Rocks and books, good people and bad
I strolled through last week and into this without one specific thing I wanted to say, so instead I thought I’d just give a little update about things…
How to be a good person
So I’m in the process of my Great Pivot, away from writing for money (hahahaha) to a career that might be able to feed me and pay my bills until I’m quite old, and in case I haven’t updated you about this (I haven’t) I’ve chosen counselling as my new path. Or something along the lines of. Not, like, full ‘diagnose you’ counselling. Just more ‘hey, I’m here, I’m listening, let’s see what your choices are’ counselling.
I signed up for a course, will be signing up for a few more, and so far it’s going along just swimmingly and I’m finding it all very informative and so on. But there’s a phrase I’ve learned through this that I’ve come to adore that I want to share with you.
It’s ‘unconditional positive regard’.
It means that no matter what, the therapist has to think the very best of their client. Respect them. Value them. No judgement.
It was coined by this guy called Carl Rogers, considered the father of person-centred therapy, who said that no matter what modality of therapy a counsellor practiced, unconditional positive regard – along with congruence (honesty and authenticity) and empathy – were all a client really needed from a therapist to get better.
I really like this. It feels so compassionate and gentle, and I remember really feeling this with my therapist all those years ago.
I got a lot of easy practice with non-judgement with my work as Dorothy Black; was never going to be the kind of sex columnist to judge people for their sex and love choices. But since then, I gotta be honest with you, I’m not sure I’ve managed to keep my form for non-judgement for people’s life choices in general.
For those of you who’ve followed my work for some time, you’ll know I’m not a fan of the collective face of humanity and had to make something of a concerted effort not to transfer to this to actual individuals.
But I’ve been practising with my ‘learning partner’ (Thanks J!) and am relatively certain I’ll manage. It’s quite fun, practicing unconditional positive regard, even in my daily life. It makes me feel good and that I might have a soft spot for the human individual of the human species after all.
Urgh.
Rock me baby one more time
I saw these rocks last week and I really liked them.
I remember seeing in Taiwan, many years ago now, an advert for a museum exhibit of some Japanese artist’s rock collection. I didn’t understand this weird obsession with rocks. I noted the silliness – my own ignorance and lack of curiosity triumphant in its certainty – and moved on.
Some twenty-odd years further along my timeline and I am now a rock person.
It happened slowly at first with a small collection of pebbles that found their way into my life, one by one. I liked the rough smoothness of their bodies, how solid and sure they were. How remarkably present. I kept them on the balcony of my Oranjezicht apartment, watched over by Table Mountain whose raw Sienna sandstone layers, exposed by a rock tumble or a washed-out side, becomes a geometric puzzle whose pieces I like to pick out and scratch and smell, the first human paw to fondle its ancient insides.
I haven’t fully explored these animals or my attraction to them. I just know that when I see a good rock I know it is a good rock and I tell it so; that they have presence and energy that cannot be ignored although so many people do.
Once, when I sat steeped in San Pedro and pinned to the world, part of it totally and utterly, a rock asked me what it was like to move and I said it was quite nice although destablising sometimes.
Into the desert, into the night
My new book is coming along nicely and the end is in sight and I barrel towards it a little more each morning. My astrologer said to me ‘you must put more of yourself into this one’ and I have, and suddenly my protagonist is on fire with childhood feelings I’ve resolved but had nowhere to put, feelings about the fortunate ones, the ones who don’t have ugliness in them, the ones who seem to have ease coded into the genetics of their life. Difficult feelings in a difficult childhood. New moon baby, go figure.
I’ve decided that this one will be traditionally published. At least, that’s my hope.
The decision to self-publish The Fulcrum was heartbreaking but necessary; the decision to self-publish The Akashic Records was an impatient one, one that I made because I thought I could use it to figure out Amazon, only to realise too late that a) advertising on Amazon is only for those with deep, deep, DEEP pockets and b) the text is a total fuck-up as an ebook. Oh well. One lives, one learns.
So I’m aiming this one for traditional publishing and I’m feeling quite confident that I’ll get an agent and/or a publisher.
And if I don’t?
Then, dear reader, I will struggle to not consider myself cursed and will self-publish yet again. Which, honestly, the more I learn about the publishing world might really be the only option for me. I think publishing still wants their witches sexy.
Anyway. I’ll throw myself kicking and screaming upon that bridge when and if I am forced to it.
What a piece of work
And then finally, I’m reading this fantastic biography by Oliver Sodden about Noēl Coward. I’m only a third of the way through, his ‘before’ years, just as he’s hit stardom with The Vortex and Hayfever, and I have to say I’m learning a lot. One, how hard Coward had to hustle before achieving success. It was a different world then, of course.
He’d been hustling since nine, playing around the streets of London with fellow friend actors and starring in shows instead of going to school. But he wrote hundreds of plays (it feels like) that went nowhere, slept like a pauper and schmoozed the rich and connected like a fucking LinkedIn champ before getting to this point.
And then, two, rather disappointingly – although I don’t know why since he was the king, the father, the progenitor of the modern put-down – I’ve discovered that he was a massive asshole and just the sort of person I’d probably dislike quite a lot today.
Sigh.
One lives, one, rather sadly, learns.
(19 June update. I feel I really ought to add that I’ve read further in the book and maybe Coward was actually an okay guy and was just super mean to one or two people who probably deserved it. Another update to follow once I’ve actually finished the book. Just goes to show: don’t judge a person by a third of their biography.)
Anyway.
That’s that for now. I’m hoping I’ll have something of more import to write next time.
I hope you are keeping sane and maybe even happy wherever you are.
Yours in unconditional positive regard,
t
Unconditional positive regard, indeed. And empathy. And massive love. Thank you for this joy of a read xx