FAITH

This is a photo that I took on a recent holiday in St.Ives, Cornwall. It’s in Falmouth, looking seaward. I found myself with a mixture of reactions. One was to be struck by the beauty. Sea, rocks, open air, blue skies and, at least there, no Covid. (A good enough reason to be there!) But along with this was a sense of anxiety or trepidation. It was so big! This wasn’t a quiet harbour within sight of houses, people, civilisation. With a fish and chip shop a few hundred yards away. This, it seemed to me, was Eternity .Or at least one image of it. Open, boundless, seemingly infinite and self contained. It was totally oblivious to me or my responses. I could make no more impression on this scene that fly to the moon unaided. As Thoreau put it “We need the tonic of wildness… At the same time that we are earnest to explore. and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable…” The sea always seems to me to so many things at once. In much the same way that Aslan was not a tame lion, so with the sea. It is not a tame creature. Whilst we were down there we had ample opportunity to witness the sea being frightening and awesome as well as calm and tranquil. It’s a salutary experience to watch a storm hitting the sea and watch the comfortable scene of yesterday turn into something much more formidable.

When I was thinking of the title for this piece, I was going to call it “Vision” because that’s the heart of this blog. But on consideration it seemed to me that Faith was more apt. A New Testament writer described faith as “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Heb. 13:8 KJV) That seems to fit with Vision. (And as another biblical writer put it “without a vision, the people perish” (Prov.29:18))

I recently read a novel by Isaac Asimov “The Naked Sun” in which an earthbound detective Elijah Baley is summoned to the planet Solaris to investigate a murder. Baley’s own planet is hugely overpopulated with almost no space unoccupied. Solaris is just the opposite. Huge areas are under populated. Baley has to struggle with his agoraphobia on Solaris. Being able to see the sky, open spaces, landscapes free of people frequently overwhelms him. Eventually he learns to appreciate the value of this kind of landscape-as well as solving the mysterious murders.

It is this novel that, for me, links Faith, the seascape and Vision. One of the hallmarks of good psychotherapy is that it invites us to explore our inner landscapes. To risk a new vision that might threaten to overwhelm us but which, with courage, might allow us to enjoy a new perspective. One that we had previously avoided. This risk is not confined to the therapy room. It’s the measure of our courage. To live with new landscapes and find a way of Being in them. This demands of us both faith and Vision.

Therapy as prayer

One of the things that I enjoy about writing a blog is choosing an image to complement the writing. Usually I type in my title and scroll through the various images and add my blog. This one proved more difficult. To the extent that it’s taken me 24 hours to understand what image I wanted. Initially I Googled “Therapy as Prayer” and was presented with an array of pictures. None of which I liked. People at prayer. Prayers to overcome being Gay. Prayers to help fight cancer. All a sorts of therapeutic uses of prayer, I suppose. But not one that conveyed my view of both therapy and prayer. Nor one that conveyed my idea of therapy as prayer. Then I was sitting in my car waiting for my wife to finish shopping, thinking of nothing in particular when it dawned on me. I knew the image! It was a sunrise. This conveyed my responses to both ideas- prayer and therapy.

Both prayer and therapy are, for me, about openness. Being open to the Light – with all the risks, excitements, disappointments that go with Being in the Light. I grew up in a religious culture that emphasised what I think of as “Slot machine prayer”. I put my prayer penny in the slot, wait a bit and then collect my gift. I may not always like the gift, but my penny will always win a prize of some kind. There is a danger that therapy can become the same. “Anxiety? Put your money in this slot and out will pop a solution.” Depression? The same. Anger? Ditto. Neither of these constitute the real work of prayer or therapy. To quote Mahatma Gandhi “Prayer is not asking. It is the longing of the soul… better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without a heart.” One could substitute “therapy” for prayer. To borrow again from another thinker, the psychotherapist Carl Rogers said “In my early professional years I was asking myself the question: How can I treat, or cure, or change this person? Now I would phrase the question in the way: How can I provide a relationship which this person may use for his own personal growth?”

Gandhi and Rogers both understood something about our relationship with ourselves and the Other. Both prayer and therapy are about what happens when we bring our whole selves into a relationship where we can freely think, explore, muse, play… the list of possibilities is long. And such a relationship is risky. When I sit to pray, I can’t know where that praying will take me. Who or what will I discover about myself and God. (And vice versa.) The same is true in therapy. When I sit down with my therapist, I can’t know where we will visit. (Nor does he! That’s the risk and the pleasure.)

