'This Beautiful Fantastic'

The picture is of a camelia in dad's garden that I took to show him in hospital ten days before he died.  If only we had known.  He was delighted.  He loved gardens and flowers and nothing gave him greater pleasure than to take you around his garden, to share his delight and ideally have you admire his plants, many of which had come from me, my neighbour or other people. He seemed thrilled by the idea that you could transplant something from elsewhere and it might still do so well. 

Nothing like the experience of death, the sudden, incontrovertible and permanent absence of someone or perhaps having a near-death experience yourself, teaches you the preciousness of the present moment, of joy, love, compassion and giving pleasure.

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The mentor's job is similar to the parent's in the sense of developing metaphorical wings.  They bring autonomy and with that, usually insight. 

Experience teaches the rest.  Experience will teach you anyway.  The mentor just makes that experience better. 

The mentor challenges the learner's statements, knows when to push and when to stop. It is one of the great joys of the relationship because of the complexities involved, because of the dynamics, because of the immanent growth.  This and more is explored in the delightful film 'This Beautiful Fantastic'. 

They mentor has to know the subject.  In this case, he is, fittingly for a film about growth, in oneself, in relationships, a horticulturalist.  If the subject is life, the mentor must have wisdom.  The best mentors know a subject and have wisdom too.  It is sometimes assumed that only professionals can be mentors. A professional may have knowledge and experience.  But that isn't wisdom.  

The mentor will know the mentee, and how they will respond, better yet, know how to respond well when unexpected things happen. It is a relationship that has been practised for millennia.  It predates modern professionalism, which can be faked without too much trouble.  

In the film an oddball woman with fears of the unpredictability of nature has to establish a garden by a deadline or face eviction.  It turns out this was a setup by her curmudgeonly neighbour, the horticulturalist, who, unbeknown to her is also the landlord.  He wants her to sort out the disarray of the garden that goes with her flat next door to his house.  

He is stern and demanding: "Don't think, just do" 

He keeps pushing and prodding her:

- Miss Brown!
- Yes?
- Just dig.

Or,

- Are you kicking me, Mr. Stephenson?
- No. I'm encouraging you to get up. If you ignore my encouragement, then I'll start kicking you.

They gradually form a relationship in which he sees in her the vigour and promise of the young wife he lost young.  Through their odd friendship he is able share the gardening knowledge and wisdom of his life while she finds security and confidence in his firm direction and support.  In the film, he is mistakenly called her 'grandfather'. A mentor is indeed somewhere between parent and teacher and friend.   

By the end of the film Bella, of course, has found her confidence and her way and achieved her dream. 

After her friend's death, she opens the letter he left for her:

You were a wonderful pupil and a dearly treasured friend. 

Because they choose each other, real mentors and mentees are friends, which isn't something you get with members hired or allocated through an organisation.

He adds,

You helped me remember the good things.

He had become ill and crotchety.  She reminds him of the joy in life that he still gets from the garden that helped him heal after the death of his wife.

He had told Bella, 

When I was younger, I did a lot of travelling. I collected seeds from the most spectacular plants.Each one is from a different country. A different color, a different smell and most importantly, different memory.

A few weeks before dad died.  I brought him the photo albums and asked him about some of the trips he did with friends.  After a while he said, with his eyes fixed on the past, in a tone of wonder, All those memories.  They just come flooding back. 

Music, for him apart from the inherent pleasure of it, did the same.

Provocation

Sting, CC BY-SA 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons

When, in 'The Apology', Socrates said,

"I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think," he was referring to the process not the content. 

I am that gadfly which God has attached to the state, and all day long and in all places am always fastening upon you, arousing and persuading and reproaching you. You will not easily find another like me, and therefore I would advise you to spare me."

He warns that there may be pain and discomfort before there is the pleasure of insight. Sometimes we need to be provoked into self examination and reflection. But Athens didn't like the challenge, the uncomfortable questions, the instability and sense of insecurity they cause. The Athenians did kill Socrates and soon after Athenian democracy did enter a period of decline and turmoil.

Questions

A mentor doesn't suppress questions or worry about them, they encourage them. They provoke you with their own questions. 

*

A question can lead you to far away places, in the world and inside your heart and your mind.  A mentor's suggestion took me to Buenos Aires, for instance. Ten years ago I reached out by email to a stranger with an enquiry not knowing how much it would alter my life in terms of thought and the effect thought has on actions and destiny. Almost the entire relationship, which lasted years, was conducted by correspondence.  

I didn't know this quotation at the time:

“Watch your thoughts, they become your words; watch your words, they become your actions; watch your actions, they become your habits; watch your habits, they become your character; watch your character, it becomes your destiny.”

    - Lao Tzu

Mentors and instruction

Sometimes a mentor has to instruct. It depends on the topic, the character, their existing skills and experience.  Manual tasks can be tricky. Installing a lock, is not easy. Changing a sash cord on the fourth floor, can be fraught. It depends on the subject.  

