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Sentimentality
Brigid
Veteran
This is a little story for my sangha.
One of the first things I learned from Buddhism was how foolish and painful sentimentality can be. It's unrealistic. It's a pure projection of feeling, often sad and melancholy. It's a misguided attempt at finding meaning for ourselves and we mislabel this meaning with some sort of emotion.
My family is of Highland Scottish/Irish descent. My father has often been called "a brooder" by my mother. There has always been a sense of longing and loss for "the old country" in my family even though both of my parents were born in Canada.
Our homes over the years have been imbued with supernatural powers of identity and possession, its and ours. They have become beings to us, personalities with favourite quirks and everlasting souls. They are ours, we are theirs. We don't call them houses, we call them homes. And we've clung to them, not at the risk of being homeless but of being separated from them and thereby losing some part of our meaning.
The home we now live in sits on 100 acres of untilled soil that my father loves to look at and probably pretends is somewhere in the Highlands of Scotland even though it's as flat as Saskatchewan (which is not a place in Scotland). We have had this house for 35 years and we began living in it full time 15 years ago, making this house a home. When I say "we" I mean the head of our family, my parents. I only moved here 4 years ago after having been out of my parents home since I was seventeen. But the three of us succumbed to the sickness of sentimentality as soon as we decided to call it home. When you combine our supposed brooding "Celt" (used very loosely) personalities, a home, and land, the risk of loss is enormous, and entirely self-inflicted.
My parents are in their mid-seventies and I am physically disabled. What on earth are we doing living in a 150 year old house we can barely afford to heat in order to keep the pipes from freezing and bursting, on 100 acres of land we can't even till, 20 minutes form the nearest town (and hospital), and 40 minutes in winter if we're able to make it down and back up the lane? Why is my father, who is recovering from heart failure, getting up every two or three hours every night to put more wood in the stove in the winter? Why do we live in isolation, danger and exertion beyond our physical and financial capabilities? Because of sentimentality. Because we're fools.
When it became apparent that we were going to have to move into a much smaller house closer to town our first reaction was collective grief at the tragedy of "losing" our home. We cried. Sobbed, really. All three of us. (Not together. We're not that neurotic.)
Then we thought about it realistically and after weighing the pros and cons of staying, my mother and I realized how incredibly foolish we were to live in such hardship in order to stay in a place we had arbitrarily projected positive attributes upon that didn't even come close to existing. We got it, but my father didn't. My grief and my mother's instantly evaporated and was replaced with relief ("Maybe in the new house we'll be able to keep up with the dust!"). My father couldn't stand the thought that he wouldn't pass the house down to my nephew. ("And what about all the trees I planted?") But he'll come around. Eventually. He's a brooder.
Love,
Brigid
One of the first things I learned from Buddhism was how foolish and painful sentimentality can be. It's unrealistic. It's a pure projection of feeling, often sad and melancholy. It's a misguided attempt at finding meaning for ourselves and we mislabel this meaning with some sort of emotion.
My family is of Highland Scottish/Irish descent. My father has often been called "a brooder" by my mother. There has always been a sense of longing and loss for "the old country" in my family even though both of my parents were born in Canada.
Our homes over the years have been imbued with supernatural powers of identity and possession, its and ours. They have become beings to us, personalities with favourite quirks and everlasting souls. They are ours, we are theirs. We don't call them houses, we call them homes. And we've clung to them, not at the risk of being homeless but of being separated from them and thereby losing some part of our meaning.
The home we now live in sits on 100 acres of untilled soil that my father loves to look at and probably pretends is somewhere in the Highlands of Scotland even though it's as flat as Saskatchewan (which is not a place in Scotland). We have had this house for 35 years and we began living in it full time 15 years ago, making this house a home. When I say "we" I mean the head of our family, my parents. I only moved here 4 years ago after having been out of my parents home since I was seventeen. But the three of us succumbed to the sickness of sentimentality as soon as we decided to call it home. When you combine our supposed brooding "Celt" (used very loosely) personalities, a home, and land, the risk of loss is enormous, and entirely self-inflicted.
My parents are in their mid-seventies and I am physically disabled. What on earth are we doing living in a 150 year old house we can barely afford to heat in order to keep the pipes from freezing and bursting, on 100 acres of land we can't even till, 20 minutes form the nearest town (and hospital), and 40 minutes in winter if we're able to make it down and back up the lane? Why is my father, who is recovering from heart failure, getting up every two or three hours every night to put more wood in the stove in the winter? Why do we live in isolation, danger and exertion beyond our physical and financial capabilities? Because of sentimentality. Because we're fools.
When it became apparent that we were going to have to move into a much smaller house closer to town our first reaction was collective grief at the tragedy of "losing" our home. We cried. Sobbed, really. All three of us. (Not together. We're not that neurotic.)
