THAT'S MEN:Calm acceptance can hide inner turmoil, writes PADRAIG O'MORAIN
STOICISM IS characterised by a calm acceptance of both pain and pleasure, triumph and failure, sickness and health. In recent weeks, the word has been used again and again to describe the reaction of Japanese people to the current catastrophe.
News reports have highlighted the stoical way in which the Japanese have behaved: the absence of looting or rioting, people at the front of food queues passing their food back to those at the end, the neat arrangement of shoes in emergency shelters.
My impression is that stoicism has traditionally been seen as a male attribute. If so, then that assumption is very mistaken. Japanese women are just as stoic as Japanese men as we have seen during the unfolding of this tragedy.
Where does that stoicism come from? Perhaps it is to be expected in a country in which natural disaster, particularly in the form of earthquakes, has been the experience of so many generations throughout its history.
But perhaps philosophical and spiritual attitudes have also made a difference. Some of these attitudes have been encapsulated in the work of the early 20th century psychiatrist Shomo Morita. His approach is summed up in three injunctions: know your purpose, acknowledge your feelings, do what needs to be done.
Your purpose may be to make a presentation to work colleagues. You may be filled with high anxiety. What you need to do is to get down to preparing the presentation and then get up on your two legs and deliver it. What you mustn’t do is wait until you are filled with confidence before you carry out the task because you could be waiting for a very long time indeed.
One can see how such a philosophy could arise in a country that lives under the shadow of natural disaster.
None of which means that the Japanese are not capable of being traumatised by what has happened to them. After an earlier earthquake, the blood pressure of people living in its vicinity was still above normal six months after the event. So even for a stoic and reserved people, tragedy takes its toll. They may suffer quietly but they suffer, and I wonder if they could, perhaps, benefit from loosening up their emotions a little.
And, of course, stoicism has its downside if it makes it easier for us to accept bad behaviour. Japanese soldiers were guilty of great cruelty to prisoners of war during the second World War and I wonder if their ability to accept negative feelings contributed to this. That said, cruelty seems to be a human attribute rather than an attribute of specific nations or cultures.
For many of us, the way in which Japanese men and women have handled themselves in their current circumstances is a source of admiration and of some wonder.
In a recent column, I referred to the harm that is done in relationships by filling your mind with resentments about your partner and suggested that we would do better to remove our attention from these recycled thoughts. I also suggested that partners embrace the concept of impermanence – namely that nothing stays the same and partner who is frustrating and annoying today may very well be accommodating and a delight tomorrow – and that’s true of yourself too.
A reader writes that she recognised in herself the habit of indulging stormy thoughts about the man she is dating. “I have found myself having these tumultuous inner arguments in my head . . . imagining confronting him about issues surrounding our respective baggage and making demands I know he can’t meet right now.”
After reading the article she has resolved that “henceforth, I shall reside firmly grounded in my body instead of engaging in conversation with a negative bully in my mind, accept that everything is impermanent and respond to the real person in front of me and not to whatever is going on in my head.”
I wish her – and him – well and I hope the storms have subsided.
Padraig O’Morain (pomorain@ireland.com) is a counsellor accredited by the Irish Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy. His book, Light Mind – Mindfulness for Daily Living, is published by Veritas.