The best thing about Lagos is the positive attitude on everyone's faces; there's a strength of character here that means people get up and carry on, no matter what happens. I hope to come back again sometime soon, if I am lucky, with my camera. My favourite mental pictures are of a woman cooking and selling sweetcorn on the pavement; of countless motor bikes negotiating enormous holes in the road; of the fishermen's boats floating in shallow sea waters. I will take the positive attitude back home with me, plus thoughts of a beautiful country.
Tuesday would have been my sister Emma's birthday, and I'm so grateful to her childhood friend Rachel for sending me a text remembering her, and sending love to all the family.
The older I get, the more I realise that life is too short for conflict, and too long to live without smiles and kindness.
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
SLEEP
I rarely sleep on planes. It gives me a chance to see what the mind does without sleep. There are several effects:
1. Increased sensitivity to pain. Little things bother me more. It is as though I were a sofa temporarily devoid of cushions, or a car deprived of suspension. Bumps are more obvious. I am more reactive, and find it harder to ignore discomfort.
2. Higher levels of paranoia. I speculate more on others' motives, on what is happening behind the scenes. I think this is a by-product of lower pre-frontal cortex efficiency. Less able to rationalize appropriately, I float through more theories, but with less certainty.
3. Reduced ability to eat and sleep. It is a descending spiral. The body has fewer of the chemicals that promote an easy metabolism, so it becomes less normative and more erratic.
In contrast, when I caught up on sleep with a glorious long session of dreams and relaxation, these effects reversed. In particular, a good sleep seems to smooth the relationship between immediate experience and long-term memory. Good dreams reconcile the irreconcilable, and allow concepts to sit more easily with each other. It does this by finding undiscovered conscious relationships between matters that were previously unsettled in the unconscious. It is the mind's equivalent of a grand conference, where ideas are aired and explored. A form of semantic democracy, promoting greater integration and harmony. In this way, sleep is a little miracle that sets the world to rights.
1. Increased sensitivity to pain. Little things bother me more. It is as though I were a sofa temporarily devoid of cushions, or a car deprived of suspension. Bumps are more obvious. I am more reactive, and find it harder to ignore discomfort.
2. Higher levels of paranoia. I speculate more on others' motives, on what is happening behind the scenes. I think this is a by-product of lower pre-frontal cortex efficiency. Less able to rationalize appropriately, I float through more theories, but with less certainty.
3. Reduced ability to eat and sleep. It is a descending spiral. The body has fewer of the chemicals that promote an easy metabolism, so it becomes less normative and more erratic.
In contrast, when I caught up on sleep with a glorious long session of dreams and relaxation, these effects reversed. In particular, a good sleep seems to smooth the relationship between immediate experience and long-term memory. Good dreams reconcile the irreconcilable, and allow concepts to sit more easily with each other. It does this by finding undiscovered conscious relationships between matters that were previously unsettled in the unconscious. It is the mind's equivalent of a grand conference, where ideas are aired and explored. A form of semantic democracy, promoting greater integration and harmony. In this way, sleep is a little miracle that sets the world to rights.
CLARITY AND CARE
I find a great clarity in the English language used by Nigerians. I was reading the local paper at breakfast. It was the first time I have seen 'arrogate' used as a verb, ever. Wealthy people were 'arrogating' resources to themselves. The words are often longer, and sometimes misplaced, but there is a carefulness of expression.
In spoken words, too, there is the same care. Spoken sentences actually end; unlike in the UK, where we drift between endless chains of phrases, as though afraid of interruption.
In spoken words, too, there is the same care. Spoken sentences actually end; unlike in the UK, where we drift between endless chains of phrases, as though afraid of interruption.
Monday, July 18, 2011
THE LONGEST BRIDGE
In Lagos, between 5.30 and 8.30 in the morning, everyone shifts from where home is to where work is. People drift out of their shacks, or their houses, onto the roadside. Many don't have cars, and wait for the innumerable yellow and white vans to stop and pick them up. The bridge between mainland and island goes on for miles. To the left, gorgeous shapes against the rising sun, elegant and curved fishing boats, most with only two men aboard, drift along the reed-strewn coast. To the right, countless shacks with corrugated roofs look damp and dishevelled after another deluge of rain last night.
This is the longest bridge in Africa. There are cars along its whole length. Horns honk all the time. Men on foot weave dangerously between the vehicles, hoping to sell a few biscuits, cigarettes, or packets of chewing gum. Men on motor bikes have either no helmet, or bizarre half-helmets that belong in a cartoon, or in a 20th century war. On the island, some cook beside the road; some carry baskets or boxes of goods on their heads; and everyone seems to be talking, laughing, arguing, shuffling for position, fighting for a part of something, where there is not so much to share around. It's a beautiful place, though. Everyone seems to have clear and healthy skin, not pasty and spotty, like the UK.
The journey takes hours. Just when you think the bridge is finishing, there is more. I am the only white person I see. I have an armoured car behind me, to protect me. I know it's necessary, but I feel overprotected, on display.
