Out of such abysses, from such severe sickness one returns newborn, having shed one's skin, more ticklish and malicious, with a more delicate taste for joy, with a more tender tongue for all good things, with merrier senses, with a second dangerous innocence in joy, more childhood and yet a hundred times subtler than one has ever seen before. โ Friedrich Nietzsche
Like most writers and artists, I sometimes feel the dark knight of the soul. I felt it tonight, struggling to express the ideas I wanted to express, to flesh out the outline that once seemed so clear. I've experienced this feeling enough now to know that it is a necessity to creative birth. Indeed, despair allows the opportunity for rebirth. When one has hit rock bottom, the only thing that remains is possibility.
I've found, over and over again, that the key to overcoming despair is to embrace the experience, and discover its meaning. Often despair is a sign that one is fighting against reality, and this realization is essential to growth. Indeed, the existential philosopher Soren Kierkegaard believed that the worst condition of them all was to brag about never having experienced despair, as he believed that that is a signal that one has never actually been authentically conscious of one's self.
We are taught in our society to strive for optimism, that optimism is hope, and that we must escape the demon of despair. But what if despair was really what gives birth to joy? That the optimism and happiness we are so often pressured to attain or at the very least display to others, is really us living an inauthentic existence?
Tonight, as I so often do when feeling despair, I consulted one of my favorite humanistic thinkers, Rollo May. In his delightful book Freedom and Destiny, he argues that despair has great value. May refers to genuine despair, not the sort of despair that we put on to impress others or express resentment:
Authentic despair is that emotion which forces one to come to terms with one's destiny. It is the great enemy of pretense, the foe of playing ostrich. It is a demand to face the reality of one's life. The 'letting go' that we noted in despair is a letting go of false hopes, of pretended loves, of infantilizing dependency, of empty comformism which serves only to make one behave like sheep huddling in a flock because they fear the wolves outside the circle... Despair is not freedom itself, but is a necessary preparation for freedom... But there is no denying destiny or fate, and reality comes marching up to require that we drop all halfway measures and temporary exigencies and ways of being dishonest with ourselves and confront our naked lives."According to May, freedom begins only when we confront destiny. This is why embracing despair is so important, because despair is a refusal to confront oneself. But we must not resist despair, for the process of confronting oneself and one's situation honestly and openly allows us to discover new meanings, interpretations, and possibilities. It is precisely this process which gives us the possibility for joy. May is clear to point out, however, that joy is not the same thing as happiness:
Happiness relaxes one; joy challenges one with new levels of experience. Happiness depends generally on one's outer state; joy is an overflowing of inner energies and leads to awe and wonderment. Joy is a release, an opening up; it is what comes when one is able genuinely to 'let go.' Happiness is associated with contentment; joy with freedom and abundance of human spirit... Joy is new possibilities; it points toward the future. Joy is living on the razor's edge; happiness promises satisfaction of one's present state, a fulfillment of old longings. Joy is the thrill of new continents to explore; it is an unfolding of lifeI particularly love this: "joy is the welcoming of discord as the basis of higher harmonies." From studying the lives of many creators, it is obvious that the best creative works involve the authentic resolving of tensions. Of course, this doesn't mean that we must banish happiness from our lives! As May notes, the good life includes both joy and happiness. There is nothing wrong with happiness, nor the desire for happiness. But our constant search or happiness, and our immediate impulse to resort to optimism at the slightest hint of despair, robs of us a deeper, richer opportunity for joy. When fully embraced, and honestly accepted, despair often leads to joy. As May notes, "we all stand on the edge of life, each moment comprising that edge. Before us is only possibility."
Do not close yourself to the infinite. Open yourself to despair, thus opening yourself up to joy.
Reader Comments
Hope isn't bad in itself, but if you don't have that sobering despair of cold hard reality, how can you know what is real and what is your tendency to forget negative memories and feelings in order to" survive" as our brains do naturally (nostalgia effect, etc)
Without higher negative emotions, there is no impetus for change.
