Anna Scher, Learning, Pacifism and Depression

Anna Scher

I have just listened to Desert Island Discs. I love listening to DID; always have done so, and I know I have commented on this blog before about the competence and compassion of the current presenter.

Kirsty Young comes across as a thoughtful and empathetic person who puts her guests at ease and enables them to discuss some often painful experiences in their lives.

Today was no exception.

Her castaway this week was Anna Scher, a drama teacher who has incorporated a pacifist philosophy into her teaching, a women who seemed to have the real interests of her individual students at the forefront of her mind, a woman who wants young people to learn that their own glory and career is nothing in comparison with the need for a peaceful world order.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Scher_Theatre

She has had a string of successful students passing through her doors, and I am sure there are an equal amount of struggling thespians who have not hit the heights of the likes of Kathy Burke, for instance (who incidentally was on Marcus Brigstocke’s “I’ve Never Seen Star Wars” this week).

However, there have been successes and Anna Scher appears to be one of the reasons for these actors prosperity, in the widest sense of the term.

A theatre school is a strange place, I have always thought. The hoards of folk to emerge from the Sylvia Young School or the newer version of the Fame Academies all seem to have one thing in common; a complete belief in themselves. However, as I said before, we only hear about the successful ones, and some of them are clearly good enough actors to make us think that they have a total belief in themselves. There must be plenty who do not make it, and if they are not good enough at acting and have only really been trained to do that one thing from an early age, I wonder what happens to these young people and what sort of state of wellbeing they are in at the end of it.

This is an all too familiar theme. It is not really very different to the sort of schooling that Michael Gove is trying to create, i.e. that we expect our young people to be proficient in academic studies and those who do not make the grade, literally, are deemed as defunct, lesser people, failures – by the age of sixteen.

What a tragedy, what a criminal act of indifference, what an assault on the rights of each and every child.

What I found interesting about Anna Scher was her approach to teaching that seemed to have the child at the centre. She was, and is, concerned about preparing them with the skills of the trade but she also seemed to be equally determined to ensure that many of their other needs were met too. Her final track, for instance, was one that she uses at the end of lessons to ensure that the students depart on a high note with positive criticism from the peers.

“Compliments on your kiss” – Red Dragon.

That is precisely the sort of thing we ought to be complimenting people on; not just their ability to cram facts into their heads and regurgitate according to the doctrines of academia but to concentrate on the things that actually mean something to our young people, and adults alike.

“So, you have a Baccalaureate full of A stars but my, you can kiss!”

Which of those compliments would satisfy you the most?

Her starting point for every lesson was also upbeat, encouraging, willing. Her chosen record for this was “Brown Eyed Girl” by Van Morrison. I cannot remember her exact words but she said it was melodic, full and uplifting. It gave her students energy and vivacity.

That has to be a good way to start anything; a day, a lesson, whatever.

But the most striking thing about Anna Scher’s schools that appears to be different from other within the genre is her determination to insist that all students should partake in Peace Studies.

At one point, when she had had to take some time out of her role through illness, the governors of the school appointed a new principle or head teacher. With Anna out of the way, they disregarded this notion of peace lessons, claiming them to be unnecessary. This was theatre school and that is what they should be concentrating on, not this purple patch of pacifism. Where did that fit in to the greater goal of refurbishing the cast of Eastenders?

Anna Scher was resolute. She felt that the peace lessons were an absolute necessity and now she travels the world with her lessons, ensuring that people consider the words of people like Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King and that they don’t just listen to these great speeches but incorporate them into their lives, their thinking, their philosophy.

What Anna Scher seems to be saying is that whilst her aim is to support young people into the world of stage and screen, there has to be an underlying learning about the world too. There has to be, in any curriculum in any school, whatever their supposed primary purpose, the desire and function of educating children and young people to be empathetic whilst simultaneously developing their own passions, creativity and wellbeing.

Now that is an intelligent sort of approach to teaching and learning, in my opinion.

My final comment about Anna Scher is regarding her debilitating illness.