This is a blog, not an essay the links between prayer and therapy. But I have much more that I want to share, so more blogs will follow. Come with me on a journey into the Other.

Jacob and his angel

I’ve always enjoyed the story of Jacob and his Angel. It speaks of a tenacity on Jacob’s part and a wish to forge a different identity for himself. His birth name is Jacob, meaning to follow or, less flattering, heel grabber! After his wresting match he becomes Israel – one who contends, who fights. (Which has resonances for the work of therapy. It takes energy and tenacity!)

In the Genesis story Jacob and his camp have settled down for the night en route to Canaan. Jacob leaves the camp and goes off by himself to a quiet place. (Not surprising given the size of his entourage.) Whilst here he encounters an Angel. Or possibly not an angel. The identity of Jacob’s opponent is unclear. From the Old Testament perspective we have three choices – an Angel, God or a man. In biblical terms there is a clear hierarchy. God sits at the top, angels next, followed by Man. It seems to me that what is being described in this story is Jacob’s struggle to find an identity. To forge a different name. (Which is one way of thinking about the struggle in therapy, a way to try to answer the question “Who am I?)

That there is this uncertainty over who or what Jacob is wrestling. In therapy we are always working with different aspects of our personality, and here, Jacob is wrestling with all that he is. The divine, the angelic and the mortal. (As ever Shakespeare put it so well in his speech in Hamlet where the prince muses “What is this quintessence of dust?”)

In Jacob we have the story of a man who wants an honourable name. He begins as a usurper and ends as a fighter. A man who has earned the right to a new name and a new identity. A good outcome that was hard won by a man who knew the value of a name. And the identity that goes with it.

Women and Men

Image courtesy of National Geographic

In his novel “The Rainbow” D.H.Lawrence describes the relationship between the Brangwen men and their women thus “The woman was the symbol for that further life which comprised religion and love and morality. The men placed in her hands their own conscience, they said to her “Be my conscience-keeper, be the angel at the doorway guarding my outgoing and my incoming.” 

In psychoanalytic language, we might say that the woman was asked to contain the man. In much the same way as she would contain a baby. She would carry it inside herself until it was time to be born and start a separate life. She is asked to hold it safely.(An act that always seems to me to be both “mundane” and miraculous.)

In my last blog I quoted Louis MacNiece’s poem “Prayer before Birth” in which an unborn baby asks to be protected from all manner of assaults from within and without. It seems to me that the Brangwen men were asking the same of their women. To be held. Contained. Kept safe.

I was a psychiatric nurse for many years and thus involved in many different expressions of “Containment.” At best an admission to a ward was an admission to somewhere safe. A place of sanctuary. For many of our patines it was just this. They knew the ward, the staff, and other patients. It was often a better “home from home” than the one they had left. For other patients, who were more disturbed, the containment was much more physical. High doses of anti psychotic medication along with being placed in a seclusion room. This was only used if the patient had lost all ability or will to “Self contain.” It served a necessary purpose of keeping them and others safe from what were often terrifying inner worlds. Stelazine and Largactil were not pleasant but they were better choices than suicide or murder.

As a therapist I no longer seee patients with this level of disturbance. (Although on occasion I miss the security of a panic button! Fortunately this level of disturbance is rare!) But I am still required to hold and contain my patients. To help them to hold themselves together in the face of an inner world that can be almost as damaged as that of my psychiatric patients. Almost as damaged. (If they were this damaged I would not be seeing them. For their sake and mine.) So, how do I contain my patients? In a variety of ways. Sometimes simply by being willing to sit in the same room as them for fifty minutes and listen while they tell their story in their own way. (No two people tell their story in the same way-regardless of any clinical diagnosis.) Sometimes by actively pointing out the impact they are having on me in that session. Sometimes by working with their dreams (“The royal road to the unconscious” according to Freud.) Endless books have been written on this topic and I have no need to add to them! The central point is to act as a container for their “unborn selves”. A kind of psychological midwife. It’s exhausting. Exciting.Rewarding. Terrifying. Daunting. Painful.Like sny birth.

