The Ages of Man

Time and again, I am reminded of the fascinating theories of the psychoanalyst Erik Erikson.  Perhaps Erikson’s major contribution to psychology was his model of  ’The Ages of Man’, where he described human life to consist of eight ages, each with its particular challenge to be mastered. Each challenge is intimately linked with a particular relationship in the individual’s life and meeting it successfully, one attains a particular psychological ‘virtue’. On the other hand, failing to meet the challenge adequately leads to a ‘malignancy’.

Erik Erikson

One may understand this well by taking the example of the sixth stage, perhaps the most important of all stages. From the early teens to the early twenties, this is a stage where the human being’s basic challenge in life is to find a sense of identity. ‘Who am I?’ ‘What are the values that I can live my life by ?’ ‘How far can I adopt my parents’ values, and how far shall I adopt those of the new generation?’ ‘How do I deal with basic experiences of happiness and suffering?’ ‘What work should I spend my life doing?’. These are some of the questions that impinge on the young individual, who has, metaphorically speaking, put one step out of the threshold of the family into which he was born, but has one step still inside the safe, familiar cocoon.

In tribal societies, passing into puberty is marked by certain rites of initiation. The young boy or girl may be dressed up in the attire of the ancestors, pierced at certain parts of the body, taken to locations that are otherwise not meant to be visited, and told of the history of the tribe as understood through mythology. Sometimes, ‘secrets’ of the tribe may be revealed in a manner that is often painful or frightening, but at the same time, leaves an impact on his psyche for all time to come. Then on, he is a full-fledged member of the tribe, ready to have a life partner, and to join the adults in their work.

I remember that when I was 14, I discovered a fascination that I still have – reading autobiographies. How interesting it was to know the life of someone else, often told in frank and revealing detail, and live it vicariously, and know whether one would like to have a similar life or not. At the same time, I read Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead, hoping it would help me find some direction in life. It came across as quite unappealing to me, except for its strong sense of passion that I dimly remember and strive to have even now, at 27. A few months later, I picked up the Quran, wanting to know what it was, after all, that my ancestors had lived their lives by. I could not relate to it, because I felt that the story of the people of Israel, which constitutes the second and one of the longest chapters of the Quran, had nothing to do with the difficulties of my life, my relationships, my studies. I was not really concerned about heaven, hell and divine punishment, as much as I was about having the affections of the girl I liked, or finding a suitable area of study for myself. Over the years, I found my sense of identity in other areas, which are reflected in this blog, including the Quran. But these were initial attempts to know who I am and what kind of life I want to live.

Erikson writes that meeting the challenge of identity successfully gives one the virtue of ‘fidelity’ to a worldview, a way of life. One knows where home is, where one is to return for solace, comfort and inspiration. Failure to meet this challenge leads to ‘repudiation’ – often unconscious. This is the attitude that there isn’t much in life worth striving for, one is a leaf blown around by the wind, at the risk of being torn to pieces. Since life means very little, addiction to drugs, alcohol, or dangerous driving fills in the void. Or, it may lead to the opposite, ‘fanaticism’. The person may join a group that demands unthinking submission.

Below is a chart of all the eight ages that I found on the internet.

Stage (age)	Psychosocial crisis	Significant relations	Psychosocial modalities	Psychosocial virtues	Maladaptations & malignancies
I (0-1) – infant	trust vs mistrust	mother	to get, to give in return	hope, faith	sensory distortion — withdrawal
II (2-3) – toddler	autonomy vs shame and doubt	parents	to hold on, to let go	will, determination	impulsivity — compulsion
III (3-6) – preschooler	initiative vs guilt	family	to go after, to play	purpose, courage	ruthlessness — inhibition
IV (7-12 or so) – school-age child	industry vs inferiority	neighborhood and school	to complete, to make things together	competence	narrow virtuosity — inertia
V (12-18 or so) – adolescence	ego-identity vs role-confusion	peer groups, role models	to be oneself, to share oneself	fidelity, loyalty	fanaticism — repudiation
VI (the 20’s) – young adult	intimacy vs isolation	partners, friends	to lose and find oneself in a another	love	promiscuity — exclusivity
VII (late 20’s to 50’s) — middle adult	generativity vs self-absorption	household, workmates	to make be, to take care of	care	overextension — rejectivity
VIII (50’s and beyond) — old adult	integrity vs despair	mankind or “my kind”	to be, through having been, to face not being	wisdom	presumption — despair

Other challenges, at other phases of life, include the ability to generate a valuable body of work, the ability to forge intimate relationships, and so on.