She suffers from depression.

She described its symptoms with horrifying accuracy. Anyone who has suffered from depression or has been close to someone with this illness may well have shuddered as she explained the lead weight that hangs around obtrusively, determining whether you will yourself out of bed or not. Anyone who has known depression will have empathised with what she said about how all-consuming depression can be, often without any obvious determining factor.

When there is a determining factor and the sufferer is faced with knowing what the cause is and the inability to do anything about it, then the depression can spiral into something deeper and more tragic, and it is only the person at the centre, the one who is suffering the illness itself that can draw themselves out of this void, though help from others is usually gratefully received.

Depression is awful.

And yet, in the most bizarre of ways, there is something that I personally find comforting about listening to others describing their experiences. It makes one feel less alone, for certain, but it is greater than that. It makes one realise that there are possibly some positives for those who are susceptible to this illness.

This may sound strange and hardly a comfort when you are at your lowest point, but I do wonder whether those who suffer from depression do so because their levels of empathy are such that they can see the problems of the world before many others have got up to draw the curtains.

I am not suggesting that all depression is the same and I am certainly not suggesting that all depressives are full of empathy. Sadly, that is one of the qualities that so frequently disappears with the onset of a bout of the illness but perhaps the incidents of depression in these cases are the body’s response to an overload of empathy!

Anna Scher appeared to be an extremely empathetic person who has episodes in her life where the extent of woes subsumes, so that for all her empathy and for all her self-knowledge, this illness creeps in and whacks her where it hurts the most.

There are many who suffer from depression who have plenty of knowledge of what to do when it comes upon them and yet still fall foul of its effects. It is not a simple illness and it cannot be eradicated or placated simply either.

We all hope that we can live in the now and accept our world and our ways and be demonstrative in doing something positive for the world and for ourselves, but sometimes, just sometimes, everything seems a little impossible.

And sometimes it is good to hear that successful, empathetic, creative and passionate people understand and experience that too.

So, back to Desert Island Discs. Robert Hardy next week. I hope that is not going to be a disappointment. I wonder if that particular thespian will demonstrate the kind of empathy and thoughtfulness that this week’s castaway has implied.

.................................................................................

William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)

                    When You Are Old

    WHEN you are old and gray and full of sleep,
    And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
    And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
    Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

    How many loved your moments of glad grace,
    And loved your beauty with love false or true,
    But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
    And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

    And bending down beside the glowing bars,
    Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
    And paced upon the mountains overhead
    And hid his face among a crowd of stars

Is Iran our new Armageddon?

Another brilliant and utterly terrifying piece of writing has appeared in the newspaper today.

Simon Jenkins ponders over the possibility of a strike against Iran and the implications for world peace, its similarity with the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the possibility of a complete world breakdown where all out war is declared between so-called Christian and Muslim countries.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/nov/03/america-itch-brawl-new-target-iran

The most terrifying thing of all is that this is not the ramblings of a mad pessimist with a “World is Ending” placard around his neck. This is something that could be a reality within a matter of months if the Hawks around the world thrash headlong into their tunnel of tyranny, oblivious to the fact that the total lack of democracy that they claim to be rescuing the world from is an inherent part of their own being.

In another article, Susannah Moore discusses the role of the occupation in establishing true democracy within our society, and she makes an obvious yet realistic point.

“Despite the million-long queue that was the anti-Iraq war demonstration, the politicians knew best and took us into battle”.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/nov/02/st-pauls-protesters-effective-organisation

But Jenkins makes a clear statement regarding the comparisons between Iraq and Iran. There are huge differences in the two countries and the regimes of governance. Iran is not Iraq, despite the foolish in the west thinking that because of the phonetic similarities they are one and the same bar the ‘notes’ and ‘queries’.

“Iran is not a one-man, two-bit dictatorship, but a nation of 70 million people, an ancient and proud civilisation with a developed civil society and a modicum of pluralist democracy”.  

 He continues to say that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

 “leads a country which, like Pakistan, Britain or Israel, craves status, prestige and a vague sense of security that these unusable weapons seem to convey”.

