A basis for safety and security

Six times now I have revived memories in the story line. My experience is the most valuable of my posessions and analysing them has helped me greatly, as could be expected. I find myself now in a different relation to my parents than ten or twenty years ago. I find myself also in a different relation particularly to myself. I am no longer emotionally dependent on my parents, they are no longer predominantly normative to me. I have more distance, look at them from a more realistic perspective, respect and understand their actions. I have the feeling of standing in the world on my own feet and I think that I have found my basis.
The road seems to be free now for other subjects and stories which want to take shape in this line. From now on I shall pursue a slightly different course. Each time I'll take a theme as a starting-point and will clarify it with examples. I'll look for the examples in well-known events or people and will place my own experiences alongside. A slightly different form which offers wider possibilities.

At the outset the subject of this zine should have been the foundation itself, the ground upon which a person stands, the subjective certainty and stability which an individual needs in his handling of flux in his environment. The strength of the basis of an event or process shows the result of inner activity, reveals to what extent one has been able to face and digest one's negative experiences and capacities, has learned to transpose them into emotional stability. That subjective strength I think is constitutive for the consistency of the process. Subsequently the question could be how a person constructs such a basis.
In order to be able to deal with this subject I must start at the point at which the confrontation of a function (one of the instruments which any process has at its disposal and itself a process) with the continuous flux of the outer world takes place and where the measure of stability of the inner basis will come out. That point is the beginning or making contact with the world. There one encounters events which give rise to comparing and interpreting, about which one has to communicate with others. Thus we come to an aid which humanity has developed for handling this unceasing flux in the world. In the contact with the environment it's necessary to compare differences and give meaning (thinking), to communicate (speech, etc.) and for exchange, trade and transport to take place. The pre-eminent means for making contact with people and things is language.
I want to approach the contact with the world and its point of stability in different ways and in small bits by means of language, the instrument of communication.
I want, as I did before, to take Albert Einstein as an example.
 

Being estranged from oneself: excluding the other

'Conditions of Conduct

1. You will ensure,
   1 - that my clothes and underwear are kept in good order.
   2 - that I get the three meals dished up in the room properly.
   3 - that my bedroom and study are kept in good order all the time, and especially that the writing-table is at my disposal exclusively.
2. You renounce all personal relationship with me, in so far as it is not absolutely necessary for social reasons. You renounce,
   1 - that I'll have to sit with you at home.
   2 - that I go out or travel with you.
3. You are emphatically obliged to respect the following points in your relations with me:
   1 - You shall not expect from me any tenderness nor make any reproaches.
   2 - You must finish speaking to me immediately when I request it.
   3 - You must leave my bedroom or my study immediately without objection when I request it.
4. You are obliged not to humiliate me in the eyes of my children, either by words or by action.'

This text [ source ] was written in the spring of 1914 by Albert Einstein, when they had just taken up residence in Berlin, in order to clarify the relationship with his wife, Mileva Maric. She leaves Germany with her two sons on July 29.
A sour image of a blunt manner of banishing someone from your environment, to actually drive someone away. The relationship was based, as seen from his point of view, apparently not on equality, the text does not bear testimony to respect. Albert and Mileva got acquainted in Zürich where they both studied at the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule [ note ]. Albert, as it appears, already had his eye on another relationship (with his cousin Elsa). He may have sensed that Mileva expected interaction from him which he was unable to give.

What kind of a man was Einstein really? How was he as a man with women, which obligations balanced his claimed right to act the way he did? He clearly puts himself central, but from which (obliging) relation with his environment, with the world, can that be justified?
I'll first put some pieces of information from his birth-chart in order.
 

One axis of making contact and one of inner stability

Link to
complex network 3, the dynamics of coherence and contrast - structure #36/10.
 

