Was John Haunted By His Inner Emptiness? | Page 4 | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

Ahhh Girl said

Billy Rhythm said

John was a Dreamer, he dreamt away to escape from the reality of his life (“Living is easy with eyes closed, Misunderstanding all you see”).  The ability to physically manifest his dreams through his art and music was his therapy, the Primal Scream Therapy was just a temporary extreme measure that helped get him back on track after being somewhat forced to “face his demons” after being finally freed from the chains of being someone that he wasn’t for a very long time, and being just John as opposed to being Beatle John for the first time since his youth in 1970 (“I was the Walrus but now I’m John”) was quite a traumatic experience for him, as any abrupt change if even for the better can be (such as quitting smoking).  Psychotherapy likely wouldn’t have worked out at all for John Lennon , any Psychotherapist could learn far more from John then he could ever from them because Lennon learned his valued life lessons from unimaginable experiences that they could never learn through any Psychology Educational Institution.

 

His “Inner Emptiness” drove him, he channeled it through positive means for both himself and countless others, I’m not sure that “Haunted” is the right word here.  If some of John’s best work appears to be dark or reflections of his “Inner Emptiness”, it’s perhaps that because when things were going well for him he was too busy enjoying himself and couldn’t be bothered to stop and write it all down.  I’d reckon that he was quite fulfilled inside on many fronts and made conscious efforts to counter his shortfalls or mistakes made along the way.  When Sean was born, he knew deep down that he had to do a better job at Fatherhood, and knew full well exactly the negative impact of playing the game as a Beatle had had on his strained relationship with Julian, he vowed to do it differently right from the outset and turning a negative experience into a positive is absolutely a sure sign of someone who’s come to terms with himself.  He appeared to learn from mistakes made during his first marriage as well and chose to do things differently with Yoko.  Many believe that his Peace Campaigns were inspired from his pension for violence at an earlier age, this appears to me to be a man who not only didn’t require professional help, but could help show many others a thing or two about “confronting your demons” as effectively as he did…:-)     

I thought of clipping out some of BR’s post in my quoting of it, but, dang, it works so well as a whole.

Perhaps no one could have be a psychotherapist to John, but imagine if you could have given John some help when he “opened up the doors” and asked someone to please, please help him to get his feet back on the ground. How would you have helped him? What would you have said to him? Suggested to him to do?

This thread fascinates me.  

From my point of view (thanks for sending me a link to this page by the way), if I were, for example, a psychologist, I don’t think I could have helped him because psychology is still a science and when someone loses their parents at a young age or lacks a person to look up to, which is so important especially during childhood but also later on, there is hardly any real cure for that.

My mum always says that we can’t take someone else’s pain into ourselves but what we can do is assist them and be there for them because even just the presence of an understanding soul counts in those moments. 

I think I would have probably tried to help him with a “human” and witty approach and make him concentrate on the happy memories he had of his family because that’s how I’m coping with my granny’s loss. Myself being a Catholic I would have reassured him that, as George (?) said, “somewhere down the line or through a cosmic telephone”, his mum is listening to his music and keeps being part of his life, just in another form, and that she doesn’t want him to be sad and lonely because of her but to be happy instead and cherish her memory. The point stands even if he had a difficult relationship with religion since his mum would have certainly loved to see him smile, were she there.

I think John always blamed himself for Julia ‘s death.. He was heavily distraught during that period. He reportedly even organized a seance with some friends some time after the car accident in order to be able to talk to her. Curing that type of sense of guilt would be a challenge because you would, so to speak, have to “enter his mind” and even then, if he were stubborn in his belief or made you think he was feeling fine, it would become harder to convince him he couldn’t have possibly been responsible for it or, in the latter case, you would never be sure he’s telling you the whole truth. I know this from personal experience. It’s very hard to eradicate it.

About Julian, well, that’s my mum’s thought but I agree with her, we think John didn’t know how to handle fatherhood since his own father didn’t actually make the best father figure for him before and so he had no one to look up to in that aspect. With Yoko and Sean it was different because Yoko had a different, strong grip approach to him, in contrast with Cynthia’s softer one and therefore John took up a “full-time job” taking care of Sean, probably trying to cover his remorse about having left Julian to grow up mostly alone apart from some visits.

Expert Textpert said
I’m Catholic, too, but not Roman Catholic.  

My family is Roman Catholic but I’m still embracing it in a way, I think. While my father can resort to his faith easily when bad things happen I can’t seem to push away negative thoughts so easily. Let’s just say I’m undergoing a period where music helps me more than faith. I still do admire dad for being so sure though.