I like to think of these challenges as ‘existential’ in nature rather than ‘psychological’, that is, they are common to most of us human beings, rather than different in each one of us in accordance with his particular life history, and childhood, which have shaped who he is. Often, our psychological difficulties, outer or inner, may prevent us from meeting the existential challenge. Being a generally anxious person may keep one from committing to a particular kind of identity (repudiation), or to stick to an identity blindly (fanaticism).

Also, it is true the other way round. An unmet existential challenge may cause psychological difficulties. Not being able to meet the challenge of making an valuable contribution to the lives of others, through work, may cause one to feel depressed and unenthusiastic about life, for example.

In the same way, a successful resolution of the existential challenge may, to some extent, resolve one’s psychological difficulties. A generally anxious person may find a more stable, serene ground to his being if he is rooted in a strong sense of identity, through commitment to a particular cause, for instance. A generally aggressive person may learn to be more accepting and understanding of other’s faults through a relationship where he finds love unconditionally, so that he may see his own ability to give unconditional love.

Erikson, therefore, provides a map for our lives that we may often consult to understand where we are headed, and also takes psychology out of a preoccupation with purely neurotic issues to existential ones, issues that we all as human beings can relate to.

A Sufi Shrine

A few days ago, I went with some friends to the shrine of Nizamuddin Auliya, a Sufi saint of 14^th century India, who lived and is buried in Delhi. Sufi shrines are centres of devotion, places where it is believed that prayers are answered, and that the spirit of the buried person makes the divine more easily perceptible to the common person. While worshipping the buried person himself crosses the limits of faith in Islam, the Sufi ideal is to worship Allah at a place that carries the presence of a person who reached special spiritual heights, making our prayers more honest and sincere, and thus, having a greater potential of being answered.

Coming off the broad road that leads to the shrine, after  walking through the arch at the entrance, one is led into a closed building in which one walks through a narrow, somewhat dark and claustrophic passage that turns at several places. Perhaps not more than three persons can walk side-by-side there. After every few steps, there is a beggar, often physically or mentally disabled, who pleas for some money. While walking through this passage, with a natural curiosity about what I was going towards, I felt a palpable sense of devotion in the atmosphere. If I had magnified it in my imagination, I would hear sounds of persons crying, wailing, and asking for help.

Soon, the passage opened into a courtyard, and in the middle of it was the dargah – the shrine, with its white dome and walls of decorative grills of various colours, and most often of golden colour. Women sat around it, in prayer, in supplication, holding beads in their hands, or just huddled together. People walked around.

“What are you looking for?”, my friend asked, responding to the expression on my face. “For Nizamuddin Auliya”, I said, half jokingly. I was feeling strange. As I try to experience the feling again, I draw a blank. For most of those people in that area, this was a place of help, where desperate prayers are answered, where life’s crises are healed, and where little children are given a blessing by being in the presence of the saint lying there for 600 years.

We went into the shrine, a small, rectangular room with the grave in the middle of it. But you cannot see the grave, because it is covered with layers and layers of chaadars – decorated sheets – that people bring as an offering to the spiritual presence of the saint. People enter, walk around the grave in the clock-wise direction, and leave through the same door that they came in from. Many stand in a corner of the room, quietly saying their prayers to Allah, in the presence of the spirit of Nizamuddin Auliya, hoping that their prayers will be heard, a blessing will come, troubles will pass. Sometimes they go down on their knees. A man in his thirties carries his little son in his arm, and caringly tells him to quietly recite what he learnt in the morning. It’s a faith being formed, a worldview being forged, in the presence of the sacred.

