Traditional Psychology

You have two extremes, you have pop psychology – celebrity therapists writing best sellers, getting on talk shows, and making some miserable couple weep on television – it’s kind of a pornography really.

And then on the other hand, you’ve got the experts – the psychologists – orthodox, authority figures – everything under control and supervised, examined under a bright light – examined to death; completely and utterly divorced from real life.

Serendipity

On the occurrence of a remarkable coincidence happening in my life or an extreme act of faith comes to be; it makes me feel that whatever mistakes I've made in the past, at that exact moment, I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be.

Illustration by Clayton Junior

Ineffable

There is always a tendency to lavish words upon what cannot be described, in the hope that some of them might stick – a little like throwing paint in the direction of The Invisible Man in order to make him out. 

~ Lionel Bailly, 2009, p. 98

There, but for the grace of God, go I

They’re dying. 

They have a disease that’s killing them – and wants him on his own, drinking. 

Drinking himself to death. 

It’s a terrible disease he has. 

And the irony of it is that it’s a disease that tells him that he hasn’t a disease. 

His body is telling him he’s dying – telling the world that he’s dying, and his brain is telling him to keep on drinking. 

And they don’t understand – sure what do they know!? 

It’s mad. It’s baffling. And cunning. 

But there’s hope.

- Glassland (2014)

''Begin'' - from The Essential Brendan Kennelly.

Brendan Kennelly recited this poem at the end of an episode of The Late Late Show in 1997. During the episode, Gay Byrne spoke with a recently bereaved mother who was chosen at random from among hundreds of thousands of entries for a postal quiz. The caller's daughter had sadly passed away due to a road accident the night before. It was a unique moment in the history of Irish television. Brendan's recital of the poem at the end of the show just fit perfectly in to the indescribable tragedy of it all.

Link: Late Late Show 1997 - Rita - YouTube

Begin again to the summoning birds
to the sight of the light at the window,
begin to the roar of morning traffic
all along Pembroke Road.

Every beginning is a promise
born in light and dying in dark
determination and exaltation of springtime
flowering the way to work.

Begin to the pageant of queuing girls
the arrogant loneliness of swans in the canal
bridges linking the past and future
old friends passing though with us still.

Begin to the loneliness that cannot end
since it perhaps is what makes us begin,
begin to wonder at unknown faces
at crying birds in the sudden rain
at branches stark in the willing sunlight
at seagulls foraging for bread
at couples sharing a sunny secret
alone together while making good.

Though we live in a world that dreams of ending
that always seems about to give in
something that will not acknowledge conclusion
insists that we forever begin.