I intended that 2011 would be the year of self-improvement, and I set three specific goals to help me become a better person.
'Better' is subjective, of course, and even the idea that we can, all of us, jettison that which prevents us reaching some ideal state, is rooted in fiction. It sounds like a Victorian imperative, and yet it is something which endures.
I promised myself I would think less of the ex-girlfriend who has been done to death on this blog; I promised I would react better to negative situations; and I began another Open University course, with a start date in February.
A February start meant a March deadline for the first assignment - in fact Friday was the cut-off point. I had everything done well in advance, and even had time to carry out numerous re-writes, fretting and editing and indeed tackling the whole thing from scratch on more than one occasion.
There comes a point when further refinement is futile. It is instead a test of character to publish and be damned, and this I found harder than the work itself. If the desire to learn something new, and to demonstrate it, is the theoretical desire to better oneself, then I can only conclude that my inclination to do so is limited. There were times, indeed, when I was so terrified of letting go of the thing that I stated I would let the deadline pass, fail the course at the first hurdle, and at least be free of the stomach-tightening anguish which heralded every thought of Doctor Faustus.
In the dim and distant past, I recall reading about the concept of homeostasis. The context in which I encountered it was in some psychological literature, but I suspect it can be applied to medicine as well as numerous other disciplines. It is nothing more than the need to return the body to some sort of equilibrium - Le Chatelier's Principle for the self. When we are too hot, we sweat in the hope of reaching a more ambient temperature. Even hunger can be expressed as the requirement to restore stability. If the self is analogous to a machine, then, homeostasis is the response to a red warning light.
For your author, the desire to remain rooted in hopelessness is a marker of identity; there is safety and comfort in the grim repetition of self-destructive habits, and that which threatens the ritual is greeted with suspicion.
Open University work is tough enough. Trying to do it whilst being pulled apart: simultaneously wishing to rise as I am pinned to the ground, requires a mental shift which will entail more than acquiring or not acquiring a qualification - it will, in the end, kill or cure.
