Magyarul: vagy irok, vagy sirok (either I write, or I cry).
OR
Being K.O. is not O.K.
This note was produced after many much valued friends asked me how I was doing. It is inserted here, even though it is only after being home that I realized that communication was going to require many more skills than in normal times.
First I apologize for any impatience on my part. I did what I could.
In the middle of a struggle, one is generally unable to speak, making any kind of statement is impossible.
Repeatedly I am asked how I am doing (“ça va?” in French, “hogy vagy?” in Hungarian).
In 2008 I had to placate someone who kept asking how I was doing (again, “ça va?” in French)… and ended up screaming “No, it is not going well!” (“ça va pas!”).
When you are going from moment to moment, if you are going at all, the concepts of “pain, progress, healing…” are absolutely irrelevant.
At those times, you know nothing
More importantly, one may end up being unpleasant to the outside world because one is still trying to create a link to some kind of self.
It is impossible to speak without a well established subject. That’s why one shouts. One is asked something impossible: to speak means affirming one’s ”I,” one’s identity.
For those friends who have many questions to ask, instead: please listen to what it is the only person is going through – only silence and time will allow for the reality of that moment to appear. Cervantes said it this way: Give time to time.
“A long and slow convalescence” means there’s no need to keep asking questions. Presence is 200% of the gift you can provide; as I often say:
presence is your infinitely precious present (or gift)!
More succinctly, in the context of pain: BEING IS NOT SPEAKING
(OR ONE IS ONLY PLAYING WORD-GAMES & IGNORING THE COMPLEXITY OF REALITY).
OR
Tout ce qui n’est pas cri est trivial.
The poverty of language; if I don’t scream, I am using platitudes.
The French writer, Antonin Artaud, addressed all of this throughout his life.
Your can only protect yourself that much, but it is clear that I would not be here without a helmet.
In Robert Frost’s footsteps (“Thinking isn’t agreeing or disagreeing. That’s voting.“), I would add that whether one is doing well or not is not the way to ask questions, if one wants to ask the important questions.
Nota Bene: Pain has nothing to teach. There is no “teaching moment” in it. And, possibly everything is only valid until the text time you encounter (the same!) difficulty again.