Then we thought about it realistically and after weighing the pros and cons of staying, my mother and I realized how incredibly foolish we were to live in such hardship in order to stay in a place we had arbitrarily projected positive attributes upon that didn't even come close to existing. We got it, but my father didn't. My grief and my mother's instantly evaporated and was replaced with relief ("Maybe in the new house we'll be able to keep up with the dust!"). My father couldn't stand the thought that he wouldn't pass the house down to my nephew. ("And what about all the trees I planted?") But he'll come around. Eventually. He's a brooder.
Love,
Brigid
0
Comments
Only in the English language have I discovered the differentiation between the 'House' and the 'Home'.... and when I took Feng Shui classes, and conducted Workshops or carried out consultations in the UK, particularly if people were intending to sell their properties, I would always be at pains to point out that they were selling a 'House' but that they would be taking their 'Home' with them..... This without exception, was a comfort to them, and gave them a new slant on the matter.
It very often lifted the psychological and unconscious barrier which had, up to that point, prevented them from parting with the Bricks and Mortar....for that is all it is.
A house is a house is a house. it serves one purpose, and one purpose only. To provide warmth security and shelter, collectively, just as the first caves did to its' neanderthal dwellers. That is its' sole function.
The characteristics we attribute to it are merely extensions of how ideally we would like to see ourselves... and how we'd like others to see us.
This is why even two identical houses, side by side, will proffer very different atmospheres and sensations. You would be picking up the 'vibes' of the inhabitants, not of the house itself. Décor, accessories and furnishings would obviously play a major part too.
I understand your father's 'distress' though. it is an outward sign of his personal fear of ageing, and leaving nothing of himself behind. he identifies with the house. It is him, in solid matter. What can he leave so that others will remember him....? he is conscious of the passing of time, and of the Transitory Nature of things around him, and of the impermanence of his own being..... Do you see?
Sentimentality is just "Clinging" with a pink jacket on...;)
Oh, yes. Do I ever! LOL! Nicely put.
Oooohhhh!!! Goooood one!! One day I'll be comforting someone suffering in sentimental hell and I'll say "You know, a wise friend of mine once said...". LOL!
Thanks, Fede.
Brigid
That's another interesting way to put it, "the near enemy of compassion". I hadn't looked at it from that angle. It's very true. I can definitely see how self pity, or just pity itself is the unskillful cousin of compassion. That's interesting. The blindness is what I felt most, especially when my eyes flew open. It was a willful blindness causing self inflicted sorrow, a sorrow that had no reason to exist.
I'm wondering why the word "inochi" sounds so familiar. I wonder if I heard it in a film or somewhere. But it's a great word. Life integrity. I hadn't thought in that way either.
One of the things that attracted me to HH the Dalai Lama's writings was because it was the first place I read about antidotes for negative emotions. Following that way of thinking, sometimes I like to compare my life as it is now to how it would be if I were in a primitive prison cell somewhere far away. Not just for the purpose of gratitude but to remind myself of the importance of developing everything I would need not just to survive but to continue along the Path and thrive. As you said, life integrity is in all things and in all places. And as Fede said, selling the house bit taking the home with you. And, of course, it makes any form of self pity appear as it really is, ridiculous. Of all the self imposed prisons, self pity is the silliest.
Brigid
Silliest, maybe, but boy! It's a toughie.... because when you're in it, the greatest temptation of all is to stay there. It's such a self-indulgent luxury.... it perversely feels great, because we know that there is at least one person on this planet that really, truly cares completely about us: ourselves.
But as long as 'you' can hold on to that reality - that it's ridiculous - it becomes easier and easier, as time goes on, to claw our way out of its' treacly hold on us. Until at last, we can side-step it, and look at it as the oppressive and loathsome pretender it really is.
But, how can you not like a group of people who's Gaelic word for water and whiskey are nearly identical?
But, now you'll be able to sing this Robbie Burns tune with feeling
We twa hae run aboot the braes
And pu'd the gowans fine.
We've wandered mony a weary foot,
Sin' auld lang syne.
-bf
BF they are no odder that the rest of the dweller's that are stuck on this cold wet island.
I have to say though their Rugby and Football team have improved lately which I think has given my Celtic friends a lift.
HH
Anyway, we were all watching it in the middle of the day in the student union bar and as soon as the Scots won all the English boys took off out of the bar through the windows. They were the kind that flip up to open, lots of room. It was pretty funny.
BF, good point about the language. My parents and oldest sister are almost fluent.
Brigid
HH,
I didn't say they were as odd as the English. Plus, as odd as they are, I love ALL THINGS SCOTTISH! IF IT'S SCOTTISH... IT'S CRAP!
-bf