Compassion for people struggling to come to terms...

[Updated during the day]. Here some silent reflections. Who and what is worth our condemnation?

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And once again see this article: Against Biologic Psychiatry by David Kaiser, M.D.

“If one uncritically cling to old methods' alleged infallibility and blames the client for failures, you inevitably land in the same fairways (waters) as the sect-guru, who also promises entire liberation. Such promises only produce self-destructive dependence which stands in the way for the individual’s liberation.” (Alice Miller in “Paths of Life” in my amateur translation from the Swedish edition of this book).

And also read this blogposting, which was so wise, about being in control and check and needing external validation…

The blogger (a man) writes in the end:

“The actual point of me being like this is that I’m supposed to be a good servant of civilisation. Otherwise known as being a good professional. I’m supposed to be good at sacrificing everything that’s important to me as a person so that I can serve the machine better - and I’m supposed to do it without trying to rebel. Here again my father’s influence; even though I was often cautious in social situations I didn’t lack the thoughtfulness to question my role in society or the courage to leave it so I guess I wasn’t properly broken in either - they broke me at the emotional and body level but they didn’t get my mind.

The weird thing, which I just realised today, is that I make these decisions in my mind and then set about implementing them like a good professional, which is to say with total disregard for my own needs.”

Something struck me: is it different when a woman (girl) needs validation though? Was it more different earlier?

Addition after lunch: Oh, this music is difficult listening to… I listened to it when I ate lunch.

Almost eight years ago I played on a concert during a master-class (for pianists and singers) in a beautiful old church in the north of Sweden, where one of the people in the audience was one of the flutists in the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra (he was teacher for the flutists in a parallel master class). I felt very uncomfortable in this whole situation and during this whole occasion and wished I was invisible and I felt very out of place (malplacerad), but I probably wasn't even if I thought so then. On top I have problems with stage fright and shaky hands. Don’t thinking I am good enough. The typical extremely sensitive “artist”, sensing, feeling, taking in (which of course doesn’t exclude insensitivity, but on the other hand a psychiatrist and psychotherapist once said that he thought I saw very clearly).

I had tried the Grand earlier during the day and thought it was great. At that time there was so much in my life, and so much had happened the previous six years, so my body was extremely tense, so tense so one of the teachers noticed it. Something I didn't really realize. I got surprised when he said it during a lesson, because I complained over problems I had, which I hadn't had before.

When I started to play (accompanying an opera-singer in a romance by Schubert or Brahms, I don’t remember, a singer whom I didn’t feel comfortable with at all) I got a shock. The keys were suddenly heavy like lead! (and the other pianists said the same afterwards, that the keys were so heavy *). So it was like chopping wood really. I played and played and wished I could disappear.

But the piano-teacher (professor in piano here in Sweden) thought the singer and I matched each other. She was really colourful, red-haired and daring to “play out”, and sang really well. A mature singer, both seen to voice and expression, who also had finished her studies since some years (in her midst 30s?). And he also said I played so well… Despite I don’t work as pianist, but have a lot of pupils and students (and thus limited time practicing really), and by then had worked as piano-teachers for 22 years…

And I am the only one in my family working with music. The only one who has too, noone has in the generations before me either. And noone among my cousins or uncles and aunts have had either. So in a way I am very lonely in this.

But my dad took singing-lessons in Stockholm for an opera-singer, Augustin Kock **, when he studied to agronomist in Uppsala. And dad also played violin during his childhood (which is a little surprising) and later in the orchestra at the gymnasium where he was student.

Mom didn’t have any such opportunities when she grew up.

All my siblings have played instruments, but they didn’t continue with it. As a rebellion towards mom and dad?

But I had never thought of having this as my living, but doing something else; in nature science or as architect.

* I wonder if the accompanist to the flutists wanted heavier keys for some reason? And the piano-technician had changed them to suit him? He didn't want to play so loud to the flutists? I don't know.
** he died 1956.

In the evening: watch how people lived in the north of Sweden more than 6000 years ago!


And maybe 200 years back from another open air museum.