A Late-October Run and Walk

Yesterday I spent time playing the piano, reading news on the internet, eating breakfast with Mama and the siblings, and filling out crosswords with Mama, but I have to admit that through most of it I was still feeling self-pity related to work.

That said, in the early afternoon, heavy grey clouds were hanging in the sky, and it looked like it would rain, but I saw that the chance of precipitation was only 15%. So I borrowed a pair of shorts and a wristwatch from Ge., ate a banana for fuel, put on my running shoes and a t-shirt, and did the run/walk that was on my training schedule. I've been trying to reach a point where I can run for 5 km without walking or stopping in between, and this past week was my third. The point of the whole exercise was at first to take part in a charity race. Now I just want to train the discipline to learn to do something long and arduous in a sensible way that makes it not uncomfortable — perhaps this will help me write novels in future — and just to explore the technique of running a little. Moving through unfamiliar and familiar streets in a not-too-fast way and looking at the scenery has also been a side benefit.

I went 7 km from our house, past Brandenburger Tor and along the Street of the 17th of June, around the traffic circle at the Siegessäule, and to the nexus of the Technical University at Ernst-Reuter-Platz.   A cold autumn wind blew down the broad streets; lot of trees are losing their leaves, and it was fascinating to see the smaller trees lining the parking lanes at the Street of the 17th of June, which were mostly barren except for a sprinkling of pale leaves (like stars in the night sky) in the branches that were closest to the warm street lamps. The fallen leaves were rustling on the pavements, of course, and at times crushed or ground to a fine, pale powder. Also scattered over the sidewalks were tourists, and other joggers, who often wore neon yellow or pink outfits with long sleeves, and whose leggings were also warmer-looking than what I had on.

A man in a trench coat stood in front of the Soviet memorial, figuring out how he wanted to take a photograph with what looked like an analog camera, rather like an escapee from a John Le Carré novel. A brightly painted carriage powered by foot pedaling rolled along the margin of the Street of the 17th of June, full of young people in their late teens or early twenties, singing in a language I didn't know. Whether it was Russian or not, it somehow reminded me of droshkies in tsarist Moscow, especially against the bleak, almost wintry background of the twiggy trees and the lanterns. 

Altogether I felt so fine when I reached the 6.4 km mark that I'd originally intended to reach that I decided to go what I thought was another 200 m. What I didn't know at the time is that I was actually going another 600 m. But then I did get into the U-Bahn and ride home, instead of walking all the way back. When I'd eaten a banana-and-strawberry fruit bar before the train arrived, I slowly began to feel so mellow and happy that it became clear that, instead of exhausting me counterproductively and worsening the stresses of the week, this outing was more or less the best thing I could have done.

Turning A Page in the U-Bahn Reading

Earlier in the week I finally finished reading the last pages of Andromaque, as well as the endnotes, and then — reading more of Aristotle's Politics in between, where he tries to define the oligarchy and the polity — began reading a collection of extracts from Madame de Staël's De la littérature and De l'Allemagne that Larousse published in a purple paperback edition in 1935.

My grandmother must have picked it up in Canada, because her name is recorded on the first page in her writing, and there is a price stamp '$0.50' on the same page.

Biased as I am, perhaps, by the editor's notes — Mme. de Staël's sweeping assertions in De la littérature about ancient Greek playwrights and philosophers (e.g. 'the Roman philosophers were better') make me cringe.

Perhaps they make me cringe all the more because they hold up a mirror: I too have made plenty of "sweeping assertions" about many subjects throughout my life!

A Few Pages From Racine and Molière

In a way there's little to add to the previous post. It feels like my life has taken four focuses lately: working, reading in the train, sleeping, and training to run without having time or leisure to eat and sleep properly. I still haven't written to an ex-colleague in the US who left the company a month ago. It's not a hard life I'm leading now, compared to those of others, but it does not make much sense.

I think there are strong moral arguments in favour of doing the extra work on Saturdays, sometimes, in the microcosm of my work group. But I think this extra work in itself has no special idealism or reason that ennobles it.

***

In the S and U-Bahn I've been reading Andromaque by Racine and L'École des femmes by Molière. Previously I had read Le Cid by Corneille. It turns out that, as is often the case with the two French tragedians, I am a fierce partisan of one and a fierce critic of the other. I can't stand Le Cid and Corneille's stodgy verse, the kitschy metaphors, and the 'logic' of his 'reasonable' and 'noble' characters. It is the one play I'd read where I felt let down — as the tension shifted from excited tension into bored tension as to when this work was going to end — that no other characters died by the end.

Not only I have a bone to pick with Corneille — so did some of his contemporaries. I found this passage in L'École des femmes funny — Molière's antagonism with the Corneille brothers seemed fiercer than any antagonism between them and Racine:

Je sais un paysan qu’on appelait Gros-Pierre
Qui, n’ayant pour tout bien qu’un seul quartier de terre,
Y fit tout à l’entour faire un fossé bourbeux,
Et de Monsieur de l’Isle² en prit le nom pompeux.

=~ 'I know a farmer named Gros-Pierre who — although he owned nothing except one field — ordered that a marshy ditch be dug all around it, and took the pompous title Lord of the Isle.'