Think inception's ending, we don't know if Cobb really was home with his children. Hope and wanting good could have blinded him as he spins the totem (oddly enough wasn't his but from his wife) and walks away. With hope he forgot to be sober and double check - is this real?
Same for those people who are in addictions or abusive relationships, despite the facts which are grim, they keep running back to the drug or abuser in a hope that things will be different this time.
That's the funny thing about our brains, it can fool our conscious mind to do what deep down it thinks means survival (and hope). So much so that we ignore reality in order to keep one going. It's like a universal Stockholm syndrome where we start feeling positive about those negative aspects that keep us in struggle and pain.
Dostoyevsky meant that if you weren't suffering, you wouldn't feel the need to become more aware. Being happy just reinforces the past and present while ignoring the future.
Thank you for your thoughts. I look at things from a different perspective. Maybe it is a girl thing!
I think life is shared in many forms to enable many different life experiences. For this reason I believe that when we put too much negativity out onto the ether it affects the totality of all life. Consequently, I strive, every single day, to manage the negativity of my mind and reach for the positive, wherever it may be found without hurting another part of life.
L ike Pandora, I choose hope over despair any day.
Bird brains and bee brains struggle for supremacy.
The left hand battles the right.
This is the Land of Pleasantville.
Home is far, far away.
ned, out
IF we cant wake up, who will??
Shudder.
Probably worse than when I lived above a crack den.
Shudder.
Here s another one ...
11-year-old Michigan boy commits suicide after social media prank
Tysen Benz was at home when he saw social media posts indicating that his 13-year-old girlfriend had committed suicide. The posts were a prank, but the 11-year-old boy apparently believed them....He that lives upon Hope will die fasting. Benjamin Franklin
He that lives in hope danceth without music. George Herbert
Let me tell you something, my friend. Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane. Red, Shawshank Redemption
Me: Hope does not equal optimism. Hope is self-delusion. Optimism is a conscious choice, despite all the contrary evidence, to see things from the perspective of building on real potential - to find the best way though, rather than to dream of leapfrogging over the negative and the despair to some nebulous 'best' somewhere out there....
Hoping is postponing.
BLISS... buds
Self-destructive thought and action brings limitation, struggle and loss - to the point of calling the underlying beliefs into question.
Frankly, despair is hope-less and not even open to the possibility of change.
Hope can be misplaced - but then that can be corrected and re-directed.
Temptation to despair may be a crucible of spiritual alignment. For I tell you, you cannot afford it if you are choosing Life. So if you are meeting despair - are you setting yourself up to fail?
Does life have to meet your demands, fit your model, support your self-image - for you to come out and play?
"If I cant have MY WAY - then I shall allow NO WAY - and thus even my defeat will shout MY WAY! in defiance - and death be the victory of my judgement over a hated life".
Here's a good quote on hope:
"Hope is an orientation of spirit, an orientation of the heart. It is not
the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that
something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out". --Vaclav Havel
Hope is associated with belief driven mind - and yet in the above is really faith in an intuitive communication that the mind cannot yet articulate or align in - but knowing, is a directness of being - that you are - and anything of a narrative identity, is self-illusion that either aligns and reflects true or conflicts and covers over.
If a greater honesty of being is worthy of uncovering - then everything that occurs - even negative experiences, will serve that positive outcome.
Does despair make for a better artist. No. People are voyeurs, whether it be despair or hope or sex that draws them in, people like to watch. I don't care what anyone else says, artists are ruled by opinion and will latch on to the popular opinion. Sponges, so they are. Van Gogh, tormented by his lover loving others, was a despairing soul...and Monet, his later life plagued by blindness, his desperate need to record all he could whilst he could see, spoke of nothing but hope. They were not enlightened, they just listened.
As for the virtue of despair...I think it has been chronically overdone. And it has no meaning anymore. A mother in Yemen may despair, but does she despair more than the Syrian mother, or an Iraqi father or a Cornish farmer? I hate to be flippant, but sod it, I will...turn that frown, upside down...fuck it, stop being victims and rise up. Don't try to make money from your despair, in the form of really shitty abstract art and lengthy novels, just bombard your MP with emails that demand a proper response.