How To Choose Your People Chapter 5

Chapter 5 — Grief (0.5)

GRIEF (0.5)

Grief: Intense mental anguish; deep remorse, acute sorrow or the like. – American Heritage Dictionary

Mildred always complained about her married life. "He doesn't love me. He treats me so badly, and I gave up my whole career for him. Everything was so much better when I was single."

Just to have something to say (this was back in my more naive days), I asked her why she stayed with him if it was so bad. When I saw her a year later she said, "Well, I'm taking your advice; I'm getting a divorce."

This was a shock to me, since I didn't advise her to get a divorce. But Grief is a somewhat hypnotic level; he soaks up everything you say to him and uses selective parts of it to succumb.

I didn't see Mildred for another year and she sobbed still. Now divorced, her son refused to live with her and she quit a coveted job as an actress in a longrunning play because she wasn't "getting anywhere." Now, after arranging all of this misery, she was saying, "I used to have a husband and a son and money and a job. Now I don't have anything."

Grief cries for help, pleads for sympathy. He's a potential suicide, a whiner, a habitual complainer wrapped in self-pity. He failed; he's been betrayed; he's lost everything.

He's a mess.

Grief and Apathy are overlapping tones with many common characteristics. In fact, the position of .5 is actually Apathy driven by Grief. It's a little more alive than .05. He's wringing his hands. He feels he's about to fail, but he still sustains one last cry of protest.

When any individual suffers a loss (death, departure of a loved one, failure of a goal), he may drop temporarily to Grief. The person stuck in this tone, however, is the personification of loss, even though it may not be justified: "What did I do wrong?" "Why is God punishing me this way?"

A woman in Grief may be on the verge of tears all the time. You can see it on her face. If you try to question her closely about anything, she'll cry. A rough word may turn on the faucet. She hears of the poor little dying orphans in Timbuktu and she sheds enough tears to float the Queen Mary.

Not every Grief person cries, however. Some remain in suppressed Grief just below tears (which moves them closer to Apathy). This is more common in men since they are usually convinced, as children, that "big boys never cry." so they must suppress the outward manifestations of misery. You will see it on their faces though – a petulant mouth and the downcast, melancholy, bloodhound eyes. You will hear it in the deep, heaving sighs. Even without the physical manifestations, you should recognize Grief by his words.

Although he's not always crying, he's always whining.

THE PAST IS ALL THERE IS

The chronic 0.5 is aground on a narrow ridge; he can't go up or down and he won't let go. He can't give help and he won't receive it. He hangs on. Among other things, he tries to hang on to the past. He collects tokens of better times – the theater program, the glove she was wearing the first time he kissed her, the pressed flowers, the old chair that belonged to great-aunt Belinda (Note: antique collectors are not necessarily in Grief; they're usually just smart investors).

In addition to articles, he also collects old memories. Much of his conversation lingers in the past. His stories usually express beautiful sadness and a longing for the "good old days."

Old Lucifer misses his dog, which died of old age. He saves the dog's leash, and feeding bowls. He keeps pictures of the dog around the house and constantly talks about their good times together: "He was the best friend I ever had. He always stood by me."

He concludes that he has lost everything. If you suggest he get another dog, he tells you, "I can't ever replace old Jake. Besides, I don't want to get attached to another dog. He'll just die someday too."

Loneliness and nostalgia are both mild manifestations of Grief. When a person returns to the old school, home town or office, he finds things changed; they aren't like they used to be. It's a little sad. (It's often expensive for a man to feel nostalgic about his old school; the alumni association catches him moving up to Propitiation, and extracts a generous donation.)

Anytime a person feels downhearted about leaving, he's manifesting Grief, mild or strong, in his reluctance to let go of the past.

HONESTY

Don't rely on information given you by a Grief person. In pleading for pity, he may tell you the wildest tales to justify his wretchedness.

I heard two teen-age boys talking with a girl in chronic Grief. Complaining about her mother, she said, "She beats me."

Shocked and sympathetic, the boys started questioning her further. One of them asked, "No kidding? How many times has she beaten you?"

"Well, once."

"Oh. How many times did she actually hit you then?" "Ah . . . once."

"Did she hit you with her fist or her open hand?"

"Well, it was her open hand; but it really hurt!"

"In other words, she only slapped you once. Is that right?"

"well, I guess so. But it really did hurt. ''

This is the honesty level of .5. One slap in the face becomes "beatings."

The chronic Grief person must constantly look for reasons to explain the emotion. Widow Jones nagged the life out of her husband, moaning and complaining all the time. Now that he's gone, however, she describes him as if he were faultless. This makes the loss seem greater and helps to justify her emotion.

"LIFE HAS AFFECTED ME TERRIBLY"

The high-tone person who marries a Grief type will regret it because he'll never be able to "solve" the wretchedness. A .5 wife demands enormous quantities of affection and constant assurance that you love her; but she never really believes you. When she experiences the slightest snub or rejection (real or imagined) she plunges in the direction of death. She'll develop a parasitic dependency. If you eventually give up and leave her, you'll be a black-hearted villain; she'll invent all sorts of peculiar incidents of cruelty which you committed against her in order to win the sympathy of others around her.

