The Blurred Presence
Some people have a blurred presence. For some reason, so many thoughts and bands of feeling criss-cross simultaneously in their personalities that you can never, finally, decide where you are with them. Their presence is distracted and confused. There is no line or contour you can finally follow. Such presences are usually self-absorbed and have neither clarity nor a sense of clearance around them to enable them to attend or engage with anyone else. When such a person is manager or chairperson of a group or company, there is neither vision nor an effective or clear resolution of anything.
The Angry Presence
Anger is a great flame of presence. It is difficult to mistake or ignore any angry presence. Usually anger is like fire. It starts with a spark and then multiplies in a rapid exponential rhythm. Anger wants to break out; it stops us in our tracks. Much of the time we avoid conflict; we put up with things. We let things go. When the flame of anger rises, it confronts things. Anger shouts, “Stop!” It can be a great force for change. It is so encouraging to hear the voice of righteous anger raised. It names and confronts injustice. It brings clearly to light whatever is wrong and makes it clear to the perpetrators of injustice what they are doing. It is very interesting to notice how politically incorrect anger now is. Especially in these times, there are so many issues that should warrant great anger. The psychologist James Hillmann remarks in his devastatingly incisive way that psychotherapy has managed to convert anger into anxiety. If one becomes angry on television, one immediately loses the trust of the audience. Whatever common denominator of propriety television exercises, it seems that an angry presence, even when it is fully justified, still only manages to evoke sympathy for the target of the anger and the diminution of the presence of the angered one. Perhaps this only confirms even more trenchantly that television manages to depict only image and never real presence. Anger disrupts the fluent sequence of images and makes awareness awkward.
There are some people who seem to manage almost permanent anger. Every time you meet them, there is something new drawing their anger. Such people never relent. They are victims of a fire that started somewhere further back, but continues to flare up on every new ground they enter. There are also people who are constantly nice; they are always pleasing and accommodating. They never lose their composure; they give nothing away. Yet, if you really watch them, you will begin to detect a quiet fury behind the mask of niceness. It would be wonderful for them if even once they could unleash the fury with no concern for the situation in which they find themselves. It would limber up their personalities, and they would experience the immense relief of realizing that they did not need to desperately court approval in the first place.
Certain individuals use their anger as a brooding hostility to control those around them. There is a wonderful portrayal of this in John McGahern’s novel Amongst Women. Moran, the father in a household of women, can use his silent anger as a controlling force that infests the home with a permanent undercurrent of tension. His wife is the mediating presence who adverts to this ever-present hostility and ensures that Daddy is not disturbed. Related to this is the depressive presence. Sometimes the old definition of depression as inverted anger is accurate. The natural anger that should flame forth into the world is turned inwards on the self and used as a force of self-punishment. The outer presence is weary and passive, but deep underneath somewhere a searing flame crackles in the self.
When you really inhabit your anger, you enter into your power as a person. This should not be a permanent necessity. If you are in a situation where you are being controlled or bullied, the expression of your anger can liberate you. It is frightening that we often secretly believe that those who have power over us have right on their side, and our duty is to comply. No one can oppress you without some anger awakening in you, even covertly. If you listen to that anger, it will call you to recognize your right to an integrity of presence. And it will bring you to act and clearly show your strength. It is astounding how each day we give away so much of our power to systems and people who are totally unworthy of it. Ultimately anger points towards life. When your anger flames, it targets the falsity of expectation or tightness of belonging that is being inflicted on you. Anger breaks you free, suddenly.
The Charismatic Presence
You really become aware of the force and light of human presence when you are in the company of a charismatic person. In theology, “charisma” means “divinely conferred favour.” A charismatic presence is one that inspires people. It has a natural balance between the personality and the vision that the person represents. In some way, the luminosity in the person is an aura that tangibly reaches out and affects others. In German one speaks of “eine grosse Ausstrahlung,” i.e., a great streaming forth of radiance. The charismatic person does have a radiance that stirs us. It is given to some people to be carriers of huge spirit. This is not something they have sought out or earned. It is not something that they have worked up in themselves. It seems to belong deeply in their nature. I remember once speaking to a friend about a family we both knew who had such spirit and he said, “If you put one of them in a house on her own, you would fill it.” Charisma reminds us that there is no system or frame large enough to hold the secret immensity that is in each person.
The truly charismatic presence is also to be distinguished from the overblown personality who fills a room with talk and bustle, but manages to create more heat than light. When silence and poise anchor the charismatic presence, there is a lovely balance between what the person is affecting outside and his or her own self-belonging and self-possession. If this anchorage is not maintained, then such a presence is in danger of burning itself out. It is the art of belonging to one’s soul that keeps one’s presence aflame. From this belonging comes the light of inspiration and vision, which cannot be manufactured, only received. Without such belonging, the charismatic presence can, in extreme cases, become toxic. It can let in dark, dark forces and inflame people with hatred, as in the case of fundamentalism and fascism, or numb them into passivity, as happens in cults.
The Anxious Presence
There are anxious times in every life. These are times of trembling. Your confidence and security evaporates. What lies ahead of you seems brooding and threatening. Because we live in space, anything can approach and assail us. Because we live in time, there is always an interim period between us and what is coming. When we grow anxious, we fill up that interim with every imaginable disaster. Our fantasy turns wild and dark. Then when the dreaded event comes, it is never as bad as we have imagined and we are hugely relieved. We find again our natural poise. Some people make a habit of anxiousness. Somehow, they have slipped into a mode of permanent worry. When they enter a room, they bring an aura of anxiousness that darkens the company and installs a certain gloom. If the others present attempt to continue their liveliness of presence, the anxious presence withdraws deeper into itself and looms in the room like an accusation. Such people may have great lives, but they feel little of their lives’ joy or happiness. It is so difficult for such people to find any inner distance from their anxiousness. To them, it is serious and ultimate. There is no humour or any sense of irony. Trying to force themselves out of it often only enforces it. Sometimes paying too much attention to it only confirms it as a condition for them. It is lovely to see a person liberate himself from this. Somehow it dawns on a person that it is not a condition at all, rather this anxiousness is something he does to himself. With this recognition already a huge breakthrough is achieved. When a person explores further and asks why he needs to punish himself in this way, he is already on his way to peace. He stops punishing himself and gradually the occasional smile begins to transform the anxious countenance. And laughter may not be far away!