The hypothetic parts.
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disposal individually are:

1. the function MARS (starting point of the 1st phase which incidentally is empty) uses the CAPRICORN-pattern with its counterpart, the attractor or tempter, the 7th phase (empty) with the colouring of the fourth sign CANCER;
   perpendicular to that is the 10th phase (zenith, top or culminating point) (empty) which is coloured by the seventh sign LIBRA and the 4th phase (nadir, foundation or basis) which is coloured by the first sign ARIES (with therein Neptune and Pluto).
   More about the Capricorn pattern in ZZZine 22.
    
2. the function MERCURY-primary (with Saturn and Venus in the 1st phase) uses the ARIES-pattern and has as its tempter the 7th phase (empty) coloured by the seventh sign LIBRA;
   perpendicular to that is the 10th phase which is coloured by the tenth sign CAPRICORN (with therein Mars) and the 4th phase (nadir, foundation or basis) which is coloured by the fourth sign CANCER (with therein the Ascendant),
   The function VENUS-primary (with Neptune in the 1st phase) also uses the ARIES-pattern and for the greater part corresponds with the analyse function.
   More about the Aries pattern in ZZZine 12.
3. the function SUN (with Mercury, Saturn and Venus in the 1st phase) uses the PISCES-pattern and has as its tempter the 7th phase (empty) coloured by the sixth sign VIRGO;
   perpendicular to that is the 10th phase which is coloured by the ninth sign SAGITTARIUS (empty) and the 4th phase (foundation) which is coloured by the third sign GEMINI (with the Ascendant in Cancer).
   More about the Pisces pattern in ZZZine 8.
4. the function MOON uses the SAGITTARIUS-pattern and has as its tempter the 7th phase (with the Ascendant) coloured by the third sign GEMINI;
   perpendicular to that is the 10th phase (empty) which is coloured by the sixth sign VIRGO and the 4th phase (foundation) which is coloured by the twelfth sign PISCES (with therein the Sun and Mercury with Saturn in Aries).
   More about the Sagittarius pattern in ZZZine 18.

It is remarkable that the processes of initiating and those of transferral and adaptation (nr 1 en nr 2 above) show some similarity in their method. In number two they even coincide. The making or evoking forms of activity are combined in two ways with the making or evoking colourings: the phases 1, 7, 10 en 4 are combined with the signs 10, 4, 7 and 1, respectively 1, 7,10 and 4.
The process of self governing and that of the forming of the emotional basis makes use of another combination. Here the making or evoking forms of activity are in two ways combined with the reworking or relating colourings: the phases 1, 7, 10 en 4 are combined with the signs  12, 6, 9 and 3, respectively 9, 3, 6 and 12.

Is it possible to find information in these data about his own security or insecurity, his agressiveness or tenderness with women, the way in which he handles his feminine sides and emotionality, dependence and feelings of guilt?
I'll try to give an interpretation of the above described elements of these functions and their processes:

1. when initiating or carrying out some action, Albert Einstein carefully asks himself whether this will bring him nearer his personal goal, whether he can ensure sufficient structure in his environment. His counterpart, the help which he needs or the partner which he attracts, must provide footing and take care of security, after all, he himself will take care of the structure;
   perpendicular to this stands the culminating point, that again and again needs extra security. It reaches its balance when the nadir is fed with primitive masculine energy
   - the presence of NEPTUNE in the fourth phase adds an instrument with which he can let all factors come over him unweighed and still can find a way in that chaos, while PLUTO, by rejecting in a blunt or manipulative manner, helps to find the heart of the matter.
2. the development of his analyse function starts with the initiative of asking, is practical and assertive
   - the presence of SATURN and VENUS (primary) in the first phase makes it possible to be at the same time very efficiently structured, to be consistent, and play his game of give and take in such a way that it gets across charmingly,
   while the other party better be the expectant, irresolute, compliant and alternatives-offering couterpart. Actually, no one needs to react for he can manage things alone, but marking alternative courses and looking further ahead is a desirable complement;
   perpendicular to this stands the aim of perfect architecture, the lonely climber to the top, the resolute authority, insecure unless the basis offers security and trust in his own subjectivity
   - the presence of MARS helps in supporting the aim with energy and initiatives -,
   insecure unless the foundation of this process is safely placed in emotional stability with the possibility to let off steam at home
   - the presence of the ASCENDANT in the fourth phase gives him ample chance to bring out his ideas directly.
   The development of his adaptation function follows the same pattern but with some shifts in the auxiliary instruments:
   - the presence of NEPTUNE in the first phase adds an instrument with which he experiences his awareness of the presence of other people's emotions as a secret, inaccessible domain, the inward directed function Saturn is for the adaptation function not located in the first phase,
   - by absence of the ASCENDANT in the fourth phase of the adaptation function the direct means of expression is absent.
3. in the development of his self governing function he starts with looking in the chaos for the leading thread which leads to order. The desired counterpart, the help or partner who matches him well, likes to be subservient and industrious for this order-seeking being
   - because of the presence of MERCURY (primary), SATURN and VENUS (primary) in the first phase he reveals himself, although he does not want to open up and wants to stay in the background, as communicator, as a friendly and authoritative person, flirting with his vulnerability in situations where his deepest being is at stake;
   perpendicular to this is the idealistic, enthosiastic and naive self-image and the same resoluteness. The counterpart upon which this rests, the security, needs communication, the settlement, knowledge, relation, negotiation. Must find his own way in this
   - the presence of the ASCENDANT in the fourth phase enables him to bring out his own self straight and frankly and project it onto the environment.
4. developing consciousness of his pristine own emotions (respectively the development of his feminine qualities, the development of behaviour as a man facing his wife, the way he saw his mother, family tradition) begins enthosiastically, while he expects that his counterpart takes care of supplementation through information, through knowledge and through putting things in perspective
   - the presence of the ASCENDANT in the seventh phase enables him to express his emotions frankly to the other who, as an intermediary, can translate towards the environment;
   perpendicular to this stands the intention of clear shaping, which can resist critisism. The basis of inner security whereupon this can be developed is the surrender to the unfathomable and boundless, to the oneness, to be able to let loose totally and be free
   - he reaches security when he, the SUN is present in the fourth phase, himself can be central at home, when he can communicate as the male authority, with MERCURY-primary and SATURN in the fourth phase of this process of developing consciousness, can reside paternally as husband. Also at this point of emotional security he is vulnerable, he demands perfection.

To sum up:
- 1 the naturally masculine drive, which (with feminine colouring) is directed at the own development, requires a primitive masculine basis which has the disposal of practical, intuitive and concentrated energy to keep the initiatives of the loner in balance and continue feeding them,
- 2 both the relate function (which comes forward easily, structured and potentially agressive) and the interactive capacity, both in his case primary and as a consequence directed at the outer world, are in need of the tolerant basis of motherly security to soothe the harshness of the authoritarian man,
- 3 the self governing function, by nature outwardly directed but here with an intuitive character (with feminine colouring), requires a basis of select knowledge in order to realise his ideal goal and to energetically propagate it widely,
- 4 the developing of emotional consciousness, by nature internal but obliged to express itself frankly to the outside (with masculine colouring), has need of an unlimited intuitive empathy - in which he himself is allowed to be, with his structured ideas, without competition, at the centre of the home - to nourish his analytical aim and to be able to see it through till the end.
 

The name of the rose

As animal among animals we are well capable to move around things and living beings and to look at them, sniff them, touch them, deal with them. Language, names, pictures and sounds deal with things, make them assignable and amenable in a rational sense. But just as the map is not the land, the name is not the thing. Language is an instrument of human animals.
The instruments of language, interaction and adaptation; vitality, attitude and enthusiasm; grow out of the contact with the outer world and may be called utensils of the environment. The question is: can they, and more specifically, can language also have a function in the communication of inner activity? In three axes of inwardly directed or inner activity two processes of becoming conscious take place; one of the inner intentions or values (aim, memory, analysis) which result from the agreement reached with the world and one of becoming conscious of inner stability or security (emotion, space for choice and inner freedom) in the relation with the surrounding world. Is there a name for personal emotions like sorrow, fear, the personal form of happiness, the personal motives, so that they can be shared and can contribute to togetherness? Many words have been corrupted in commercial usage. Basically there are hardly names for, basically there is no language for and everyone needs for themselves to find a way to understand their own inner life. For that, first of all attention is needed. The very own story is an entrance to inner motives and inner movements, a way to express them and, with a bit of luck, share them. However, not everyone understands the own motives and emotions. Not everyone can translate them and tell their personal story.
Language, names, images, sounds and attitude can bring out information unconsciously and betray hidden motives or the condition of the inner basis quite unawares.
 