GROUPS

Sometimes people group together on this tone, crying for sympathy and help while offering nothing in return. No solution, no contribution, no concession is ever enough. They still continue their collective whining. Thoroughly introverted, irresponsible, absorbing pity, sympathy and affection, Grief people are insatiable sponges for the inflow of your charity; but they never improve (real charity would be directed toward raising their tone: not just patting them on the heads and giving them more lollipops).

POSSESSIONS

I've known many a griefy bird who was an impeccable nest-keeper because he (or she) was trained to maintain a pleasant, clean environment. If he hasn't been so trained, however, his tendency toward death shows up in his surroundings. He gravitates toward grim living quarters; he drives ancient, rickety cars; he dresses in drab, ragged clothes. These are all pleas for pity; he won't permit himself to have something better. We sometimes see a rebuilt slum district that (when populated with Grief and Apathy people) soon slumps back to a state of squalor. When you see an environment that reflects obvious long-term neglect, you can be certain it is "cared for" by low-tone persons – most likely Grief or Apathy .

APPEARANCE

It is down in this general tone range (could be a tone or two higher) that we find the girl who could be pretty "if she would only fix herself up a bit." She refuses to use makeup to her best advantage, never knows what to do with her hair and buys the most unattractive clothes possible.

When you see a woman wearing clothes that went out of style twenty years ago, it's a safe bet that she's a Grief type. These are probably the clothes that were fashionable before dear Wilbur died. It's another way to hang on to the past.

I once knew two sisters who looked alike in size, coloring and bone structure. They were similar enough to be twins, except that one was high-tone and attractively groomed while the other looked incredibly plain, mousy and old for her years. When I remarked on the strong resemblance between them, the low-scale girl replied, "Well, maybe, but Marcia really inherited all the good looks in the family." This was an emotional response. She could have been just as stunning as her sister; but she elected to stay unattractive in an attempt to get sympathy for the cruel way in which life was treating her. Grief prefers attention in the form of pity, rather than admiration.

FRIENDSHIP

As a friend, he's a drag. He latches on, expecting advice, guidance and care. Childishly dependent, he'll lean on you totally if you let him). Although affecting "humility," he's actually convinced he's a privileged person who should be taken care of by others. The world owes him a living. He loses his job because he never did his work, and he expects you to feed him. He gets kicked out of his house for not paying his rent; he tells you the landlady was cruel and expects you to take him in. His friends desert him and he wants you to spend your time consoling him in his loneliness. He steals your time, your money, your space, your kindness and your power.

"THEY WON'T LET ME"

Grief appears to blame himself for everything ("I was wrong") but he is actually blaming everyone else. If he were able to take responsibility for his own destructive actions, he would move upscale. If he could say, "I stole money from the company, no wonder they fired me," he would recover. Instead, he says, "I tried to do my best, but I don't know where I went wrong. They just fired me. I never seem to do anything right." He hangs on to his grievances.

THE ADVICE TRAP

The .5 is easily moved to shame and anxiety. He fusses about conditions, his conversation dwelling on illness, death and tragedy; but he won't do anything about them. He merely uses his anxieties to set advice traps for the unsuspecting. "Oh, what should I do?" he wails. If you try to suggest a solution or give him a job, he dissolves in a puddle and tells you it's impossible.

I once received a letter from a New York school teacher who read my book on raising children (Miracles for Breakfast). She told me of working for a private school specializing in difficult youngsters. She complained about the children's open rebellion, sullen hatred, endless arguments and blank minds at test time. She described the degraded facilities – broken windows, broken desks, clogged plumbing and damaged equipment that was never repaired. Classes were set on a chaotic halfhour schedule which never gave time to get into a subject and teach anything before it was time for the class to move on. She was missing half of the required textbooks. "I'm uptight and discouraged. What should I do?"

Someone was working overtime to make this school fail. It would take a very strong uptone person to put order into such manufactured confusion. My correspondent could get up to Sympathy tone (which is why she took the job) but probably not much higher.

I wrote: "Change jobs. You should get more training before you try to conquer a situation like this. Meanwhile, get a job where you can win."

If she were mobile on the scale, I knew she'd accept my advice. But she wasn't and she didn't. Her reply was typical of someone caught in the circular route between Grief and Sympathy (more about this in the Sympathy chapter). She replied that she couldn't leave her job because it was hard to get work, she needed money and, anyway, "I really want to help these children."

As with any Grief person, she didn't expect to rid herself of the problem; she merely wanted to wallow in the horribleness of it all . . . and she wanted company. This tone always considers that a tremendous effort is required to accomplish something. My answer, of course, was too simple. No low-tone person accepts a simple solution. And a Grief person doesn't accept any solution.

SUMMARY

The only real cure for Grief is raising tone. Don't worry too much about the reason he gives you; it's probably a lie or a contrived situation he's brought on himself. If you manage to remove the "cause" of his malady, he'll quickly find another.

Each low tone tries to solve the problems of life through his emotion. The .5 does it by dribbling through life hanging on to his grievances. He's an injustice collector.

Rainy Jane. Sniff, sniff.