It is time to worry less and enjoy the immediate moment more, writes MARIE MURRAY
AMONG THE many recent wise reflections by one of our wisest, most charming and profound bards, Séamus Heaney, was his observation that when he relinquished the burden of any political agenda in his poetry he was freed to write lyric poetry, for which, he said, a degree of “insouciance” was required.
This suggested that there are different psychological dispositions required for different creative tasks if we just recognise them and embrace the mental space that comes our way.
The poetry that emerged from that time speaks to the veracity of the psychological liberation that the ideal of insouciant, carefree lyrical self-expression brings.
And out of Heaney’s words, perhaps, a new psychological concept and condition may be born: one which might be called “Acquired Insouciance” as a restorative, recuperative and transformative mental health strategy in the quest for psychological quiescence, constructive creativity, composure and emotional wellbeing.
There is no doubt that a level of insouciance is required for mental health. Too much intensity about ourselves, about our lives, the behaviour of other people, the condition of the economy, societal challenges, political situations or the state of the world can overwhelm the psyche with worries and concerns. This is happening to too many people at this time.
Of course it is difficult not to engage with the current economic climate when the reality of the problem invades the ordinary individual’s earnings, expenses and way of life. But for those who are lucky enough to be left with enough, there is purchase in becoming insouciant, in having the nerve and verve to confront the world with a new saucy light-hearted impudence that relishes freedom, that enjoys the liberty and licence of intellectual self-determination and that decides, at least for a while, not to engage with what can not be changed and to change how one uses one’s own personal time and mental space in the interim.
It is said that in crisis there is opportunity. In many instances this is so. Because when we relinquish hypervigilance about the present, anger about the past and worry for the future, we enter into the joy of a particular form of freedom: the capacity for insouciance and the consequent psychological enhancement of our lives.
Insouciance is not negative. It is not a careless carelessness. It is not relinquishment of appropriate responsibilities. It is not apathy, lethargy or indifference. It is not abandonment of real obligations. It is not disregard for others or lack of concern for the issues in the world. It is not neglectful nonchalance or a lack of a social conscience.
Insouciance is not decommissioning one’s role as worker, parent, family member, minder or provider. It is not dismissal of commitments already made. But it is a consideration of the level of serious intensity with which one lives one’s life and whether over-responsibility is necessary for the successful completion of one’s goals.
Goals can be achieved in joy as well as in graft and knowing how to do what is required to obtain them without requiring oneself to do unnecessary things is an art than can be acquired: acquired insouciance, the art of living.
Taking ourselves too seriously has long been understood as a negative approach to ourselves and others. It is a condition that lacks humour. It can place an unfair burden of personal responsibility on everyone around about everything that is happening. It is more than being dutiful: it is a form of hubris that suggests the universe will not survive without our presence and our involvement. Taking ourselves too seriously is not personally rewarding or psychologically healthy and it is almost always impositional on other people in its extreme form.
Often what we envy most about our former selves is the light-hearted unconcern of insouciant childhood times when we were neither aware of nor preoccupied with worries other than those in our immediate psychological orbit.
We remember a time when the weight of responsibility did not obstruct and when we worried less and enjoyed the immediate moment more.
Worry is not good for us. Insouciance is advised. Insouciance is an idea “whose time has come” and it is a level of equanimity that is needed now for psychologically health life. It is a strategy for today. It is a prescription for mental health. It is realistic, unselfconscious and freeing. It calms us, ignites our inventiveness and reassures the psyche that all will be well. A poetics of living: a philosophy of life.
mmurray@irishtimes.com Clinical psychologist and author Marie Murray is the director of the Student Counselling Services in UCD