But dance and thought and need space to explore. The good mentor in these areas doesn't fall into the trap of instruction whereas your average joe on the dance floor can't hold back from lecturing a newbie. Generally, the worse the dancer, the greater the drive to instruct.

Space

You yourself must strive.

The Buddhas only point the way.

                                             Dhammapada

Talking to someone about getting new dancers started by taking them to milongas he said "You don't actually need to take them, you know.  They can make their own way.  It was a lesson in holding back.  

*

While a teacher talks at a class, a mentor doesn't tell you.  They certainly don't tell you everything at once.  A few great leaders are able to connect with a group of people, to inspire them, to stir emotions that lead them to achieve or to join in some common goal.  But not everyone wants to be part of a group, even a group with a laudable aim.  In contrast, it is hard not to connect with someone who listens.  A mentor probably listens more than they speak.

I wish Instagram had been around when my kids were younger.  There are so many good parenting tips there.  

But something I did consistently, when my kids asked me how to spell something, was say "How do you think?" In fact, just after writing this, my now seventeen year old, whose forte is not spelling, wanted to know how to spell 'umlaut', for a crossword we were doing.  I still used the same approach.

Primary age, they would say, always with their eye on me  A...C...C.... and I would say nothing, so they continued. 

O.....M....A.....  whereupon I would shake my head, once but say nothing.  

U.....Another shake

E....The same again

A....and again

They would start to get frustrated but this passes as they apply thought.  They always got there. There were two lessons and the most important one was not how to spell accommodate.

*

A mentor makes space for a curious mind.  

*

   

It is a light touch that is needed, to help someone find their way, a guiding touch. Though I only saw it in action over one evening, Colin, who was a sensitive guy, had this.

Mentors and mentees

Telemachus and Mentor
National Gallery of Art, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

The difference between friend and mentor is not clear but good mentors are also friends although that's not quite how Daumier saw it a couple of centuries ago. Age makes a difference to the relationship. 

It's not just that the mentor has to understand the mentee, it works both ways.

One mentor has gifts of patience, humour, much tact and reserve.   We will get to a point where he, with all the experience, has his way of doing things and I want to do it another. Rather than force his way through we wait, negotiate, try to understand where and why the point of difference is. I have come to understand him well. Sometimes I know he feels pressure to come up with a solution there and then. I have come to sense when it may not be the right one. I will suggest we work on something else for a bit or have a beer or a bite to eat. He will go home and his mind will gnaw away at the problem. The next day he will invariably have a better solution. 

 He has a tendency to take over, unless I specifically ask to try, which he always allows.  

The dynamic took months, years to understand.  Mutual patience, tolerance and a focus on the other's strengths rather than weaknesses was key. 

A mentor needs plenty of life experience, patience in spades and sometimes an ability to manage boundaries. 

Trust is key in the mentor - mentee relationship. A new mentee will make mistakes, to find things hard, feel stupid and insecure. The mentor knows all this because they have been there and have likely seen it many times before. A mentor is a rock of security in a roiling sea in which the mentee would otherwise drown or wash up drenched and half dead. 

Dawn French talks about feeling stupid, but safe with people we trust. Telling the story of something foolish we did or something hard that happened to us, in a funny way, to people we trust, because we know they will enjoy it, is probably a form of therapy.  The mentor is one of those people. It converts the experience from something bad to something good that we share and in doing so, learn from. 

While there is usually an external focus, the thing being learned, the best lessons are not necessarily about that. A purely utilitarian relationship is a dead and rotten thing. The most valuable thing is the relationship and the epiphenomena, the incidental experiences and insights. It is a profound experience.

Be, don't tell

Marcus Aurelius, Louvre Museum
CC BY 2.5 via Wikimedia Commons

A good mentor is the model, not the pointer

"Never call yourself a philosopher, nor talk a great deal among the unlearned about theorems, but act conformably to them. Thus, at an entertainment, don't talk how persons ought to eat, but eat as you ought.""For sheep don't throw up the grass to show the shepherds how much they have eaten; but, inwardly digesting their food, they outwardly produce wool and milk. Thus, therefore, do you likewise not show theorems to the unlearned, but the actions produced by them after they have been digested."

Epictetus, The Enchiridion"

"Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one."

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 10.16

Finding mentors

Longhofer

Based on a draft about mentors: 25.1.19

Unless you are resourceful and resilient enough to learn something new entirely alone, and perhaps those people might want to question their relationship skills, the mentor  - mentee relationship is the best path to independence, compared, to say, a class. A mentor is the same as a guide but mentor I think suggests more commitment.  Guides are maybe more free.

I guess you are either allocated a mentor, you sign up to one you see advertised or maybe one is recommended.  I can't imagine that I would pay for a mentor except out of curiosity.  It smacks of prostitution.  I don't think you can buy a good mentor.