Coming out of the shrine, I left my friends and walked around by myself, feeling calm yet sad. The compound also has a medium-sized mosque. After walking around a bit, I went and sat inside, because it was relatively quiet and uncrowded. Staring at the walls of the mosque, my eyes became wet, and a grief surged up, with a chill going up my chest. ‘Here I am in your world, with my life, my struggles, I come back to you, the maker, like a child returns home to the parents, soiled in mud, sorry for what he has done. Take me back in your arms, comfort me, strengthen me.’

The theologian Paul Tillich famously defined religion as that which is one’s ‘ultimate concern’. The whole place, for me, abounded with a sense of ultimate concern. All of us who were at the shrine were thinking about the most important issues in their lives, praying, petitioning. It was an intense devotion, rather than a ‘soft’ devotion as one may hear in an old Latin hymn. It is this intensity that has characterized the devotional element in Sufism, as one often notices in qawwali music, which is performed every evening at the shrine.

My friends were waiting in the courtyard, perhaps a bit bored. I joined them, we talked a bit, and left the place, walking out through the same narrow lanes where the beggars sit and we hoped to return soon, fascinated and deeply touched.

Grief

 

grief..

the emptiness within

a little touch from you

a hand held out to my hand

a hand held down to raise me up

this I imagine

would pull me out

of that sinking feeling

as I sink within

seeing little hope

but looking up

out of my hole

waiting for your sign

it will come

life will be bright again

if only

for a moment

a moment of hope

a moment of love

a moment of grace

this is all I seek from you

Faith

“Faith is an act of the total personality. It happens in the center of personal life and includes all its elements…It is not a movement of a special section or a special function of man’s total being. They all are united in the act of faith.” – Paul Tillich in Dynamics of Faith. 

 

Tomorrow, as I walk out of the house

The sparrow observing me from her branch

Lord, may my walk point to Your glory

 

As I sit down at work

May my work bring to light

Your wondrous creation

While I sit through the day

May the focus, the passion, the struggles

Serve as chisels

For the work of art

That this world is, for You

 

As I return to my loved ones

May my gentleness be a reflection

Of Your love

May my words of support

Be a particle

Of the hope, courage and joy that You are

And may my soft caresses

Reveal the tranquility that is only Yours

 

As I go to sleep

May I not forget my gratitude

And may Your light not leave my being

When all other lights withdraw for the night

 

A life with every moment

A moment of humility

A life with every act

An act of purpose

A life with every sorrow

A sorrow with meaning

…a life of faith

This only I pray to You for

 

A Boat Ride in Banaras

an oar sweeps through the water

an old wooden boat

he sits there with the boatman

there is silence

the sun glares at them

where to? 

where from? 

there isn’t an answer

perhaps the question is the answer

 

amidst the Ganga they float

and on ghats of Banaras

the immortal rays of the sun

illuminate a city of 5000 years

there is nothing new here

and nothing old

the temple bells are faintly heard

reminders of a way of life

ancient, yet timeless

 

the boatman and his poverty

his daily struggle for food

his sweat, his toil

the passenger and his prosperity

his anxieties, his sorrows

the impossible choices of life

both move in the boat

amidst the sacred river

 

the water glistens 

the oars sweep through it

both find solace

far from the city

far from its strains

in the womb of mother Ganga

her quiet waters

flowing endlessly ahead

and endlessly behind

soften their sorrows

calm their angst

and sing a lullaby

to an eternal tune

 

Glory

 

it was darkness upon darkness

when He said, ‘Be’

and from the darkness

exploded light

 

a flood of light created all there was 

stars formed

planets solidified

the heavens and the earth came into being

 

and today, we exist

in the tumult of our lives

the rush of our existence

grapples us

as we forget who we are

a creature of a crowded planet

a planet of a mid-sized star

a star among billions in a galaxy

a galaxy among billions in the universe

a universe that isn’t still, but ever expanding

a universe, the like of which existed endlessly before

and will exist endlessly hereafter

 

