It was at a university book sale where I was first introduced to the ideas of Taoism. Hidden away deep in the philosophy section, I picked up what initially seemed like a strange esoteric book – the Tao Te Ching. It was a short text, under 100 pages, that was filled with often puzzling language […]

Lessons from Taoism: Ancient Wisdom for Modern Times

A thought provoking post on the mindset of New Yorkers these days

Those are the dying words of Police Officer Jimmy Malone to Eliot Ness in the movie classic, The Untouchables. In a way this is a companion post to the one I did the other day on the Mahuta and Sussman stories, but this post is about lower level crimes involving the proles. Recently there have […]

“What are you prepared to do now?”

I’ve recently had to deal with my Mums death after a long illness.

She had had dementia for 12 years and she slowy disappeared from us over about six years until she never recognised anyone, let alone be able to speak.

So for the last six years, she just wasn’t there, and was totally bedridden.

I had resolved to myself that she was literally already gone, and that when she physically died, it would be easy to deal with.

It wasn’t. It was like she had died all over again.

It’s sort of strange grieving for her again, because the only memories are very old ones.

I did a short eulogy at the funeral, and this in itself was quite hard because I struggled to find a happy memory to talk about.

You see, Mum suffered from post natal depression from when I was born, which was never treated (at least not successfully). The mother I knew was always sad and seemed to have the ability to suck positive energy out of everything, like one of those death eaters on a Harry Potter movie.

Mums sisters used to talk about her childhood and how happy she was, but this is before my time, and it’s like they were talking about a different person.

Growing up with Mum had a profound effect on me. I knew my family life wasn’t normal somehow, but I didn’t know what normal was, as Mum was always surrounded by sympathetic never-do-wells.

In short, I didn’t know what I didn’t know.

I did know that other kids at school just seemed to be better off and happier in general. It was like I had drawn the short straw somehow.

Once I left home, it took me years to work out that I needed to throw out almost everything I learnt from her and start afresh, least I end up in the same sad predicament she was. With self help books, I learned to be a lot more positive and see things differently.

I avoided people who ‘wanted to help’, because they often had their own agenda. To a large extent I stood on my own feet rather than trust anyone, often making mistakes through bad habits and not thinking.

I got better by thinking about everything logically and examining everything I did. I couldn’t just trust my natural instincts and run on ‘auto pilot’, because of all the wrong stuff I learnt growing up.

Thirty years on, the auto pilot is now pretty reliable (I think).

Through the years, I always saw Mum at Xmas. She always had that sad demeanor, and I often had left my brothers place with a happy young family to have dinner with her. I don’t think this was doing me any good, but I felt bound by family duty.

She’s gone now, and is finally free from her troubled life.

I’m not sure whether to be sad she’s gone, or happy that she’s finally free.