This is scary. This is entering into another paradigm completely, albeit veiled in the usual form, as Jenkins puts it.

This is how it would go.

“It is declared exclusively aerial, with missiles and unmanned drones deployed against nuclear and military targets. The airmen will promise, as they did in Belgrade, Baghdad and Benghazi, that bombing can do the job unaided. The enemy then digs in and fights back, the tempo of attack has to mount, and ground forces are sucked in.

We read that there are, as yet, no plans for a ground attack on Iran, though "a small number of special forces" may be required, as was required eventually in Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan. The mission will creep from wrecking Iran's nuclear capability to ensuring it cannot be rebuilt, and then to securing regime change and "freedom". We have been there so often before. The logic of war tends towards totality, without which no victory can be declared.”

Jenkins continues to say that every politician who is even beginning to contemplate such an attack should be locked in a room with paper clippings from the last decade of useless and futile fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan – to what purpose and what original intent?

He states that trying to prevent nuclear development in Iran is both futile and hypocritical. Why should a ten-a-penny nation such as the UK have the right to develop nuclear arms compared with a ten-a-penny nation of the same size and the same history of grandeur just because they are buddies with the big boys.

What is going to happen if China finally does decide to call the shots and fully embrace its position as the world’s most dominant country, supporting the Iran’s of this world in direct dissent to the old powers of the west? Has anybody considered this at all?

What worries me is that we are in a very precarious position with people cramming to retain the small amount of power that they have. The people in charge of nations are in a tenuous position and they want to make their mark. Look at the piffle that was spoken after Gaddafi’s death by a man so keen to make his mark on the world stage, emulating his predecessors without learning valuable lessons from their mistakes.

“I’m proud of the role that Britain has played in helping them to bring that about” stated our Prime Minister regarding the regime change in Libya, and then there was that excruciating self-congratulation when Sarkozy and Cameron went to Libya before the demise of the Colonel.

These men are struggling with power within their own country; one is the leader of a tenuous coalition, the other at the end of his presidency with decisions to be made as to whether he should continue for a second term in office. Wouldn’t a massive strike against the evils of the madman in Iran do them both rather nicely?

Of course, there is another man that is also seeking re-election, and this is a rather more sobering and worrying issue.

He bagged the ‘Big One’ earlier in the year by the US attack and eventual killing of Osama bin Laden but even that may not be enough to secure Obama a second term in office, according to the latest ratings. Meanwhile, the Republicans are chanting about their foreign policy at their various congresses pre-choosing the candidate to stand against the president. They want something big, and their over-open mouths are spouting the sort of fearful traits that Jenkins is commenting on in this article.

I am genuinely frightened.

Could Obama be that stupid, that desperate to maintain his reins on power, knowing that should he be successful, he could bring about considerable change with the mandate of a second term? Surely this man is too intelligent to madly pursue such an apocalyptic fight?

But then he is a leader of a nation; a nation whose citizens have little grasp of global politics, who elected and stood by the Reagan’s and the Bushes of this world, who resolutely believe that their way is the right way and all should comply, who have no understanding or interest in other cultures, whose empathy gene is sorely lacking.

Somehow, Obama and his spin doctors are going to be concerned about these people and what can possibly done to win them over, in order to get the election in the bag and thus be able to get on with the social change that they believe is necessary.

After all, “It’s the economy, stupid” as Big Boy Bill so rightly emphasised throughout his campaign to the White House. Americans, like us, are suffering at the moment, and despite the huge and mindless contradiction of spending money of warfare as opposed to welfare, our daft nations seem to accept this without thinking of the consequences both internationally and at home.

Every penny spent to blast a Taliban mound in an impenetrable wilderness is a penny taken away from young people in our schools or sick people requiring life-enhancing or life-saving treatment in our hospitals.

We are bombarded with news about how we are all facing economic catastrophe and still our politicians consider the expense and the stupidity of obliterating yet another nation with a blast of power in the hope that, in the longer term, they will all conform to this alleged process of democracy that seems to be working for us.