Sometime after 8.30, when my journey is done, everything will go quiet again, until the evening backflow chains its way home.
This is the longest bridge in Africa. There are cars along its whole length. Horns honk all the time. Men on foot weave dangerously between the vehicles, hoping to sell a few biscuits, cigarettes, or packets of chewing gum. Men on motor bikes have either no helmet, or bizarre half-helmets that belong in a cartoon, or in a 20th century war. On the island, some cook beside the road; some carry baskets or boxes of goods on their heads; and everyone seems to be talking, laughing, arguing, shuffling for position, fighting for a part of something, where there is not so much to share around. It's a beautiful place, though. Everyone seems to have clear and healthy skin, not pasty and spotty, like the UK.
The journey takes hours. Just when you think the bridge is finishing, there is more. I am the only white person I see. I have an armoured car behind me, to protect me. I know it's necessary, but I feel overprotected, on display.
Sometime after 8.30, when my journey is done, everything will go quiet again, until the evening backflow chains its way home.
TIME AND ATTENTION
"That went like no time," she said.
We had been in a long queue, and had started chatting. Now we were at the front, and the half-hour wait had only seemed like minutes.
The secret is to always be making things with the time you have. Make connections, make bread, make anything: just fill the time with engaging activity, and it will pass like magic.
We had been in a long queue, and had started chatting. Now we were at the front, and the half-hour wait had only seemed like minutes.
The secret is to always be making things with the time you have. Make connections, make bread, make anything: just fill the time with engaging activity, and it will pass like magic.
PSYCHOSIS
At a barbecue yesterday I bumped into a psychiatric nurse.
"Forgive me asking," I said, "but how would you define psychotic?"
"Losing touch with reality," she said. "Be careful," she added. "A guy from Oxford has been with us preparing his doctoral thesis, and he's started showing signs of psychosis himself."
She herself was researching the relevance of physical health in the early stages of mental illness. Keeping physically healthy is so important, but is often forgotten in the quest to offer drug treatments. I think she said that those taking antipsychotic treatments are particularly susceptible to heart problems.
It's a fine line, she said, between paranoia and psychosis. Perhaps just a matter of degree. And people get better, she said. Or start off fine, and then relapse into psychosis at times of stress. It's often pressure that does it. Things become too much, and the mind starts altering reality in a misguided attempt to cope.
She was very calm and factual about it all. As though she saw it every day, and it no longer surprised her. Compassionate, though. The easy, calm compassion you get from a good, experienced nurse. It's nice there are people like that. People for whom life is care and understanding, not profit and control.
"Forgive me asking," I said, "but how would you define psychotic?"
"Losing touch with reality," she said. "Be careful," she added. "A guy from Oxford has been with us preparing his doctoral thesis, and he's started showing signs of psychosis himself."
She herself was researching the relevance of physical health in the early stages of mental illness. Keeping physically healthy is so important, but is often forgotten in the quest to offer drug treatments. I think she said that those taking antipsychotic treatments are particularly susceptible to heart problems.
It's a fine line, she said, between paranoia and psychosis. Perhaps just a matter of degree. And people get better, she said. Or start off fine, and then relapse into psychosis at times of stress. It's often pressure that does it. Things become too much, and the mind starts altering reality in a misguided attempt to cope.
She was very calm and factual about it all. As though she saw it every day, and it no longer surprised her. Compassionate, though. The easy, calm compassion you get from a good, experienced nurse. It's nice there are people like that. People for whom life is care and understanding, not profit and control.
GRIEVING
I was chatting with a good friend recently about grieving. About how we think we're OK, but suddenly have days where we're overwhelmed with sadness, when all we want is for things to be like they used to be. And how we think we're getting stronger; but suddenly have a day when we feel like the weakest person in the world.
"When I broke up with my husband," she said, "the worst month wasn't immediately after the break-up, but almost a year later. I suddenly broke down and couldn't cope."
At such times we just need to go with the flow of emotions, and not try to rationalize. Later, with another caring friend, I just sat and let plain misery flood me. I didn't argue with the feeling, I just let it flow through me. I didn't try to cure anything. I just let it be. And she had the generosity not to try to solve anything, but just to let me grieve, like a child, without logic or plan or escape. Simple loss is a flow, where you become the shape of the sadness. And if you can absorb it, you can begin to heal.
"When I broke up with my husband," she said, "the worst month wasn't immediately after the break-up, but almost a year later. I suddenly broke down and couldn't cope."
At such times we just need to go with the flow of emotions, and not try to rationalize. Later, with another caring friend, I just sat and let plain misery flood me. I didn't argue with the feeling, I just let it flow through me. I didn't try to cure anything. I just let it be. And she had the generosity not to try to solve anything, but just to let me grieve, like a child, without logic or plan or escape. Simple loss is a flow, where you become the shape of the sadness. And if you can absorb it, you can begin to heal.
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