His light pervades all

from the dying, sickly man

to the dancer rejoicing in the beauty of being

from the madness of the schizophrenic

to the serenity of the sage

His is all glory

His is all there is

for His sake it exists

and to Him it shall return

Noor

 

Noor – Arabic for ‘light’

 

that moment

in the calm of the eternal garden, a flower blooms

atop a majestic mountain, lightening strikes

in the silence of space, a star explodes

when all else is dark, a fire burns bright

 

such, they say, is the intensity

at the heart of life

a light so bright

it would blind us

and scorch our being

did we not veil ourselves

a sensation so strong

the heart would quake

and the body explode

did we not veil ourselves

 

yet, we know it

the mystic, engulfed in divine light

the lovers, their bodies locked in union

the mother, her baby cosy at her breast

the poet, his being effaced in his own creation

 

the secret of life

and of death

unveils itself in self-effacement

for some, ever so softly

for others, in a dance of madness..

Cinema as art

There is something unique about cinema – the seventh art – that sets it apart from other forms of art. It is the ability to recreate life. To be more precise, it is the ability to recreate human experience. The remarkable Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky called it ‘capturing the passage of time’, which means the same as recreating human experience, for there isn’t an experience without the passage of time. He wrote, “One cannot conceive of a cinematic work with no sense of time passing through the shot, but one can easily imagine a film with no actors, music, décor or even editing.”

Music deals with sound. Painting, photography and sculpture deal with visuals, and literature and theatre deal with scenarios. Cinema uses all of these elements – sound, visuals, scenarios – but its authenticity as an art form lies in recreating human experience while using these elements as tools.

For Tarkovsky and many other filmmakers, mainstream cinema has diverted from exploring this unique aspect of cinema. An average film consists of shots of a few seconds put one after the other to narrate a story. In this manner – called the montage ­– cinema becomes filmed theatre, losing its distinctiveness as an art form which lies in its ability to capture time.

The other major possibility that filmmakers have – something Tarkovsky, Tsai Ming Liang, Hou Hsiao Hsien, and others have explored – is to take longer shots where the camera lingers as a witness, concerned more with the mood of the moment rather than telling a story. Here, the point is to explore certain experiences – loneliness, intimacy, nature, or even boredom – with the help of a particular kind of cinematography, music, acting, and script, and thereby string together a film based on long shots, each of which is an exploration of these experiences. Tarkovsky expresses this with the phrase ‘Sculpting in Time’, which is also the title of his major book on the philosophy of cinema and the philosophy of art in general. From this perspective, cinema becomes much more than a means of entertainment, and often not entertainment at all, just like Beethoven’s music is moving, but not entertaining.

Andrey Tarkovsky

This link below is an excerpt from Tarkovsky’s film Solaris. The main character, Kevin, is on a space ship that hovers on the planet Solaris. On the space ship he has met his wife Hari, who is under much emotional stress. Yet, Kevin is happy to be reunited with Hari. In this scene, the space ship experiences a few seconds of loss of gravity. The scene explores the theme of intimacy using J.S. Bach’s ‘Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring’ as background music and a painting by Pieter Bruegel. Not all cinema that deals with capturing time has the mystical, magical, non-rational qualities of Tarkovsky’s films and this is perhaps an extreme example of the ‘cinema of time’.

Over the years, I have slowly accultured myself to appreciate such cinema and this has involved letting go of my habit of expecting something new to happen on screen every moment, of always asking the question “what next”? But watching this film was my first exposure to this kind of cinema and even though I was not used to such films then, it made a deep and lasting impression on me. Perhaps for the first time, I realised that films can be spiritual and understood what I had been looking for in my explorations of different forms of art.