Guess what? It isn’t working. Refer back to the comment that Moore made about the march against the war. How did our so-called democracy work then? How does our so-called democracy work now when the majority of the people did not vote for the government that we currently have to endure?

Is this really what we want for other nations, all in name of oil, I mean making the world safe through getting nuclear weapons away from mad dictators?

I have a theory which Jenkins alluded to. Our nations feel as though they have been successful, although there are still soldiers being killed with infinite regularity in Afghanistan and all the Taliban have to do is hang in there until we are finally fed up of banging our heads against a brick wall just as the Russians did two decades before us.

‘We’ toppled Saddam. We got rid of Gaddafi. We killed bin Laden. We take the credit for the uprisings in Tahrir Square. We believe that it was ‘our’ intervention that made Egypt and Tunisia look towards a system change.

We think that Israel is reasonable because they have an elected parliament, all done properly according to the law of the western world.

We think, because of all of this, that we can get any change in any country that we like, without paying any attention whatsoever to the mess that is still happening daily in Afghanistan or the history of Korea and Vietnam.

And whilst pondering on the prospect of intervention, we have increased rates of child poverty within our own ‘fair’ society with money oozing out of every orifice to protect the Christian domination of the world whilst our hospitals, schools and services run down the drain through lack of forethought and investment.

Who the hell do we think we are?

Yes, it concerns me that Iran has weapons of mass destruction but no more than the concern that I have that Britain has them too. William Hague may have mellowed with age but a forcefulness of the ultra-right together with the highly feasible prospect of Obama being deposed in the US could easily send our foreign policy down an even more dangerous road than the one that so many opposed on the streets of London a decade ago.

And still nobody seems to mention the finances involved.

Recently, I was listening to an interview with one Simon Mann talking about the attempted coup in Equatorial Guinea. He has written a book about the events called “Cry Havoc” and there is a very interesting piece of writing in the Independent about this from earlier in the week.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/simon-mann-my-biggest-mistake-was-approaching-mark-thatcher-6255035.html

As I was listening to Mann, with his SAS history and his connections with Sat-Nav Savvy Mark Thatcher, I contemplated precisely how much our government knew about this regime change pursuit. Clandestine efforts to change the world don’t usually happen without major backing that would go well beyond Thatcher’s money. And if you read the article above, it certainly suggests that Downing Street knew plenty about Mann’s work and positively embraced his mercenary madness when it suited their needs.

We don’t get to hear about the work that goes behind the suggestions of invasions or regime changes in places like Iran but you can be sure that they are taking place, and it is only when there is a possibility or an inevitability of it happening that the powers that be start leaking the thought into the public domain to prepare them for the actuality.

This is what really scares me.

As some of the comments at the end of Jenkin’s piece suggest, this is very bad news indeed, and buried somewhere on page 41 of the paper is not where it should be.

But then there is so much going on in the world at the moment that a frightening futuristic piece is probably more than most people can bear.

Ignore this at our peril though.

We have seen that no amount of people marching through the streets of the capital will make the blindest bit of difference to a government who feel as though they have a legitimate mandate to govern, and for all the cries of injustice and for all the pleas to concentrate spending on affecting change in this country will fall on the deafest of ears if there is a glimmer of possibility that an all-out war would firmly place these old Etonians in the history books.

That is, of course, if there is a world left to read those books..... or kindles, indeed.

And all in the name of religion?

Life in a Day

I read the news today, oh boy. More holes in Blackburn, Lancashire.

More holes than the finance available to fill them.

More disasters, more horror.

No money, no jobs.

No hope?

The world is not a pleasant place right now. Not for me, probably not for you either.

And yet I refuse to give up.

Persistent little idealist that I am.

I have to believe that something good is going to happen soon and people around the world will realise the error of their combined ways and do something about injustice once and for all.

As I said, I’m a dreamer.

I cannot live without hope of improvement and a vision of a world where people finally realise that they need to respect one another, be honest with one another and stop all the unnecessary fighting, both globally and within our own little insignificant lives.

