear limits in terms of action or capability) but always without limit in terms of intention and acceptance. Love does not arise through will or through reason: it is a state of being that can be cultivated so that we can describe people as 'loving': they are loving beings and their love for others radiates out without any desire for return.

Why is this significant, indeed vital? It is vital because people need to feel loved. It is a basic human need to be loved and at the same time not to be possessed. I believe it is also a basic human need to love. It is the essential positive ingredient in human relationships. Non-possessive love can also be described as acceptance: when we say we love someone, then at that moment we accept them as they are and this acceptance has an active quality to it, it is not a begrudging acceptance. Love therefore contains within it an affirmation of the other. It carries with it the message: 'I value you as a person and therefore I would like to be in relationship with you'. The relationship can take many forms but implies also that I would be willing to help you, be there for you in some way. It is one of the inbuilt tragedies of human makeup that this basic desire to love and be loved is often thwarted by fear. The fear of being controlled by another, of being exploited by the other, of being rejected by the other can be too strong and neutralise the instinct to reach out, to connect with another. When this happens, both people are diminished, society and the world are reduced.

Without love we are less than human, indeed less than other higher animals and lose contact with the divine.

Relationship

There is a great deal of emphasis put on individuality, of individual choice, responsibility etc in Western culture. My profession, counselling, is often regarded as part of this obsession, of the constant introspection, the priority given to the self. On the subject of counselling, my experience is that the overwhelming majority of people who gain from counselling naturally start to look outwards from the more solid knowledge of themselves: they become less selfish rather than more so and their relationships become more solid and fruitful.

There are four levels of relationship: with ourself, with other individuals, with society/culture and with whatever we define as the divine.

We do have to start with ourself, we have to have a sufficiently accurate knowledge of ourself. I believe such a sufficiently accurate knowledge includes positive and negative awareness of our make up and has to be deep enough to enable us to feel love towards ourself. It is from this that we can reach out to others and without it we suffer from one or more psychological ailments: depression and/or anxiety being the most common, but which also includes personality disorders such narcissistic personality disorder, borderline personality disorder etc. It also includes criminality. A fundamental acceptance of ourself, in other words a good enough relationship with ourself, enables us to affirm our humanity. We belong. In belonging we can reach out, relate to, other human beings. If we accept ourself we can risk the possibility of being rejected, of not being loved, we can survive those occasions when this happens.

This relationship with ourself is only one part of being human. We are not, with a few exceptions, designed to live alone. We can be alone if we accept ourself, we do not desperately need others all the time, but relationships with other individuals are naturally sought. We enrich each others' lives. We are autonomous and independent and at the same time aware that we are in some way incomplete without other people. Relationships with other people which are not founded on the good-enough self-relationship are however flawed. These relationships are characterised by need and dependency, by fear and jealousy, control and possession. Negative feelings, intentions and motivations are predominant. We are driven by need rather than choice, dependency rather than mutuality. When, however, we do have a good enough relationship with ourself, then our lives are immeasurably enriched by relationships with others. It is one of the tragedies of the path that the West has taken that relationships are not sufficiently valued: I see and hear the effects on so many people I meet professionally. There is a black hole at the centre and a loneliness which is qualitatively different from the ultimate aloneness which we all share. The yearning for relationship with others can never be satisfied except by relationship with others: no material wealth, creative achievements, good works etc suffice.

Margaret Thatcher once said that there was no such thing as society. She was wrong about this, amongst other things. Our culture had a huge effect on us - again I am privileged to gain some aspect into other cultures via my work - and we have a relationship with it, even one, like Margaret Thatcher, of denial. Society is a physical reality. It is obvious from my writing on this web site that I believe not only that society exists and that we should engage with it, but also that an individual can, in however small a way, influence it. We influence it in any case everyday, usually by accepting its norms and thereby helping to perpetuate those norms. There is great power in the small. We should not necessarily seek to change the large things, although this path is open to us if we choose. The small acceptances, the small refusals of what society expects have an effect, they can ripple out and eventually effect radical change. No-one has complete responsibility, but all have a part responsibility. We therefore exercise that responsibility either actively or passively, but it shapes us, society, and our relationship with society. We can be just as happy and fulfilled with a good relationship with our society as with our relationship with ourself and with other individuals. Or just as miserable and frustrated.

There has been so much written over the centuries about the divine, the spiritual, the transpersonal etc that again we have to engage with this as a reality. We can deny it, or place it firmly within the individual, but it is there in some form. There is no point in repeating what has been outlined above about the divine, except to say that it is the deepest and most significant relationship we have. It is where the personal meets the universal, where all the opposites meet, where creation happens. The names and concepts do not matter so much as the encountering of ourselves and the universe.

