Part of my cycle of living is that some days are really great days and some days are just plain shitty. As I’ve gotten deeper and deeper into treatment for depression, I’ve noticed that the shifts between good and bad are a lot less intense–it’s much less rare for me to shift between a really great moment and excruciatingly low moment.
But low days–after having a good day, are still common.
Today (and part of yesterday) was a low day. A day that actually started off really well (I got up early enough to see the sun rise and took some pictures!), but steadily shifted into really bad. I’m not sure what it that caused the shift. But I do know that I wanted to get certain things done–and didn’t. And somehow that (and maybe a full moon?) has caused an increasingly common feeling to surge up: the feeling that nothing will ever change, ever.
This is not a common feeling for me. Even in the middle of some of the worst depressions of my life, I’ve always managed to feel hopeful. I’ve *fought* to feel hopeful. I’ve fought for my *right* to feel hopeful. My right to trust that deep inside, for all the bad in the world, most human beings are good and will do the right thing.
Maybe it’s a sign of aging (or more appropriately, growing up), but I’ve become less and less interested in fighting for the right to believe the world is good, that people are good.
On the one hand, this has brought me too a really good place. In finally admitting that I will never ever have the power ever to “change” certain things–I have faced up to what is potentially (and has actually played out quite often as) an abusive relationship.
But just as so many women I’ve talked to have mentioned missing their much loved (albeit abusive) partners–Or at least the *illusion* of “partnership” that the relationship provided them–I also find myself missing that feeling of hope. That feeling that if I just clap hard enough all the good fairies would be alive again, and the world would be flushed with dark greens and reds and yellows and brilliant sunshiny days.
Even on good days I feel that sense of hope is gone. It’s just bad days that I miss it–and even worse, I get confused.
How do I negotiate abandoning all hope for change/fruition/difference–while at the same time embracing my love, dedication and belief in social justice organizing?
How do I negotiate that feeling ‘hopeless’ in the U.S. today is considered a ‘mental problem,’ ‘un-American,’ or frighteningly anti-pop culture?
How do I negotiate the feeling that being hopeless is “accepting defeat”?
Being sad is a very uncomfortable feeling for me. I think it is for all of us. And I wonder how much of my need to be a part of social justice movement making is a way for me to negotiate being sad. The worst part of feeling sad is the fear that being sad will never end. Do I use organizing as a way to pull myself out of feeling as if I will be eaten by the sadness?
I don’t know. And I guess that accepting that I don’t know–and just sitting with the feeling of sadness that I don’t know–I guess that’s a good thing. But it doesn’t change the fact that I’m sad. And that I want to eat the entire chocolate chip cookie pie that I baked last night.
How far distanced from experiencing the full range of normal human emotions has this modern world forced us to be? Why don’t we even know how to be sad anymore?
And if we don’t even know how to be sad, does that mean we aren’t really capable of being happy?
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December 7th, 2008 at 4:25 pm #
This: How do I negotiate that feeling ‘hopeless’ in the U.S. today is considered a ‘mental problem,’ ‘un-American,’ or frighteningly anti-pop culture? made me think of this. Can’t fully articulate the connection right now, nor do I have the answer to either question.
December 7th, 2008 at 4:44 pm #
I waver the same way too. No se. I say that I have happy moments pero I don’t ever say I am a happy person. I am always unsatisfied, maybe not with my life pero with the state of the world which of course connects with my life.
December 7th, 2008 at 4:46 pm #
girl, thank you for linking that, I was looking all over trying to find that conversation, I knew you had had it somewhere, but I had no idea where!!!!
December 7th, 2008 at 4:57 pm #
doll, i send you fairies tonight. and a ‘i feel you’. for me too lately i have been wondering what am i doing all this for? ok, the world is going to destroy itself…
then, i remember this vision i had when i was in ethiopia. i was reading the economist, serge la touche. he writes about how his vision for the future is in the existance of the global ‘black markets’ the markets that are outside of governments and economics…all those guys on the streets selling sun glasses and folk art. i guess i just keep thinking…this is not sustainable…this world that has been created is not sustainable…and so it will fall…and i need to focus on what will happen post-fall. how will we create communities, sustain ourselves, bring healing…i think in my heart of hearts i am a survivalist. and i want my friends to survive with me…just remember every empire falls…i guess that isnt hope. and maybe it is defeat. i dont know if it matters if most people have good hearts. i dont know if people’s good intentions matter. (the road to hell)…im not sure if the world is good, but it is falling, and fairies really do exist, so sometimes a fairy and a little vino has to be enough…
December 7th, 2008 at 4:57 pm #
welcome
December 7th, 2008 at 5:02 pm #
I think I know exactly what you mean. Though to be honest, I don’t even say “some days are good”, it’s more like “some days aren’t exactly bad and more days are bad, and some days are terrible”. And I do feel guilty for feeling that way. I write alot about hope and belief in humanity as much in an effort to convince myself! It functions much the same as when I talk myself up in the mirror, LOL. I’m trying to make myself believe the “right” things, but I’m just not there yet.
December 7th, 2008 at 5:21 pm #
I know what you’re feeling. I try to look on the brighter side of things. I play with my cat or listen to my nephews’ conversations.
It kinda reminds me of that episode of family guy where they play civil rights monopoly and Cleveland explains, “No one ever wins, it just gets a little better every time.”