People say that they feel edgy; standing on the edge of a precipice. There’s excitement, anticipation and trepidation, intermingling together, concerned yet intrigued about the unknown. The trouble is one doesn’t know which direction the fall is going to go; down into the depths of despair or walking on a solid pathway further up the mountain to see the real wonderment of the world – the ultimate truth.

Every day, people live with this, though some still cannot see that they are on a pathway.

Every day people wake in the world and walk or talk or sit or stand and live their lives oblivious or engrossed in the world around them.

Every day, people live and we know nothing of their lives. We cannot even envisage what it must be like to be in another person’s mind.

We are all such individuals and yet we are simultaneously connected by an invisible thread that binds us together, only we choose too often to dislocate this, keeping ourselves to ourselves, unable to see that the thread needs strengthening and uniting if we are going to make the changes to the world that ought to happen.

Loving kindness is what is needed in this world. Compassionate economics, thoughtful politics, concern for oneself and others that are so significant in one’s lives, empathy for those we don’t even know.

And still we disregard at the ultimate expense of ourselves and our wellbeing.

It’s strange one this. The ego is vital and essential. If one is to live life to the full one has to look after oneself. There is some merit in thinking about yourself before all others. You are the only person who knows what you want, what you need and compromise can take so much of yourself.

Yet, the most selfish of people are missing the absolute benefit of giving.

Those people who followed the Thatcher vision of containment, thinking about their needs above all others, are so naive. If only they could lift their heads and see that if they truly value themselves above all, if they really want a truly contented life then they can only achieve this through the relationship and interconnection with others – known and unknown; through giving, through caring, through lovingkindness.

But of course, this is just my opinion.

I think about the most selfish moments in my life, and what have they actually given me? Yes, moments of brilliance in being free to do exactly what I want but ultimately, do they really provide the complete state of serenity that I want and need? Does selfishness really give me the same feeling of wholeness that I have when I am doing something for others?

I like giving. I selfishly like the feeling I have when a recipient values the things that I have done.

So perhaps I am no better than those whose aim is me, me, me.

In giving, I find me. I find myself.

Can we really live in a vacuum, oblivious to the lives and needs of others? Can we shut ourselves away and shield ourselves from the suffering of others? Can we switch the television off as soon as we see suffering and bloodshed? Can we ignore the plight of the many for the whims of the few?

Can we keep still and tunnel our minds without ever looking out and seeing the darkness in our world?

Can we keep still and tunnel our minds without ever looking out and seeing the lightness in our world either?

There’s a crack in everything – that’s where the light gets in.

If we are ever going to move on in life, we need to look and consider and empathise and wonder, and we simply do not do enough of this.

We walk away from the lives of others. We do not want to be witnessing things that we cannot cope with nor do anything about, and yet they are still happening.

Things unspoken don’t disappear. Feelings unmet do not vanish. Hurt remains.

And all we can do is turn away in the hope that they will diminish with time or a lottery win will take the pain away. We will give time and money and consideration as soon as we have more for ourselves. But do we actually do this when we do find ourselves with surplus to our need?

Last night, I watched a remarkable film about people throughout the world on a set day in 2010.

“Life in a Day” was an amalgamation of YouTube clips that had been carefully selected by an editing committee from the thousands sent in from around the world.

http://www.youtube.com/user/lifeinaday

They film looked at what was happening in peoples’ lives on a typical day in a year, in a lifetime, in our world.

The director Kevin Macdonald says that the film focuses on a single day because “a day is the temporal building block of human life – wherever you are”.

Us humans like sets. We like patterns and order. It makes us feel comfortable. Night follows day and so the pattern goes on, and whilst we live in this ordered chronology we are comforted by its sameness. So perhaps we don’t attempt to widen our sphere and look towards the lives of others.

We contain. We keep in our box. We live in our self-designed box after all.

But sometimes, we allow ourselves a glimpse at the outside world, to places that we are never likely to venture, into the lives of people that we are never likely to meet.