Corporate mentorship is a curious animal.  I knew, briefly, a guy who was a corporate mentor.  We hit it off straight away.  I liked him, respected him.  He was interesting.  He admitted he boned up on a topic in order to respond to what a client wanted.  I understood, but that ain't wisdom. I suppose corporate wisdom is very different to traditional sense of the word. He seemed to me like the kid standing in the middle of a seesaw, trying to keep the balance.  He wasn't glib but I sometimes wondered if his profession was.  He was deep and light hearted, fun-loving, serious, observant, patient, a learner and a teacher. 

I once tried to discuss the integrity of 'buying a mentor'.  How can that really work? I understood, to an extent, but there has always to be an element of self-interest, of sales potentially at the expense of, well, something else.  It was a difficult topic and he skated right off it.  

He was also, I came to discover, serially unreliable in our meetings, being busy and not so organised. We had begun in roles of reciprocity, learning from each other.  Soon, he invited me to be hired by him to deliver a service.  I wasn't sure.  I liked the way things were and suggested a professional I knew instead but he wanted me.  I was new to that role and eventually, after being messed around for the nth time put in clear boundaries. He understood, responded well and respected these but the relationship faded away and not on bad terms. The whole experience was interesting and instructive.

In terms of finding a real, personal mentor, the other way is you come across them by accident, occasionally you are thrown together by circumstance or your shared interests bring you together. You discover that they have more knowledge, experience, skills or some combination of these and they are willing to help and to share.

Perhaps you sense them out in a way, although this, in my case, has been an unconscious process. It's not that you sniff one out and set them up as your mentor. That isn't how it works. You just  come to realise that this person you have connected with now seems to be your mentor.  The realisation, at least for me, is later, after the fact.  The luck involved in finding a good mentor is phenomenal.  If society were differently organised, these relationships would be at the heart of it and gratitude to the universe would feature strongly.

I think mentors tend to be older than mentees, perhaps by at least ten years. In my case, all my mentors have been men. I have chatted to many new people in the milongas but a mentor isn't quite chat and is there over time, there is an endurance to it. 

In my mid twenties I knew someone from whom I learned a lot. But love was involved. That isn't a mentor.  A love affair on its own is complicated enough. Something between the two is bound to end in shipwreck.

Also in my twenties, I had one of those rare creatures, a relaxed, intelligent boss who let you get on with the job. He assigned an experienced laid back and good-natured colleague as a mentor at work. This man helped me, with infinite patience, even inviting me to dinner at his house to meet his wife and child.

At another job a more experienced colleague evolved, unspoken into my mentor and became an invaluable support, defending me at a politically motivated internal trial, but he was primarily a free spirit in all senses - and he had his own work to do.

Later again I came to know a neighbour with many talents who was kind and anarchic and helpful and from whom I have learned many things mostly to do power and politics. I saw him in the street the other day and introduced him to my mum.  This is my neighbour, P_____, I said. 

And friend, he said, pointedly, gently.      

Choosing your own teacher

From years ago, maybe 2015

Many teachers can dance and well.  I like to see them in the ronda. You see then if they can really dance and, much less commonly, how many dance unconsciously without thinking who is watching. 

Fascinatingly, some people who cannot dance at all, whose dancing is somewhere between embarrassingly atrocious and just mediocre set themselves up for reasons of income, pocket money, status or who  knows why and astonishingly, persuade people not only that they can dance but that they are well qualified to show someone else how to dance. What cocky self-aggrandisement on the one hand, what credulousness on the other. 

Women just pick up dance by dancing with good dancers and some of these dance superbly. But they are less common for guys because they don't currently, typically get to pick up dance the same way.

When I wonder, will, if understandably scared of just hanging out in less-than-welcoming milongas and practicas more people choose their own teachers? When will those who, seeing good dancers and hoping to be noticed, go up to someone they don't know or barely know and say: I love how you dance, could you show me sometime how to dance like that? I have never heard of that. Not once. Why is that? What are we so scared of?  What might come of it?

Or at least, I hadn't until I decided to ask one of the most experienced dancers I know, one of that small group who give real dances.  From the the way they dance guys like this seem to just understand women, and what we like.

- I want to ask, did anyone ever say to you, along the lines of: I love how you dance, could you show me sometime how to dance like that? Or did you ever hear of that?

- Yes. :-)

- A guy or a girl? 

- Both. 

- And then what happened?

- I usually would answer e.g. I show you only by dancing with you. Some take the offer, some don't.

- That's what I guessed. Thanks. 

Is it common?

- No.

- So what do you do if they ask questions?

- About how they should dance? Usually I just smile :-)

It made perfect sense. What else would you do? Tell them to dance like you, like a teacher, to enact some figure, to twist your body this way or that, to put your hand here, your foot there, to think about your posture, to stop listening to the music?  That doesn't sound like much of a dance to me.  If you find someone you like to dance with and listen to what their body tells you, why would you break that spell?

Besides, people who can really dance can't, I notice actually tell you what they do. They can show you, that's all and then you find your own way.