2. Allusion précieuse au frère du grand Corneille, Thomas, qui avait pris le nom de Corneille de l'Isle. Les frères Corneille furent vexés de l'allusion.

=~ 'Allusion, in the "precious" style, to Thomas — brother of the great Corneille — who had taken the name of Corneille of the Isle. The brothers Corneille were vexed by the allusion.'
Footnote: (ed. G. Sablayrolles, Paris: Larousse, 1959)

*

As for Racine: Before I read the introduction, I couldn't tell who Andromache was because I confused her with Andromeda and Antigone. I was hoping for Antigone because I find that legend touching. But, of course, Andromache is Hector's widow, and the Greeks captured her in the fall of Troy.

In Racine's version, Pyrrhus (')loves(') Andromache. She resists him, since she still loves Hector as much as ever. That is my interpretation, at least. The play's notes in the edition that I am reading mention that others have read Andromaque and believe that she does love Pyrrhus, and that duty causes her to resist her yearnings. Anyway, the way that I interpret it, even if she did decide that she wants to leave her marriage with Hector in the past, which to be honest I think no self-respecting ancient Greek playwright would have permitted because it doesn't suit their idea of women as being sentient property rather than human beings with their own right to determine things, she does not wish to marry Pyrrhus. It is even more repellent because Pyrrhus killed her father-in-law Priam and her sister-in-law Polyxena.

(The Pyrrhus-hounding-Andromache aspect of the plot reminded me of L'École des femmes, although of course this play is a comedy. Arnolphe is Molière's character; he has tried to force marriage on a woman whom, in a dependent situation, he has deprived of interaction with and knowledge of the outside world, and who loves another man. He is hopping mad that she refuses to love him or agree to belong to him. Faced with that opposition, he discards his dignity with disgraceful protestations and demonstrations. I found the play very uncomfortable to read as a young woman, because it feels partly true. But, of course, since this is Molière, we do feel sorry for Arnolphe despite his malfeasance.)

In Racine's portrayal, Hermione herself — who is Greek and hates Andromache for being her rival — denounces Pyrrhus for murdering elderly and female 'non-combatants' at the end of the Trojan War. He replies that he is remorseful, but that this slaughter was done to avenge Hermione's mother, and that in fact he could be nagging Hermione about the deaths except that he's able to get over such petty impulses.

Also, in an earlier passage, he tells his True (Unrequited) Love that the feelings of most the people she knew and loved when they were killed are a mere bagatelle, compared to the feelings he feels pining after her:

Hé quoi? Votre courroux n’a-t’il pas eu son cours ?
Peut-on haïr sans cesse ? Et punit-on toujours ?
J’ai fait des malheureux, sans doute, et la Phrygie
Cent fois de votre sang a vu ma main rougie.
Mais que vos yeux sur moi se sont bien exercés !
Qu’ils m’ont vendu bien cher les pleurs qu’ils ont versés !
De combien de remords m’ont-ils rendu la proie ?
Je souffre tous les maux que j'ai fait devant Troie.
Vaincu, chargé de fers, de regrets consumé,
Brûlé de plus de feux que je n’en allumé,
Tant de soins, tant de pleurs, tant d’ardeurs inquiètes…
Helas ! fus-je jamais si cruel que vous l’êtes ?
Mais enfin, tour à tour, c’est assez nous punir.
Nos Ennemis communs devraient nous réunir.

Source: Wikisource
Spelling modified to comply with modern norms.

Needless to say, I do not find his character much of a charmer. I think this effusion of hyperbole also reflects a trait that literary critics and that Racine himself have acknowledged — that Racine's 'Greek' characters are anachronistically well-versed in high-flown sentimental absurdities of 17th-century French courtly literature.

Racine's characters are aware of their flaws of thinking, of course. So their missteps are less enragingly stupid. But, in the midst of plotting murder and involuntary marriage, blackmail and infanticide, etc., I do think the heroes and heroines might have taken this spirit of self-criticism far further.

Specifically, perhaps Pyrrhus might have sympathized with Andromache's grief. Perhaps he, Hermione or Orestes might have accepted the idea that their 'love' would have been more credible if they had tried to make their Beloved happier, instead of making their Beloved a hundred times more miserable/dead. I think that Orestes comes off best — the Erinyes are hounding him, so he is less responsible for what he does, and he even manages to balk at murder.

In Andromaque, fiddly shadings of moral sentiment are the least of the characters' worries, in the face of greater quandaries. But I do think that in a less dramatic situation, the characters would also feel that it is unflattering if a man or woman is inspired to show the worst sides of his (or her) character 'on one's behalf.' In the peaceful and kinder realm of literary 18th-century domestic England, I suppose that it's neatly expressed in the first marriage proposal scene in Pride and Prejudice, where Elizabeth Bennet is irritated and offended that Mr. Darcy portrays marriage to her as a necessary but degrading step that he would never have planned for himself.

"I might as well inquire [...] why with so evident a design of offending and insulting me, you chose to tell me that you liked me against your will, against your reason, and even against your character? Was not this some excuse for incivility, if I was uncivil?"