The person behind the words

Leading from the text of 'Conditions of Conduct' I want to remark on a few things on the basis of its language. How does Einstein use it here and what does the statement tell us about himself?

1. The heading 'Conditions of Conduct' sets a formal tone.
2. The author uses the word 'conditions', not 'agreement'.
3. The author addresses his wife with 'Du', does not call her by her name.
4. He lays down rules exclusively for her conduct, not for his.
5. The rules hold limitations of her rights and her freedom and enlarge his.
6. The rules could, in their general layout and in a number of details like the selection of the words 'obliged' and 'must', be aimed at a maid or a man-servant.
7. The emphatic mention of the writing-table (A.3) raises the question for what reason this would not be available. The only thing we now know is that he blames her for it not being available.
8. The language use is, as seen within the business-like framework, not rude or extreme. I am not sure whether an employee can be addressed with 'Du' or that 'Sie' would be the correct form in the German of 1914.

Expressing oneself in writing can be used as an attempt to emphasize one's own standpoint. That seems to be the case here. By not mentioning her name, by not offering an alternative in his own behaviour, by not giving reasons for the enlargement of his own rights and freedom, by the design and his phrasing he expresses indirectly - between the lines - his negative feelings, he creates an extreme distance, he emphatically underlines his own superiority, he affirms the end of the relationship. Behaving towards his wife as a master who gives orders to a subordinate person is offensive.
The extremity of this statement brings out the restrained anger, in this case the autistic inability [ note ], of the author and with that the insecure basis of some functions of Einstein's in this situation. The same could already be noticed in the discussion of some functions above, where a choice must be made between the need of a motherly spouse (point 4, Moon) and the need of equivalent and even assertive response from the partner (point 2, Venus). With his new social status as a suddenly famous and, with the professorship, successful man comes the need for an unambitious spouse who will respect the traditional role pattern. Albert is, probably inadvertently, manipulating Mileva in not taking the initiative to begin divorce procedings himself but, with this document, forcing her to leave without saying it in so many words.
 

The signal of extreme language use

The characterising words, the tone of the words which we can attach in language to an event, find themselves on a scale between the extremes of utterly positive and utterly negative. As far as there are words for it, there are gradations available. The affection for another person can be expressed in terms which are found on a scale between love and hatred. The possible choices between soft and hard, businesslike and unbusinesslike, falsehood and truth, sober and sensational are innumerable in theory.
The choice is determined, not only by the condition of the emotional basis of the function used by the person - of which I have given an illustration here - but also by customs and naturally by the pressure of the prevalent language of the actual environment and what is on hand therein.

The language of the relation with the outer world is, in our present culture, predominantly commercial, factual and limited. By limited I mean that it is not unimaginable that - for instance through pressure from the environment and from habit - the language adapts itself, just like the person behind it, to the environment. By limited I mean also that adaptation, of necessity, must lead to one-sidedness, to a language of the outer world. When that happens then the language of the outer world can shut out the other, the personal and inner language, and by that repudiate and even destroy the subjective, the individul values, the personal motives and inner emotions. The inner language then loses authenticity, the person's self-development gets inhibited and will gradually become, not only adjusted, but inwardly insecure and ultimately alienated from itself. Imre Kertész [ source and note ] has spend a large part of his life studying totalitarian dictatorship and its ideologies. In his essays he mentions many examples of extreme language, yet I would rather attempt to illustrate the problem with my own examples and to interpret it in my own way.
 