December 7th, 2008 at 5:37 pm #
I once read somewhere a quote attributed to the French Resistance in WWII, though I haven’t been able to find it anywhere since and can’t back this up 100%, which seems pertinent to this idea:
“We don’t need hope to survive; resistance to tyranny is a way of life.”
I think of this quote, and of the French Resistance in general, a lot, when I’m feeling hopeless and despairing and sad. This is kind of an odd connection to make but–as an almost-lifelong atheist, who has been at least theoretically pro social justice/human rights (as much as a thirteen year old ca be), I’ve been pondering the importance of faith to human existence. Because I do feel on some level that atheism (for me at least) leads logically to a sort of despair in the pointlessness of everything, and for a while it was pretty upsetting to me that all these things I cared about ultimately didn’t matter.
But I’ve sort of come around to thinking that humans need faith in something, even if it’s not a higher power (believe me if I could believe in a higher power I would, I tried so hard for years), even if it’s just as simple as: It’s important to be a good person. I don’t have any logical, rational, economist-approved reason for thinking that. But I hold true to it because, well, if I don’t have that to hold on to, then the despair just gets overwhelming. On bad days this is pretty meager comfort, I admit. But it’s better than nothing.
I guess for me, what has worked best so far is admitting that there isn’t a “real” reason to hope, or care, or be a nice person, but I do those things anyway because the alternative is a lot lonelier and more depressing.
I just clicked over to Elle’s conversation and read someone talking about how what kept black slaves wasn’t hope but faith–guess I’m not alone in this particular worldview! but I would say for me at least what is important is not faith in a better outcome but faith in the importance of the act, love, giving a shit about people besides yourself, caring for yourself–and I mean real faith because like I said, I can’t back up logically that any of those things are important. faith in the process, not in the outcome, because in the short run the outcome is slow in coming, and in the long run we’re all dead. faith because it’s better than the alternative.
but, yes, a big part of this is also accepting that sometimes, you are sad. and that is hard to do in our world, for sure. and I was going to say more about that but this comment is long and rambly and incoherent enough so I’ll leave you with an e-hug for your being sad and a thank you for making me feel a little bit less alone (this was some pretty good timing for me to read this post, I gotta say).
December 7th, 2008 at 8:31 pm #
I’d say that anyone who doesn’t recognize that they spend most of their time suffering (wishing things were different, in small or large ways) is fairly deluded. So actually, recognizing the suffering is a good thing.
The times that I’ve found real hope have always come out of that moment when the pain was so much that I gave up on trying to make it better. Giving up makes you pay more attention, and if you pay attention, you can’t miss beauty.
Another thing that helps is gratitude. The Onandaga, for example, have a gratitude ceremony that takes hours, during which they list what they’re grateful for. They talk about the sun, the earth, animals–everything. They recognize that our ability to heal others comes out of the energy we gain from gratitude. It’s a great big cycle, and gratitude starts it off.
I hope you feel better soon.
December 8th, 2008 at 6:14 am #
Just to repeat what you already know, bfp, the first noble truth of Buddhism is accepting that all life is a tragicomic horror show characterized by suffering, pain, and dissatisfaction. I believe that once you make peace with this truth, things get a lot easier. At least for me, on my journey. I think I can say without too much self-consciousness that I’m probably one of the happiest people I know. My days are full of wonder, awe, laughter, beauty, stillness, love, gratitude. But this doesn’t preclude sadness, heartbreak, anxiety, angst, anger. I don’t think one can forcibly cut off those experiences; anymore than it makes sense to me to try to force oneself into joyous levity, bliss, pleasure. It’s not always going to be one way or the other. We pass through all these moments, like an eagle through clouds.
To me, it’s more about learning to flow through all these ephemeral conditions with a certain inner grace. With less egoic drama. Recognizing these transient moments with eyes open, passing through these dreams with mind open, feeling it all, tragedy and comedy and beauty and horror, and letting go as life flows on. In Buddhist practice, we even let go of hope. My mentor would say that we try to live with a quiet passion and yet a quiet dispassion. And that happiness and love aren’t things that happen to us because the world conforms to our desires, but rather practices we choose to work on.
My activism has always been a part of who I am and what I do, but I’ve never expected it to change the world to my liking. The universe doesn’t much care about my liking. But I just know I would be less fulfilled if I didn’t do it. It’s a very tricky negotiation — which I think is what your post is about — but I believe that one can try every day to find one’s inner balance just a little bit at a time, one modest victory at a time, and gradually the beauty of it all just keeps opening up and one begins to trend in the right direction. Not to the exclusion of anything, but in a way that is encompassing. Light and dark, happy and sad, yin and yang, eventually the pairs of opposites collapse into one. And that’s what we are.
And that’s my Buddhist sermon for the day!
Namaste.
December 8th, 2008 at 4:41 pm #
While Albert Camus’ colonialist politics were seriously problematic (by which I mean wrong), this is a great quote:
“Perhaps we will always live in a world where children are tortured. But we can reduce the number of tortured children. And if you don’t help us, who will?”
Camus is very good for these times, because he ultimately believed that everything was futile, yet that it was still important to fight for justice, to find meaning in the present.
December 9th, 2008 at 1:08 pm #
I have been struggling with cynicism the last several months…that same sense that nothing will ever change. A couple of things help: being in community with people organizing in resistance to systemic injustice, and focusing on small changes, like women who are more empowered than before, and allies finding one another.