After I posted my last entry, I settled on the couch to read this week's New Yorker and ran across an extraordinary poem that made me start thinking about REGRET. Here is the poem by Jack Gilbert:
For eleven years I have regretted it,
regretted that I did not do what
I wanted to do as I sat there those
four hours watching her die. I wanted
to crawl in among the machinery
and hold her in my arms, knowing
the elementary, leftover bit of her
mind would dimly recognize it was me
carrying her to where she was going.
After reading this poem, I thought about my last entry, about my enthusiasm for the Keirsey Temperament Sorter and I thought about why I am so taken with it. It is because of my fear of regret--that I will fail to do what I am supposed to do in this life.
Since I was a very young child, I pictured myself on my deathbed, thinking back over my life. The thing that I didn't want to happen is this: that I would be dying and full of regret.
The Keirsey Temperament Sorter, by showing me that my ways of perceiving the world are valid, gives me the courage to pursue many dreams and desires, including--especially-- my desire to write. This one desire is now asserting itself in the forefront of my consciousness. It is--more and more--how I'm choosing to define myself. As a WRITER.
Reading the Gilbert poem also reminded me of a poem I played for my workshop participants at Winter Wheat by Muriel Rukeyser, called "Waiting For Icarus." This poem is also about about regret. I wanted my participants to hear it--and in Rukeyer's own voice, too--because I wanted them to think about the metaphorical meanings we can associate with gods. Keirsey attributes a Greek god or goddess to each temperament type: Idealist=Apollo (prophecy; seeing hidden potential); Guardian=Demeter (providing); Rational=Prometheus (giving humans fire of reason); Artisan=Dionysus (shaking off sedentary ways; call to action.)
I chose Rukeyer's poem because it is about Icarus, who was not one of the four gods or goddesses my participants might be working with, and because the poem presents Icarus from a somewhat unusual perspective. In the poem, the speaker, a woman whose lover will not return to her, regrets her lack of opportunity, her lack of action:
Waiting for Icarus by Muriel Rukeyser (1913-1980)
He said he would be back and we'd drink wine together
He said that everything would be better than before
He said we were on the edge of a new relation
He said he would never again cringe before his father
He said that he was going to invent full-time
He said he loved me that going into me
He said was going into the world and the sky
He said all the buckles were very firm
He said the wax was the best wax
He said Wait for me here on the beach
He said Just don't cry
I remember the gulls and the waves
I remember the islands going dark on the sea
I remember the girls laughing
I remember they said he only wanted to get away from me
I remember mother saying : Inventors are like poets, a trashy lot
I remember she told me those who try out inventions are worse
I remember she added : Women who love such are the worst of all
I have been waiting all day, or perhaps longer.
I would have liked to try those wings myself.
It would have been better than this.
This poem of regret is similar to the first poem. In both cases, the speaker regrets inaction. In both cases, this inaction possibly results from societal expectations (i.e., "Don't make a scene" or "Women can't do that.")
Rukeyer's final lines never fail to ring in my ears: "I would have liked to try those wings myself/It would have been better than this."
My point is that the Keirsey Temperament Sorter gave me the courage to try the wings on, to attemt the improbable success--to write a novel; to write stories someone would want to publish and others would want to read.
I wasn't born with confidence--far from it. Confidence wasn't fostered in me at home, either. I had to find courage in other ways. The courage to try on the wings. Keirsey's book Please Understand Me II helped to give me this courage.
*Whereas my childhood guardians had often told me that I daydreamed too much, Keirsey pointed out that my primary mode of living is internal.
*Whereas I was told I was too sensitive, Keirsey said that I deal with things according to how I feel about them or how they fit into my personal value system.
*Whereas I was told that I worried too much about things I couldn't change, Keirsey showed me that my primary goal is to find out my meaning in life, my purpose, how I can best serve humanity, how I can make the world a better place.
"That's stupid," I hear in my mind, "That's not realistic," "That's a waste of time," "That's laziness--do some real work for a change," taunt the voices from the past. Yet Keirsey has shown me a different way to view myself. My goals are valid. Natural for me. I am okay. Keirsey's book has helped me along the path to individuation.
I realized after reading the Gilbert poem in the New Yorker that what my last entry lacked was my personal story. This book was not just a book about theory to me--it was part of my salvation.
2 comments:
Ah, that double-edged sword, sweet regret...
In my cocky youth, I used to say that regret was a wasted emotion. I saw older people around me awash in it and I thought how useless it must be to dwell on what might have been. But now, as I enter my "wise woman" stage (or am I being too presumptuous? maybe it's my wisER woman stage), I see how a judicious sprinkling of regret can lead us on to making better choices, and to celebrating what we do have.
Like most people, there is much in my life I can regret, but I am now trying to use that to my advantage. I try not to make the same mistake twice. I try to make appropriate choices. But most of all, I learn about who I am, what I am, and what is important in my life. Recently my father became very ill, and I sped 6,000 miles to his bedside without a backward thought. (He is now recovering.) In the past, my anxiety might have prevented me from going, might have held me at my work, afraid to "upset" my boss, my colleagues. Regret about having held back too much has spurred me on to action that is my best interest, and in the best interests of those I am close to.
No, regret is not wasted. Used wisely, it is invaluable and leads to salvation such as yours, Theresa...and mine.
Such powerful poetry. I do believe that self-acceptance is essential for any type of artist, and self-knowledge is the only way to gain that self-acceptance. I also think that the harshest regrets are over what we didn't do.
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