It could well be that by such extremity self-denial or self-hatred expose themselves to the outer world, but this aspect demands more investigation.
A one-sided language directed at the environment will numb under pressure, for instance when circumstances in the world are violent. In turn such extreme use of language will spread sensation-hunger, compulsive growth, insecurity and violence, and suppress the expression of the personal inner life, both in men and in women. It is therefore a misconception to asume that only men speak the excluding language of violence, greed, compulsive consumption, success hunting, in all sectors one can find women who are fluent with the languages of enslavement. I not only learned it myself, but I am also learning to communicate about my inner life through language.
 

Excluded: becoming alienated from oneself

Emotions do not always receive the name which fits them. Classification of a symptom with the label of illness in many cases conceals the attempt of the oppressed and entangled individual, who is no longer able to express personal emotions and motives in a suitable manner, to develop oneself.
The historic space in which an event takes place, contains important additional information about the occasion itself, moreover, it plays a role therein. In my story 'Close by and Distant' I have described what happened in the period around the death of my father and how I was shut out. In connection with the theme inner stability and language I want to relate the situation in which my mother found herself due to her marriage.
 

'Sometimes on a Sunday we went to visit grandpa en grandmother. Mother was not very happy then.
One morning I had crept in bed with my parents. From his part of the twin-beds I could see the cradle with my new brother in the corner of the room. Father had got up already and came back into the room while buttoning up his waistcoat. He put his watch in one of the pockets, secured the chain at a buttonhole and put the small coin that lay on the pedestal cupboard in another pocket. He then put on the jacket of his suit. It must have been a Sunday because all other days of the week he first went to work in the factory and would change later into a three-piece suit. Dressed up to the nines he then went to visit his clients and would be back home for the hot meal shortly after twelve o'clock. In the afternoon he was keeping the books in the office, I suppose, and after tea he usually went out.
In the attic above the factory father's rifle and his sabre lay about rather rusty. Relics which referred to his military duty and later reserve-officer's service. Father was going to the university after his period of service, he wanted to be an engeneer, and possibly he had indeed started with that study. It is said that he lived in Rotterdam when his parents called him home. His help was needed to solve a family problem with his younger brother, his parents' favourite child. From then on father worked in his parents' company. They bought the coal-business next-door to the lemonade factory and finally, after he found a really capable wife, the brother married and obtained that business. Grandad en grandmother retired from business life and father took over the lemonade factory. In 1930 and in the meantime nearly 33 years old he married mother.
Apparently mother had not been aware of the family background. She described how shocked she had been on their honeymoon trip as it turned out that father had no money with him, that apart from the factory he owned nothing - and not even that - they had to pay his parents for years to come. She tells that she also had great difficulty saving enough of the housekeeping money to buy a new tailor-made suit regularly. A crisis developed when mother suffered from 'stress' after the birth of her third child.
Father discovered that he had to reconsider a number of self-evident matters, that he should communicate with her differently.'

I believe that for mother really the question of her existence was at stake at that time, that the 'illness' was a symptom, a signal and that the increasing houseboundedness caused by a third child triggered it. My first story 'No Harness, Please' took place at that time of stress. It was not that mother rejected her child, she has proven sufficiently that she loved all of us very much. It was not what is sometimes called a man-wife problem or the rejection of a role either. It was a vague becoming aware of being separated from the whole and shut out of the world, of having fallen into silence, entanglement and estrangement from herself. She had no more words.
Father and mother tried to master the languages of respect for themselves and for eachother.
 

Final comment

In my search, after the idea in ZZZine#23 of the cooperation agreement between the world and the process, the new insight has come up of an important distinction in the use of the means of communication language. On the one side language used as an instrument of the environment and on the other side language which is needed by the inner person to express his emotions, choices, intuitions and his intentions, values, needs and to fulfil his personal part of the covenant. And this with one and the same language! A surprising and actually quite obvious discovery.