I can’t think of any better way to finish this blog than with the opening quote from D.H.Lawrence.“The woman was the symbol for that further life which comprised religion and love and morality. The men placed in her hands their own conscience, they said to her “Be my conscience-keeper, be the angel at the doorway guarding my outgoing and my incoming.” 

Unanswered questions

Image courtesy of Paa Kwesi Forson

One of my favourite writers is the late Robert B. Parker who wrote some of the best pulp fiction I know. (He was also a Professor of English literature at North Eastern University and wore his genius lightly!) His main character is a private eye called Spenser and his companion in arms, Hawk. They spend their time asking all those unanswered questions that people do, and don’t, want answering. Some of the time he will ask questions on behalf of his client. Sometimes he will ask questions because “Truth” demands it. Sometimes the two are compatible. Sometimes not. I suppose the maxim “To thine own self be true.” could have been written for him. (And many another!)

I’m nearly at the end of yet another reading of a Spenser novel “Back Story” (No Exit Press: 2003) about an investigation into a murder that took place nearly 30 years beforehand. In this case the request comes from Spenser’s adopted son, Paul, on behalf of his current girlfriend. She has a story about her idyllic childhood that was cut short when her mother was killed in a bank robbery. Her hope is that if the killer can be found, she will have closure. So Spenser agrees to do what he can. Inevitably this means that he discovers that the girl’s past was far from idyllic. Equally inevitably, he will follow the unravelling story to its end. Almost regardless of how much emotional, and physical, mayhem he leaves behind him. But, as Susan Silverman, Spenser’s “significant other” and a psychotherapist puts it “You have no way to know until you get to the end, what the end is going to be.”

The chart above is more commonly used with physical pain but could just as well be used with psychic pain. I was recently asked to describe what it was that I do as a psychotherapist. “How do you work?” I was asked. I could have launched into a long and technical description involving the role of the id, the ego and the super ego. From there I could have moved on to the idea of object relations theory and concluded with a tour of transference and counter transference phenomena. This might have impressed him. But I doubt it. My reply was to quote Freud’s dictum that the point of psychoanalysis is to change neurotic misery into ordinary unhappiness. The caller laughed and we arranged a first meeting.

To return to Spenser. In “Back Story” Spenser says to someone “Do you know who I am?” “Sure” comes the reply. “You’re the guy who asks all the unanswered questions.” He might have added “And all the unasked questions.” That sums up my work. I try to ask all the unanswered questions along with all the unasked ones. I ask these questions as an equivalent to the pain chart above. They help me find the what the psychoanalyst Bob Hinshelwood described as ‘the point of maximum pain.” When we know what this might be, the way is clearer to begin work on pain relief and healing. Wherever that might take both of us.

No Fixed Abode

I recently revisited the Barbara Hepworth sculpture garden in St. Ives. And, as usual, was delighted by it. Whilst I find her work intellectually challenging, if I simply allow myself to respond to it instinctively I can make sense of them. Which is, of course, exactly how I work as a therapist. My patient comes to see me. I listen. As much intuitively as intellectually. In time my listening is processed and I can formulate a thought. A tentative suggestion. The psychoanalyst Wilfred Bion came up with a classic comment about a clinical work. His maxim was that one should approach a session with neither memory or desire. (A maxim that has made my life much simpler at times!) It’s very easy when presented with a “diagnosis” to jump to assumptions. Better to meet the person and worry about diagnostic labels later.

So, to return to Hepworth. I was looking at the sculpture in the picture and trying to respond to its complexity. I love its fluidity and sensuality. Its sense of motion. (It was Goethe who said that architecture is frozen music. The Hepworth piece fits that so well.) For this blog I looked up a definition of a Mobus strip. Wikipedia told me that it is “… a one sided nonorientable surface obtained by cutting a closed band into a single strip.” Which is a perfectly accurate physical description of the thing. I could describe Hepworth’s piece in similar terms. And fail to miss the meaning of it. (Or at least the shared meaning we created that morning in her garden.)

One of the things that delights me about this sculpture is its solidness yet its fragility. It’s a relatively small piece which sits happily on a plinth. Unlike some of her more monumental pieces which are the size of trees. I like this mix in her work. I was reminded of the lines in T.S.Eliot’s poem Four Quartets.

“We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time”

The work of psychotherapy is so often to bring the patient back to their beginning and allow them to know it for the very first time.Which brings us back to Hepworth’s piece which is about Endings and Beginnings. And of knowing where we come from and where we belong. Hence the title of this blog. As Mary Angelo put it “If you don’t know where you’ve come from, you don’t know where you’re going.”