This film allows us to be voyeurs because that is what we are. We may think we want to be alone and isolated with just a few people around us as part of our lives but we are communicative animals by instinct. We want to see. We want to look and we want to think about what we have seen.

We want to touch and be touched by the lives of others.

If only we can be bothered to look, we can learn so much and gain some insight into the whole spectre of human potential.

The film looked at birth, at death, at suffering, at honesty, at amazement, at friends playing together, at peoples’ hopes. It said nothing and said everything. There was the unusual and the normal. There were lives lead with huge tragedies and complete chaos. There were lives lead where there were seemingly no real worries. There were people absorbing the wonderment of the world and there were others steeped in religious doctrines and rituals, unable to break free.

There were children learning and adults instructing. There was joy in the simplest of creations and bewilderment at the magnitude of the immense.

There, in this film, was life and yet.........

......... I wonder.

I wonder how many people watched this film and felt.

I wonder how many people watched this film and thought.

I wonder how many people watched this film and imagined.

Because in order to live fully, these three things are what we should be doing, and we should be mindful of when we are doing them and what affect it has upon us and upon others.

How many people felt a spirituality in watching? How many people could even begin to explain what this feeling was? Did it need explaining?

How many people live their daily lives with spiritual intelligence in mind?

How many people watched this film and thought that there is a glimmer of hope in this hopeless world of ours? There may be no money to fill those holes in Blackburn but is that really the most important thing in our lives?

I watched and was fascinated. I’m probably a bit of an anthropologist at heart. I am certainly a voyeur by choice. I like people and humankind, even if many of them are fuckwits.

Yes, I did feel a spiritual wellbeing in looking at the lives of others. I felt uplifted and enlightened.

Some of it was a little tedious and there were times when I wanted to turn away but in the main, it was a good film to consider and think and imagine and feel.

So what was I doing on 24^th July 2010? What would I have been able to contribute had I had my wits about me? Was I thinking, feeling, imagining on that day? Was I using my head and hand and hearts?

I woke early. I drove to the beach; a strange place at the end of a dilapidated council estate.

The sun was urging its way through the clouds. I stepped onto the sand and looked at the strange vista in front of me; open sea brushing its way towards me, a natural beauty smothered by industrial necessity. To my right was a city emerging from the mellow hills, sitting alongside a harbour, waiting to spring to life. To my left was a vast steelworks, billowing out white clouds and transparent gases that may or may not have been invading my lungs.

I was alone, despite the two beach cleaners operating some large and monstrous yellow machine that was whipping up the collected flotsam and jetsam.

I was alone and contented whilst missing loved ones.

I sat down in a cafe on another beach, eating breakfast with my children.

I sat on a beach reflecting, writing, thinking, wondering.

I sat in a chair emailing, loving, wishing.

Saturday 24^th July 2010, I was happy. I was loved. I was giving and I received so very much.

How many people in that film can say the same? And what would they say now? Were they in the same place on Sunday 24^th July 2011? Are they and I as loved? How had their lives been changed and shaped during the succession from one day to the other? How was the wider world coping? Was there any further progress towards that eradication of injustice that I hold so passionately?

And what of 24^th July 2012 and years after that?

I read the news today, oh boy.

It’s not good.

Greece is in turmoil with indecision and that ever-obvious procrastination of the depressed. There is worldwide symbolic demonstration about the inequity of life. There is global monopoly to protect the monied. There are selfish governments thinking only of themselves and their retention of power.

There’s wars in abundance – to the point that they rarely get mentioned these days. There is a bubble of angst bursting forth in Syria. Have we forgotten this country because their leaders are not as well known as the Gaddafi’s?

There’s a pathetic inability of our leaders to act intelligently to make this world of ours a better place.

But there’s also hope. The people in that film live their lives in all manner of impoverishment. As do so many of us.

But we still go on and we resolutely refuse to give up on the idea that crack of light will eventually become a pool of utter brilliance and the ultimate truth of human kindness will prevail.

As I said, I am a dreamer.