So says Mr Emerson in E.M. Forster’s lovely novel, A Room with a View, about repressed middle class Edwardians who happily travelled around Europe and went skinny dipping in ponds. Like those fusty Edwardians I too was long schooled in the fine English arts of passive aggression and stiff-upper-lipness. Confrontation was something to be avoided at all costs and emotions were best left repressed. Nevertheless, after a breakdown in my early 20s I slowly learned that mental health is vital as is the ability to experience, process and communicate my emotions. A not dissimilar breakdown last year taught me that telling the truth is also vital, be it recounting my own experiences of suffering and isolation as a gay man or speaking up for the wider suffering within the LGBTQIA+ community. Just like Lucy Honeychurch, the protagonist of A Room with a View, I have learned that love and truth do count, they really do (incidentally, my privilege let me go travelling in South America, much further away than Europe, and there was definitely the odd bit of skinny dipping).
The COVID-19 pandemic requires love and truth on an unprecedented scale. A love that is being demonstrated in abundance by the UK’s key workers who are working tirelessly to save lives and a love we need to show towards ourselves, those we care for, the vulnerable, the NHS, our key workers and, actually, everyone. And the truth matters just as much because many people still don’t understand the severity of the pandemic and the need for us all to take action following the recommendations of the WHO (World Health Organisation) and medical experts. This includes staying at home, regardless of whether we have symptoms or not, an incredibly simple yet powerful thing we can do to stop the spread of the virus. We can follow the advice of the government as well but we must remember that the government has been slow to act, so there will be times when we can act more responsibly than Boris Johnson is telling us to. It’s in our hands (but hopefully not on our hands because we’re washing them regularly).
This isn’t a self-help blog and I can’t tell you what to do but I can tell you that I am doing my best to honour truth and love. I’m having difficult conversations with people I care about (conversations we might call ‘conflict’ but are actually about trying to do what’s best for everyone) and encouraging people to speak up for themselves. And, I confess, there are times when I have shied away from these conversations because I fear someone’s reaction more than I do the consequences of inaction. I will do my best to change this behaviour because it could save lives. I am trying to look after myself so I’m in a better place to look after others. I am trying not to catastrophise (too much) but I am also trying not to deny the rapid ways in which ‘normality’ has irrevocably changed. I am trying to love myself, I am trying to tell myself the truth, and I am taking it one day at a time. Over to you Mr Emerson and Dr. Rita Issa:
“…we fight for more than Love or Pleasure: there is Truth. Truth counts, Truth does count.”
humanconditioned 