The root of our word “hysteria” has its roots in the Greek idea of a “floating womb”. The sense that women, in particular, had no fixed centre and were prone to emotional ills. It still is a good metaphor – if bad physiology – for a sense of uncentredness. And thus a proneness to emotional disturbance. This uncentredness is not unique to women – despite the view of the Greeks. I see many ”hysterical” men as well. A lack of a stable core is not a gender specific issue!

I shall follow up some of these ideas in the next blog. Meanwhile, please feel free to comment on this piece and any other of my blogs.

Light and Shadow

“Filling the conscious mind with ideal conceptions is a characteristic of Western philosophy, but not the confrontation with the shadow and the world of darkness. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light , but by making the darkness conscious.” (Carl Jung)

The two pictures above play with this idea of Light and Shade. The National Galley in London has been running an exhibition on Leonardo da Vinci’s painting “Virgin of the Rocks”. It was a delight. I wish I’d gone sooner than I did. But I went in the end! The two figures are the same head with different lighting. It is an interactive part of the display where one can control the amount of light shining in the booths. It picks up on one of the central themes about Light and Shadow. (You can see why this interests me as a psychotherapist!) The exhibition has a quotes from Da Vinci writ large on one of the walls. It says “He who avoids shadow avoids what is the glory of art.” I wanted to change it to “He who denies shadow avoids what is the glory of humanness”. 

Freud observed that the point of psychoanalysis is to make conscious the unconscious. Jung suggested that “One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making darkness conscious.” The work of therapy isn’t necessarily to make us happy. It is to make us conscious. Or as Freud so cheerfully put it “To turn neurotic misery into ordinary unhappiness.” Having spent many years of my life trying be Good and a Christian and to allow that I might be “a miserable sinner”, it is now a great relief to simply get on with being Human. One of my many difficulties with Christianity was that I never could see myself as a Sinner. (And, mostly, not as a miserable one!) I always found this a most unhelpful idea. Particularly when working in mental health where so many of our patients were already feeling beaten and persecuted by Life. To then come along and pronounce them “Sinners” always seemed at best unhelpful. At worst, cruel.

So, where does this link with Da Vinci and the lovely exhibition of his painting? Simply the awareness of the value of both light and shadow. It is not possible to have one without the other. Light gives Shadow. Shadow gives Light. The interactive heads are fascinating because as one changes the light, so the head appears different. As the light increases or decreases, aspects of the head change. As does its shadow. It is one of the challenging elements of the work of therapy. We all enjoy hearing about our generous, healthy, loving side. We less enjoy hearing about our greed, our rage, our hatred. Yet the task of a therapist is to bring to our patients’ awareness both sides of their personality. (It’s one of the reasons why, as therapists, we all have to have had our own time in therapy. It can be painful, distressing, liberating, healing, but in any event, absolutely essential!)

I recently quoted the pilgrim father, John Robinson’s words to one of my patients. We were reflecting on the work they have so far done in their therapy with me. Robinson said, of the Bible: “the Lord hath more light and truth to break forth from His holy word.” I commented that this seemed like a good description of our work together and of our future work. They agreed. 

If I had a glass in my hand I would now propose a toast “To Light and Shade!”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Eeyore and the Psychiatrist

After a very long wait, Eeyore finally had an appointment to see a psychiatrist about his depression. (He didn’t know he was depressed. He thought he was just Eeyore. And Eeyores are prone to be a bit gloomy. 

But Pooh, Christopher Robin and Owl had all decided that he was more than a bit gloomy. 

“We all have gloomy days. Even me.” said Christopher Robin. 

“And me.” said Pooh. “But I just hum a happy hum and I feel better. Of course, hunny helps as well.”

“I don’t think Eeyores eat honey” said Eeyore. “But thank you for thinking of me. Not many people do.“ 

Christopher Robin nodded. “That’s just why we think seeing a psychiatrist would help you. He could help you think positive thoughts.” he said with a smile.

“Why would I want to do that?” asked Eeyore. 

“Because… because… because…“ tried Pooh.

“Because people who think positive thoughts live longer. It’s a well known scientific fact.” said Owl.