The potential for good

My friends and family would not describe me as an optimist: I tend to anticipate problems rather than assume everything is going to be OK, but underneath this is a fundamental belief that people are either good or potentially good. I believe that, given appropriate circumstances, most people will gravitate towards a healthy lifestyle, both in their relationships with others and with themselves and will tend to act for others' well being rather than to do harm. I regard this as the default position of human nature. At the same time, each individual I meet needs to demonstrate that s/he is in the 'normal' camp: I am willing to trust but also need some evidence that this trust is not misplaced. For we do not follow the 'good' path at all times. There are two areas of exception. One is at the individual relationship level. This person is basically well-meaning but something within an individual relationship creates an impulse to be negative. This 'something' possibly stems from earlier experiences so that when a similar situation develops, the same negative response is triggered. This is a familiar psychological concept and phenomenon. So we can relate to many people positively but be negative, even vindictive, towards some others. This certainly happens in the hurly burly of the everyday in any relationship where we can hurt even those we love deeply. The second area is the possibility that some - I believe relatively few - people are not born with the 'positive tendency', that some people are in effect born evil. This is a difficult concept for me to accept as it implies that there is no possibility of change for such people and the possibility of change is a concept which runs deeply within me and underpins my work as a counsellor. I believe also however that no concept is absolute, that there are exceptions to every rule. So I reluctantly accept this possibility, but believe that it is rare and that for the vast majority, no matter how many evil thoughts and actions have been perpetrated, there is the possibility of change, repentance, redemption.

This potential for good is only partially acted upon by anyone, however saintly they might be. The so-called negative feelings of anger, envy, hatred, shame etc are also present in all of us and get acted upon frequently. The principle here is of potential, that it is never (or very rarely) too late, that we can change. We know we can change for the worse and we can see that happen with others, for instance when someone becomes embittered after difficult life circumstances, but the reverse is also true and I believe this movement towards goodness is the normal response to life, not the exception.

Service

Service is a deeply unpopular word at present. It generally has associations with subservience, inferiority, lack of assertiveness, which do not appeal to the so-called 'me' generation. There are also associations with religion as in religious service and with sado-masochism as in domination and submission. Service is equated with servitude, slavery. It has had a bad press. Service however is not only one of the noblest of actions, it is also one of the most freeing and liberating for the one performing the service. I refer to my work again: as a person-centred counsellor I am in the service of the client, I am not the expert advisor but neither am I subservient. In putting myself entirely in the service of the client I can, paradoxically, be most myself. In being free of my own agenda I can not only be as fully available for the client as possible but am also closest to my central experiences - thoughts, feelings, sensing, intuition. Putting myself on one side enables me to be more in touch with myself and releases a power difficult to reach any other way. Power not over the other, but available for the other.

With this enabling power, this freedom to be myself, there is often, amidst the pain and despair of the other's struggle, a sense of enrichment. A process of being with someone at a deep level is enriching of both people. It has a built-in quality of affirmation of each person, that we are both human beings, equal ultimately yet giving to and receiving from each other in very different ways. An apparently one-way relationship of helper and helped has unexpected facets beyond the possible 'good' feeling of helping another. There is a natural self-sustaining cycle: the effort of being available for another, of working hard at understanding their existential concerns somehow returns in the form of energy, it is nurturing. It means that I can expend large amounts of emotional energy on behalf of another yet not burn out (as I did when I first started counselling, before I learned how to serve).

It is possible to serve in other contexts, even in day to day relationships, although this is more difficult and partial and prone to break down on occasions, but we can put ourselves in the service of others without becoming doormats, without relinquishing power. I commend the practice of serving others to anyone who would like to become more fully human, to become closer to themselves and others and to share the joy and pain of travelling a little or a long way with another human being.

Material Possessions

Anyone who knows me knows that I am by no means immune from the love of material things and the quest for possession of desired objects. This is true and what is also true, although one might argue that I am deceiving myself, is a belief that, if I lost those possessions, life would be difficult, but not impossible. Happiness is not dependent upon possessions. It can be seen as a defence mechanism against calamity but I do not believe it is just that. I have faced economic calamity and have adjusted. There are more important things than money, but it is not just that either.

Possessions do not define who I am. This is what is freeing. My self-concept does not depend upon what I possess. My happiness can indeed be affected by loss of possessions, but happiness, being happy, is only part of the human condition, my condition. It is not always possible to have what one wants, it is not always possible to retain what one has. It is indeed pleasant to be happy, but when that pleasure becomes a necessity, then happiness becomes a trap, a prison and if happiness is defined by the possession of material things, then the acquisition and retention of material possessions become the drug that we depend upon. Drugs are of course not de facto bad. The dependence upon drugs, the dependence upon a certain level of material possessions, are what create a prison around us. We give up our freedom, our autonomy, our ability to be OK irrespective of the circumstances. We do not have to be poor, but we should not need to be relatively rich. We may grieve a material loss severely, this is normal, but abnormal grief which only seeks to replace the lost object, come what may, is unhealthy.

Part of being free, of being more fully human, is to enjoy and rejoice in the good things and to be able to walk away from them when appropriate or grieve their loss for a while if they are taken away from us. We can enjoy material things intensely yet not become dependent upon them. If it sounds like the best of both worlds, then maybe it is. If having the best of both worlds is fine, then OK. If it is not OK then we should examine the source of the discomfort, which will always be found in us, never in the other or in our situation.

It starts and ends with ourselves.

End bit

Conclusion or summary are too pretentious for the few words I have to add. The thoughts above are only brief snippets of what makes me as I am, what I believe in, as they come to me. We are all complicated and we can taken an infinite number of slices across our personalities, to reveal some aspects of ourselves. Underneath all I have written (and there will be other things underneath which do not at present come into my consciousness) is the fact that I have no agenda for others. I believe that everyone can find his or her own way and that any hope I may have for another is the hope that that person's way is revealed to him/her, in part. If I can discern some of my own agenda and follow it, then I may live a life with some meaning: a meaning for myself, for others that I meet along the way, and for humanity in general.

October 2003