Such films bring us back in touch with our own feelings in the moment, instead of hooking us to a particular feeling being portrayed on screen. Perhaps you feel a bit bored, perhaps you want more action, perhaps you remember the issue you are worried about – this is you, and the cinematic experience is a meeting of what is on screen with what is in your heart. It is not a temporary effacement of what is in your heart, so that you can escape into what is on screen. For Tarkovsky, a film takes one deeper within oneself, rather than away from oneself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcglyhUre4w&feature=related

The next link is a scene from the mainstream Hindi film Khamoshi, set to beautiful music, captures some of the same elements, but in a much more accessible manner.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QH3UyGkqM9A

“The goal for all art, unless of course it is aimed at the ‘consumer’, like a saleable commodity, is to explain to the artist himself and to those around him what man lives for, what is the meaning of his existence. To explain to people the reason for their appearance on this planet; or if not to explain, at least to pose the question” – Andrei Tarkovsky

The loss of meaning

The poet Shahryar (pronounced ‘Sheharyaar’) was recently awarded the Jnanpith Award, considered the highest literary award in India. Since I read the news, this song he wrote for the film Gaman (1978) has come to me often. It expresses a stark reality about the human condition, one that is marked by the loss of meaning. Over the years, I have marvelled at its honesty and its soul-scorching portrayal of an important part of the modern human experience.

In the last three centuries, the developments of modernity have made the world more different from how it ever has been. Religion holds less sway over people, family matters little, the gadgets of technology keep our attention firmly hooked to to themselves. The individual is free, but this freedom comes with responsibility to choose. This choice is marked by angst – an unspecified fear that we are alone, and fully responsible for what happens to us. God is dead and so is the meaning of life, which has to be revived again in each and every human life by each individual himself, and many fail.

This remarkable poem is one of the best expressions of these aspects of the Existentialist worldview, reminiscent of Edvard Munch’s painting ‘Scream’. Like all poems, it is untranslatable – and more difficult than most I have tried so far. I first decided to not translate it. Yet, I have decided to make a humble effort although it is far from satisfactory.

 

seene mein jalan, aankhon mein toofaan sa kyun hai

is shehr mein har shakhs pareshaan sa kyun hai

 

dil hai to dhadakne ka bahaana koi dhoonde

patthar ki tarah be-his-o-bejaan sa kyun hai

 

tanhai ki ye kaunsi manzil hai rafeeqon

ta-had-e-nazar ek bayabaan sa kyun hai

 

kya koi nai baat nazar aati hai hum mein

aaina humein dekh ke hairaan sa kyun hai

 

- Shahryar

Rendered beautifully by Suresh Wadkar and also shot interestingly : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyoKDxbbhIs

 

a burn in the chest, a storm in the eyes

an anxiety on each one’s face…why?

 

a heart there is, but it hasn’t a reason to throb

a stone it is, without feeling, without life…why?

 

a desert of loneliness we stand amidst, my friends

a desolate wilderness it is, till as far as the eye reaches…why?

 

do you find something different about me today?

for my mirror – stunned and stupefied it is, at my sight…why?

  

a burn in the chest, a storm in the eyes

an anxiety on each one’s face…why?

Desire

 

“I was ill last night. I could not sleep,” he said

the shock in her eyes, the urge in her body

she wishes she could act

with a concerned query

or a loving embrace

but little should be said

little should be done

for it is one thing to feel love

and quite another, to express it

the eyes express it

but the lips

they are bound

at times by age

at times by people

at times by conscience

the love lives as a hope

as a tear that flows from the eye

before one falls asleep, alone, again

and the dark night wipes it away

like many other impossible dreams

if only they could say, “I love you. I want to spend my life with you.”

the pangs of the world would fade away

the emptiness of the heart would be filled

living would be consummated

that is but an impossible dream

a hope from the days of youth

a desire from the moments of innocence

when unguarded, uninhibited, without a care they were

real life it isn’t…

the eyes are still eager

the body still keen

the dark night will wipe away the lonesome tear

and life will flow on

for not all buds in the garden were meant to bloom