“No one ever told me about that.” grumbled Eeyore. “I can’t change how I think. Besides, I wouldn’t recognise me if I thought differently. I wouldn’t be me anymore. I’d be somebody else. And I don’t want to be somebody else.”

Owl sighed. This wasn’t going as he had anticipated. He thought Eeyore would have been pleased to be taught to think differently, to think positive thoughts not negative ones, to see that his glass was half full, not half empty. He’d said this once.

“But Eeyores don’t use glasses. Hooves aren’t made for holding things like that. Besides,” Eeyore continued, “knowing me I’d probably drop it and it would break. Then there’d be no glass at all.”

Owl thought explaining that the glass was a metaphor. But wisely said nothing. Simply nodded.

So it was that our friends arrived at the hospital with an appointment to see Doctor Sajiv. After nearly an hour’s wait they were collected by the doctor who apologised to them and explained all about government budget cuts, poor staffing levels and the dire state of the NHS. 

“But never mind all that. Which one of you is called ‘Eeyore’? You young man?” he looked hopefully at Christopher Robin.

“No. It’s my friend here who’s Eeyore” smiled Christopher Robin, “We think he’s depressed and want you to make him better. Please.” 

So Eeyore and Christopher Robin followed the doctor. Down a long windowless corridor until they came into a small windowless room.

Eeyore was shaking his head in a worried fashion.

“Can we go back, now, Christopher Robin? I’m worried that somebody might steal my home whilst I’m here. I know it’s not much of a home, but it’s the only one I’ve got. And I’d hate to lose it.”

Christopher Robin was about to ‘Say Something’ about Eeyore being anxious but wisely didn’t. 

Instead he said “Don’t worry Eeyore, I’ve asked everyone to go round and look after it for you.”

“Oh.” said Eeyore uncertainly. “I do hope they’ll look after it. It may only be a pile of sticks to some people, but to me it’s my home. And I should hate to have to build another one.”

Before Christopher Robin could answer, Dr Sajiv had moved some books and papers off two chairs and invited them to sit down, which Christopher Robin did. Eeyore just stood where he was. (Didn’t this doctor know that Eeyores aren’t built to sit in chairs? For a clever man, he thought, he’s not very bright. But being a well mannered creature he said nothing, but stood quietly, waiting to see what would happen next).

“So tell me, Eeyore, how are you” asked the doctor.

“Not very.” replied Eeyore

“Not very what?” asked a slightly puzzled Doctor.

“Not very how” replied Eeyore. “Not very how at all.”

After 50 minutes Dr Sajiv cleared his throat, looked at Christopher Robin and Eeyore and shook his head. ”I don’t think CBT will be of much help. Have you tried your local vet?”

Eeyore goes to Therapy

It was a lovely day in the Hundred acre wood. Pooh Bear was strolling along humming a happy tune. Tigger was being extra bouncy and even Piglet was managing to be braver than usual. Everyone is happy. Well, almost everyone. Eeyore is his usual melancholy self. Pooh wanders across to say “Hello” to him. 

 Pooh smiled his best Happy Smile

“”Hello Eeyore. I just came across to say “Good morning”

“Really. I doubt that. Something will come along and spoil things. Always happens.’ Eeyore was not going to be so easily persuaded.

“Oh!” said Pooh. not expecting this response from his gloomy friend. “Oh!”  And having no better idea about what else to say, he wandered off leaving Eeyore sitting under his own big, black cloud. 

The next person Pooh bumped into was his friend Christopher Robin.

“Hello Pooh” he said cheerily. “Isn’t this a splendid morning. It make you glad to be alive, don’t you agree?”

“Oh yes” said Pooh. And paused. He frowned, which was an unusual thing for a bear of little brain.

“What’s wrong, Pooh?” asked Christopher Robin. You ;look very serious.”

“Do I? I suppose I was thinking…”

“Thinking…” echoed Christopher Robin.

“Yes.” said Pooh slowly. “Thinking…”

“Thinking…” echoed Christopher Robin. (Christopher Robin had done a counselling course. In it they told him that “reflecting back” was a Very Good Thing. “It tells your patient that you are listening to them. but without imposing your own agenda on them..”  His tutor had constantly told them. So Christopher robin was delighted at this chance to use his new skill  on his Friend.

“What were you thinking about?” enquired Christopher Robin after Pooh had said nothing for quite a long time. 

“Honey” said Pooh.

