Statistically speaking

I remember a cartoon strip from my childhood in England, it was about a character called Andy Capp, I think it's still going strong. In one of the strips Andy is drunk and trips and falls as he walks out of the pub. There's a passerby who laughs at him and Andy just picks himself up, dusts off his jacket and carries on, saying " statistically you get up one time more than the number of times you fall down".

All of us go through phases in our lives when we trip and fall, embarrasing ourselves, hurting ourselves and others too. We feel miserable and it often seems like we will be that way forever, down and injured with the whole world laughing at us.

It is at times like these that Andy, the drunk. working  class  character of the cartoon strip reminds me Guru-like of the truth, that each time that we fall, the choice is always with us, to make the effort to get up, dust ourselves off, laugh along with those who laugh at us and get on with life.

For statistically speaking as long as we breathe and our hearts pound with life, we get up one time more than the number of times we fall down.

The Black Paintings

About two years ago I attended the ISABS advanced lab, ISABS stands for the Indian Society for Advanced Behavioral Science. This is a group which is based primarily on the T group methodology.

It is kind of difficult to explain, but participants come together in small groups over a period of five days and talk about what it is that is holding them back, what it is that they have hidden inside which is causing them suffering and pain. Participants encourage each other through this process and are there for each other. Many things come up, you realise that beneath the veneer of so called normalcy there are many storms in everyone's lives. We continue to repeat destructive patterns of behaviour subconsciously till in a group we examine our beliefs and behaviours and trust others to give us feedback and to share in a very trusting environment. When held up in the light of feedback, the pent up emotions emerge and the  moment of catharsis comes, where we accept and own our behaviours and feel a tremendous sense of release and lightness of being.

Towards the end of the program there was a large gathering of all the participants in the workshop, so there were around a hundred of us. In this gathering the facilitators took us through an interesting exercise. They had placed different abstract paintings in various parts of the banquet room and there was a lot of space to move around and look at these paintings.

The facilitators asked us to go around the room and look at the paintings and then sit in front of the ones which we resonated with. We all chose the ones we were attracted to for various reasons and took our places.

There were two really dark paintings which had only two particpants sitting in front. As the exercise progressed participants discussed in their respective groups and then explained to the others what it was that caused them to choose those particular paintings.

The two who had chosen to sit in front of the dark paintings which had blacks and greys in them spoke towards the end. They said that the  black signified to them the dark area inside us , which we are hesitant to accept, we all get drawn to the colorful and cheerful and feel comfortable with the happier, nice areas of our lives.

Isn't it so true, each one of us has darkness in us which makes us very uncomfortable, however by banishing it into the deep recesses of our mind, the darkness does not go away. Unattended it festers and grows and nags us, like a pus which unconsciously infects the colorful areas.

Should we remain fearful of this darkness , yes it does contain things that we are embarassed or ashamed of. Unattended it will not go away, it will remain there.

Why not accept and own the darkness, look into it, hold it up to the light, shine a torch on it, if not alone then with the help of another. Black after all is a mixture of all the colors, as we examine and look at it the colors will again emerge.After all we are human, all of us make mistakes, true there are  things in our lives that perhaps only our maker will understand and forgive.

The process is hard, it is not easy, there will be change, some of it that may initially bewilder us, frighten us.