A Touch of Waddles: We Are Weeping

http://zenarchery.com/2014/08/everyone-i-know-is-brokenhearted/

So I spotted this link on a friend's wall. It's a longish blogpost that almost eerily describes what it feels like to have first-world depression.

Provided in the meat of this post are some haunting bits:

So now you’ve got this degree that’s worth fuck-all, a house that’s worth more as scrap lumber than as a substantial investment, and you’re either going to lose your job or have to do the work of two people, because there’s a recession on. Except they keep saying the recession ended, so why are you still working twice as hard for the same amount of money?

and

Yesterday morning, when I woke up, I clicked on a video in my Twitter feed that showed mutilated children being dragged from the streets of Gaza. And I started sobbing — just sobbing, sitting there in my bed with the covers around my waist, saying “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” over and over to the empty room. Dead children, torn to bits. And then it was time for…what? Get up, eat my cereal, go about my day? Every day? - See more at: http://zenarchery.com/2014/08/everyone-i-know-is-brokenhearted/#sthash.o6CMd28Q.dpuf

Yesterday morning, when I woke up, I clicked on a video in my Twitter feed that showed mutilated children being dragged from the streets of Gaza. And I started sobbing — just sobbing, sitting there in my bed with the covers around my waist, saying “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” over and over to the empty room. Dead children, torn to bits. And then it was time for…what? Get up, eat my cereal, go about my day? Every day?

and finally

I don’t remember ever feeling this miserable and depressed in my life, this sense of futility that makes you wish you’d simply go numb and not care anymore. I think a lot about killing myself these days. Don’t worry, I’m not going to do it and this isn’t a cry for help. But I wake up and think: fuck, more of this? Really? How much more? And is it really worth it?

This author, a generation before me, has hit the same wall that many in our generation are struggling against; a wall of almost pure futility, despair, and sadness. The indisputable realization that we're dollar signs all day, every day. Our time at work is defined by how much money we can generate. Our time at home is defined by how much money we spend- staying alive, having hobbies, being "happy." Our time asleep is defined by our ability to get up the next day to repeat the process. The actual elements of human joy- companionship, interaction, fulfillment, exercise (mental/physical/emotional), educational betterment- that are all things that are secondary. We are not allowed to prioritize our actual happiness over our ability to generate profit for someone else in order to scrape out a meager existence. We do this for a full 1/3 - 1/2 of our day; the part of our day where we have the most energy, so that we've spent just enough time crushing our own souls such when we get home, there's seldom anything left but fatigue.

What kind of a life is that? Some of us are lucky enough to have a job that's fulfilling (though it's usually one that we can barely live off of), but for the vast majority of us, it's a job necessary to the functioning of society, or more likely, a middle-man company that makes profit off of complicating what should be a relatively simple process in daily life. We are money's bitch.
That's all we are.

And it sucks, and it's sad.

At the same time, while I understand and am intimately familiar with this author's sense of hopelessness, and thoughts of suicide, he cuts off nearly halfway into the article, from talking about the important problems in the world, to bemoan the current state of music and movies. And all at once, my demeanor stiffened just a bit because I'm reminded of Socrates' oft-attributed quote (whether it's an appropriate attribution or not)-

The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.

This is some grade A "back in my day" BS that people have been throwing out literally every single generation since the beginning of recorded history. The music isn't worse; you're listening to the genres that you don't like. You're watching the movies that are profit-gobbling pieces of regurgitated trash. Art hasn't gotten worse, you've just started noticing things aside from what you love.

The catch here is that this phenomenon tickles at the depression problem we're suffering. There have always been wars, there's always been corruption. The generation before us always thinks that we're worse than they were at that age. But I think the fundamental reason this is affecting our generation so much more than generations past is our access to knowledge. Our access to these videos, to the horrors in the world. We hear about all the bad that happens, and it's no longer just hear-say, but there are videos and pictures. We have massive communities of people online who can get together and share their experiences. The sense of hopeless dread passes like a plague across all geographical space, because those boundaries have now disappeared.

So, what's the solution? Go back to a time before the internet? Everyone thinks that if you look back far enough, there's some sort of magical utopian time in history that can be pointed to, but it's just not the case. The more we convince ourselves that the past holds some kind of secret to happiness, the less likely we are to actually solve the problems we have in the here and now.

And perhaps in that regard, he concludes it best:

I don’t believe anymore that the answer lies in more or better tech, or even awareness. I think the only thing that can save us is us. I think we need to find ways to tribe up again, to find each other and put our arms around each other and make that charm against the dark. I don’t mean in any hateful or exclusionary way, of course. But I think like minds need to pull together and pool our resources and rage against the dying of the light. And I do think rage is a component that’s necessary here: a final fundamental fed-up-ness with the bullshit and an unwillingness to give any more ground to the things that are doing us in. To stop being reasonable. To stop being well-behaved. Not to hate those who are hurting us with their greed and psychopathic self-interest, but to simply stop letting them do it. The best way to defeat an enemy is not to destroy them, but to make them irrelevant.

There's a philosophical part of me that sees nothing wrong with this idea. To take back what is ours.

But, there is a pragmatic part of me that knows we are not the ones in charge, and to defy the hand that feeds us is to accept the consequences of having no food. For many, that is simply not an option. This is the part of me that considers purchasing a gun and a single bullet myself. The cynical part of me who has already lost the battle without having thrown so much as a real punch. The part of me who has struggled just to dodge the punches thrown at me.

So, where do we turn when we're unhappy and everyone else is drained to the bone dealing with their own unhappiness? We are a people enslaved in mind moreso than body, but is that any less real?

Yesterday morning, when I woke up, I clicked on a video in my Twitter feed that showed mutilated children being dragged from the streets of Gaza. And I started sobbing — just sobbing, sitting there in my bed with the covers around my waist, saying “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” over and over to the empty room. Dead children, torn to bits. And then it was time for…what? Get up, eat my cereal, go about my day? Every day? - See more at: http://zenarchery.com/2014/08/everyone-i-know-is-brokenhearted/#sthash.o6CMd28Q.dpuf

A Touch of Waddles

Tuesday, August 12, 2014

We Are Weeping

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