Source: Pemberley.com

Of course — when I suggest that people in love could be nice and thoughtful and that people in a tragic play could kill each other less, perhaps I am grossly ignoring the essence of love and of theatrical tragedy. Perhaps I am being as absurd as Caroline Bingley is in the scene where she and her brother disagree over his hosting a ball:

"I should like balls infinitely better [...] if they were carried on in a different manner; but there is something insufferably tedious in the usual process of such a meeting. It would surely be much more rational if conversation instead of dancing made the order of the day."

"Much more rational, my dear Caroline, I dare say, but it would not be near so much like a ball."

[Source: Pemberley.com]

Nevertheless, I'll perpetrate more absurdity: I think that the plot of Andromaque would have been far more pleasant if Andromache had had the opportunities of a modern-day Hollywood action film. She could have doctored the wine of Pyrrhus's guards to temporarily send them to sleep, or trained in martial arts, or asked for the aid of a noble mercenary-for-hire. Then whisked her son out of the room where he was being held, shipped him to an island-state where no one knew about the Trojan War (or at least had no strong feelings about it), and raised him to be a kindly philosopher who did not care about avenging his ancestors.

A Long Lament About the Effects of Overconsumption

Lately I've been distressed for a few reasons, but I think an underlying one is really a lack of proper rest. The trip to Canada was lovely in many ways. But aspects of it were harder than I expected, e.g. going to places where Papa used to take us when we were children; and also meeting with friends and relatives whom we last met ten or more years ago sometimes made me feel that in some ways I'd become sterner, older and harder. Well, the 'older' part is obvious and not necessarily bad. For the first two days or so after the trip I was in a bit of a fog, like a variant of Robert Burns's 'My heart's in the highlands' — in spirit I was taking walks along the seashore and gazing up at Douglas firs and surrounded in the rainy mist of autumn on Vancouver Island, which made me feel happier and more relaxed but also remote. So I had trouble readjusting my mindset to work.

The heavy workload ahead of America Thanksgiving is intermittently bearable now. But it is still more than we can do. This time I don't have much reason to blame the project managers. They have tried to accommodate the team I am in after I raised my protest — indeed have been awkwardly tip-toeing around me for a while, and one of them has (for reasons best known to herself) been making a beeline for a colleague who is roughly as stressed as I am — and understand that the work is too much. They are under pressure themselves and cannot change the influx of clients, which as the manager has said is a good problem to have. The other teams are also all suffering now; I have to make sure that I am not demanding special treatment.

We have been asked to come in if we wish on Saturdays for overtime work (paid double) to help tackle the work. I feel that this is not right for me. First of all, whether accurately or not, I feel rather fragile, and I have to respect my boundaries. As the Black Friday season piles on additional pressure, and five days per week of Black Friday pressure are already too much for me, I don't need six. For the past month or two, whereas at one point I could leave at 6:30 p.m. often with an easy conscience, I have done about 9 to 13 hours of overtime per week whenever I was not in Canada. I count on Saturdays and Sundays to 'decompress' so that I can return to work on Mondays with renewed spirits and a sharper brain. Now I need them especially. I don't care to earn extra money for stunts like Saturday work. I have the income I need to cover the basics, and want any pay raises to be allotted if I develop more skill at my work generally.

But being a team leader, of course, requires pitching in alongside the colleagues in the team and being a decent example. So I agreed to come in every second Saturday. Also, I had the feeling that saying that I couldn't handle coming in because it was too exhausting — which I more or less did — was seen by the manager as an indulgence of weakness rather than as a statement of fact. So I felt that my pride was challenged to show that I wasn't completely fragile.

So I came in this past Saturday. The way I felt during and after bore out my reservations, and not because I went into it so skeptically that it was a self-fulfilling prophecy. Working on a Saturday for 3 hours on a whim as I described in the last blog post is, indeed, nothing like working on a Saturday for 8 hours out of obligation. I was also worried because of bad news I'd had unrelated to work. At any rate I was grumpy, sad or giddily cheerful by turns, had wobbly legs at times when I stood up from my desk, and cried more than once. (Hidden from the view of others, and silently.)

One of the managers had also come in for noblesse-oblige-y reasons, alongside more than a handful of colleagues including Gi., and they didn't look like they were overflowing with happiness either.

Besides I feel less sure of properly listening and responding to colleagues, or handling anything that requires intelligence, because I'm too saturated to think straight.

Aside from objections on grounds like health and poorer job performance, I am also opposed to this from a moralizing and religious perspective. Thanksgiving — if one abstracts it from the historical context of invading the Americas — is about being thankful for immaterial goods and material necessities, not about exploiting human labour and the environment in a reckless orgy of spending (and returning). The Christmas season is also not just about 25% sales. And I want to be able to telephone people if I want to, see my family, dance ballet, and look at trees and grass and flowers in daylight instead of crawling home after dark.

Anyway, today was a day off because of the Day of German Reunification, and next Saturday is a day off. Also, I should not let one aspect of work make me miserable; and I should take things more easily, also because people do generously worry about me and don't enjoy witnessing self-destruction.