“Honey.…” echoed Christopher Robin.

“Yes. honey, but before that, i was thinking about Eeyore. 

“Eeyore…” echoed Christopher Robin. 

“Christopher Robin, stop repeating everything I say. You sound like the cave where the heffalumps live.”

“Where the… “began  Christopher Robin. But he had the good sense to stop himself. Instead he asked “What were you thinking about Eeyore?”

“I’m worried about him. He never seems happy. Bad things always seem to happen to him. He loses his tail, his house  is blown away, Tigger always jumps out at him and scares him.And if I say to him ‘How are you, Eeyore?” He just shakes his head and says “Not very how.. I don’t seem to have felt at all how for a long time.” 

Christopher Robin thought for a moment. quite a long moment. Then “I think we should talk to Owl. He knows about thee things.”  Which is how Christopher Robin and Pooh went to Owl to ask about their friend Eeyore. 

And what happened next is another story for another time. But it involves EEyore going to see a psychiatrist and learning all about CBT. But that’s a story for another time.

Joker- Who am I?

Flickr.com; AntMan3001, all rights reserved.

Joker is born into a mad world. The film’s opening scenes show us Arthur Fleck (aka “Joker”) hitting his head on the glass window of a seclusion room in Arkham Asylum

Arkham Asylum. The outside world is just as crazy, with rubbish piling up on the streets due to a strike by dustmen and a feeling that Gotham is on the edge of collapse. Rather like Arthur who appears only moments away from a collapse back into psychosis.

At one point Fleck comments that he felt safer in the asylum than outside. It’s a view I heard and saw expressed frequently during my career as a Psychiatric nurse.And why not? Three meals a day. A warm ward. A safe seclusion room if things got too bad. Regular medication and, hopefully, a sympathetic nurse to talk with about your life. Along with clear rules and an established code of conduct. All psychiatric units have two codes of conduct. the official one and the unspoken unofficial one. Both shape daily life in a hospital ward.

We see Arthur post discharge, being “supported” by an overworked therapist who is approaching burn out. How many Arthurs does she have on her list? And what is she supposed to do with them or for them? In the end even this tenuous help line proves unreliable as she tells Arthur that this service is being withdrawn. Arthur’s only reaction is to ask “Where will I get my prescription now?” As if there was no therapeutic alliance between him and his therapist. She was simply a way of getting his seven different medications.

In their book “Joker. A serious study of the Clown Prince of Crime” , Peaslee and Weiner observe that “The Joker is a force looking to inflict pain and suffering on others in order to understand something about himself.” A fascinating idea which the writers don’t entirely explain. What is it about himself that he is hoping to understand. (If he even knows.)

I suggest it’s about power and potency. In the film “Network” Sidney Lumay gives his impassioned call “We’re mad as Hell and we’re not going to take it any more.” This might have been said by Joker who, in the 2019 film is more a victim than a perpetrator – at least initially. He is mugged snd beaten up by a group of teenagers, threatened and bullied at work and assaulted on a train when he tries to protect a woman being harassed by some business men. (This is one of the trigger points when Arthur Fleck begins to morph into Joker and showing how potent a disaffected and disenfranchised clown can become. This clown’s gun shoots real bullets that kill real people. His is not a toy gun that shoots out a flag saying “Bang!)

The origin of the word “Potent” is intriguing. As well as links to “power” and “might” it has links to the idea of a bridegroom. We might see Joker as the groom of Chaos and the riots that he triggers in Gotham City as his wedding feast. As Charlie Chaplin said “To truly laugh you must be able to take your pain and play with it.” Joker certainly takes his pain and plays with it. And invites Gotham to join his dance. Jack Nicholson’s Joker asks Bruce Wayne “You ever dance with the devil in the pale moonlight?” In the clown riot in Todd Phillips’ version there is certainly a demonic dance as huge numbers of masked clowns rampage through the city. Looting, burning shops, assaulting fellow Gothamites. and generally expressing a certain kind of potency. Albeit of a thoroughly destructive kind. (But we might wonder how the Wayne Empire made its money. We might assume they engaged in a certain amount of destruction – although “white collar” destruction on the Stock Market rather than Gotham’s streets)

So, how to finish this blog with still so much I want to say? But it’s a blog and not a scholarly paper nor a (possible) best seller. So, I’ll end with one of the pieces of music from Joker, which sums up his life so well.