Presuming, as I do, that my hopes for conventional happiness are completely fucked…….what now?
Suppose I’d live an average western lifespan – another 50 years or so. 2065. By then the world should be well on it’s way to collapse. Drought, famine, fire, flood, war, all that fun stuff. Seemingly our little pockets of prosperity will be last to fall. My corner of the world may hold out longest, sinking the boats of refugees fleeing continental chaos, while we continue to extract foreign resources at gunpoint. So this bubble of decadence may well outlive me.
But I doubt it’ll be the same country then. We’re already slashing our welfare safety net to the bone. Homelessness and food poverty are on the rise. With no job security, advanced qualifications, or assetts, I can’t see someone as screwed up as me surviving to old age.
But if I did find a way to make it through, what would I want to do with all that time? If what seems most vital and important is off the table, what’s a good use of a life?
There’s still the possibility of superficial relationships. I might find some way to overcome my crippling anxiety long enough to enjoy a degree of intimacy, however surface-level.
There’s still the beauty of the natural world, though that’s being degraded by the day.
There’s still music, that briefly transports you to another place. And the escapism of books, films, and other media. The faint sense of connection to humanity that all of these things bring.
There’s the rush of exercise – the feeling of freedom found running with the wind in the wild.
There’s still good to be done – though I can’t save our world (or myself), there’s still the possibility of trying to reduce the suffering of others.
But how to stop myself being consumed by what cannot be, which seems so essential, and instead focus on what is still possible for me.
Or I could turn my back on it all, and leap into the nothingness, to end that state of frustrated longing, and the emptiness that follows.
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@thehusk: This post I found oddly inspiring. When I was 18 I would pray that the world would collapse, and in its ruin I would find peace. The entire would would be as ruined as I was. And although I never got my post apocalyptic societal which what I eventually did find was a measure of peace in my life.
I read in your words the kind of hope I rarely see in people around me. I was wondering, could you give a little bit of hope to some around you? I began rebuilding my shattered life one individual at a time. I started working helping people who were addicts, back when HIV turned people into modern lepers. One person at a time, I just was there for them, where ever they were. Addicted, clean, dying. My soul was filthy, but I found that each person I unconditionally helped brought a little more soap to the clouded window. Harm reduction is a path many people find deplorable, but it brings a measure of safety to people who have none. My filthy soul was okay with making people safe. This was how I rebuilt myself.
Just an idea.
@Hazy, it’s so hard to keep looking forward. To stay focused on what you can do, when you feel no real hope for yourself (or the world around you.)
I don’t really know how to connect with those around me. I’ve never been a people person. It takes a long time for anyone to warm to me, and even then I’m an acquired taste. It’s hard to stop the despair leaking into everything I say, and I’m not good at putting people at ease.
I used to meet regularly with another severely depressed person to listen to her problems and try to offer support. It felt like a good thing to do, but I’m not sure I felt any better as a person for it.
But I would like to do something I felt really helped reduce suffering. If I could work out something within my capabilities.
Addicts don’t care or notice, which is why I gravitated to helping them. Meeting them where they were. I didn’t have to say a thing, just make sure I was there. I am unsure how you should move forward, except just to move. It doesn’t matter if you feel like it is helping you. When I was helping others, the ones society threw away, I never felt like I was helping myself. That is a slow journey and it is only on reflection years later that I realize that this most certainly saved my life. The journey began with me reaching out to someone no one would touch.
I’m not sure if there’s anything like that near me (about as rural as it gets.) But I will give it some thought. The idea of just accompanying someone through their brokenness certainly has weight.
It saved my life. I’m not joking either.
Just think thehusk, you too could be a remarkably semi sane 47 year old person who owns crowing chickens and sobs in the shower occasionally in the shower.
That doesn’t seem too appetizing does it?
I’ll try again: Just think thehusk, you too could be looking back on your life at 47 and think, yeah all those people who I was there for, even if I felt totally empty at the time, some of them are still alive because I was just there, nothing special, just there for them. A few are even living life well.
I was living in sheer hell in my mind at the time, a kind of hellish existence I was unsure I would ever escape. I would wake up and force myself to drive to my job and just get lost in other people. Then I would trudge home and wish I was dead, drink myself to sleep and repeat it all the next day. One day I was so drunk the next morning I shouldn’t have gone in to work, but no one seemed to notice because they were all pretty wasted as well. And so it went….for months and months and slowly, ever so slowly I began to become a little more human ever day.
Anyone can find redemption.
It’s been a long time since I had a nice cry in the shower. Good times. Chickens would be a plus too.
But yeah, it would be nice to look back and think that I’d been there for people when they needed someone, even if there was no hope for them. Might make me feel a little more human.
Minus the drinking and losing myself in other people, that’s pretty much where I am now. Wake up after four hours sleep, force myself to get to work, drag myself through my shift hoping no one notices how shattered I am (some think I’m on drugs), walk home thinking about ending it all, try to find an escape in my mind, finally fall asleep, rinse, repeat.
Maybe I’ll find some way forward.
@thehusk. Maybe changing your job to something different. So rinse repeat is no longer just rinse repeat, but rinse…(oh that guy didn’t OD today), repeat.
@Hazy. Yeah, I’ve been meaning to find something else for years. But it’s hard. Like I said, not much in the way of qualifications. And the whole process of job hunting, applying, interviewing etc. sends my anxiety into complete overdrive.
It’s on the list though.
@thehusk: I wish I could open the door for you, take your hand and walk with you down a new path. We could get about a half mile into it and you wouldn’t even notice I let go and you were walking by yourself.
Thanks Hazy. Guess I’ll have to walk the path alone. But your words help me to reaffirm that I want to keep trying.