DESPAIR

 

Some events in my life, in recent times, have led me to question the very foundation of the ideas I defend, the validity of my self-proclaimed egoism, of my individualism-at-all-costs.

So I think it is worth to digress a little here, to try and demonstrate how life, concrete life, everyday life with its surprises and vicissitudes, calls into question the value of ideas, of all ideas, those abstractions that we are so proud of, but at the same time understand so little, those exercises of the mind that sometimes seem so fundamental and sometimes turn into trifles. Because when we question the value of ideas, when we leave the world of ideas and turn to life itself, we are left struggling with the most essential, the most basic things, and we have to take some direction, even if in the end it leads to nothing.

When you turn to the most basic, the most essential things, you leave aside many issues that have no real importance. The essential thing is the struggle for existence, pure and simple. The struggle for survival necessarily includes trying to be WELL.  And then, beyond all our expectations, we experience situations that make it impossible to be even minimally well. Among these situations, two are particularly poignant, and I would say, on a spiritual level, they are the two essential problems: loss and illness.

LOSS can, depending on the situation, easily leave you in a state of discouragement to the point of  making life impossible for you. As for ILLNESS, it goes without saying, depending on it is nature, what kind of organ it affects, life can become an unbearable burden, and the thought of suicide can become a relief.

Loss exposes our fragility. The emotional dependence that we create with that person exposes a deep need that is both biological and emotional. You suddenly realize that you had a need, unsuspected until then, for that company, a pressing need, that person completed you, defined you, they offered, besides support, a reflection of your entire external life. They were your contact with that life itself.  Then you wake up and discover that they are gone. You will never see them again. The promises of religion mean nothing, and even if they did mean something, even if they could one day come true, the fact is that you will never see that person again. Not the way she was. It's over.

Your mind tries to adapt to this new reality, to this space that has been left, to this empty chair and that television that now has no one to watch, to those messages that now torture you, but it takes time, and our mind has a limit, it is not made of steel, and then we understand that we needed that person more than we would like to admit, they were essential to us like any of the other things we need to live, and now that they are gone, there is no point in looking anywhere, you will not find a replacement for them, because if you could, then they would not have meant much in the first place.

The loss, then, diminishes us, and the almost invariable result is that the spirit becomes depressed, and many times it becomes depressed irreversibly, or at least is left with after-effects that will be difficult to resolve one day.

Along with loss, which is unbearable in itself, we have illness. Neither of these two things has a solution. The body will invariably get sick at some point, for whatever reason, whether early or late, whether due to lack of health or excess of it.

There is nothing more truly degrading than illness. In fact, it is degradation itself. When your apparently healthy body begins to show signs that it is going to fail, to fail in an essential point, to fail perhaps beyond all hope, leaving you, if not totally, at least partially disabled, it itself risks becoming your greatest burden in this world. And then you, who already have nature, society, the world, the universe against you, in the tireless struggle for survival, now also have your own body against you.

Because you want to live, but not just live, survive, but live WELL, you want to enjoy life, you want to make the most of every minute you have left while you are alive, because the post mortem has nothing to offer you, unlike almost all others, and then you realize that your body will not necessarily be your greatest ally in this task, so obviously you can only lose ground.

Both loss and illness weaken you, the first, your spirit, your mind, the second, your "carnal shell". And that is when we come to the very essence of the vital problem of our existence on this earth.

Despair.

That is what we are running away from. Yes, that is what we have been running away from, trying to run away from, all this time. Despair. The absence of any prospect of enjoyment. Only the full perception that all that is left for you is to go around in circles, to revolve around your emptiness. Despair insinuates itself as a mere discouragement at first. Indisposition. Lack of will to do this or that.  But behold, it grows, it grows to such an extent that it takes over your entire mind and occupies all your waking hours.

Now, think about the situation you need to reach in order to reach this conclusion. We imagine that our problems in life have many sources and take many forms. And in a way, this is valid. But when you dissect your reality and get to the bottom of things, you will find that, in fact, all you fight against, all you really don't want, is to be overcome by despair.

I am not talking about a despair of a religious nature. A longing for answers. A "need for God". These experiences that I am talking about here have led me to the definitive confirmation of my total disbelief. If I had no faith before, now I have much less. No, I am not talking about the despair of someone who finds solace in Christ, in Islam, in nirvana, or whatever religious concept it may be, I am talking about the despair of the flesh. Of material despair. This despair is not a metaphysical or dogmatic construction whose sole purpose is to justify the need for religion.

There is a big difference between despairing over hypothetical causes, despairing, say, over not knowing what will happen after you die, and despairing over a cancer that threatens to corrode your mind, in a very tangible way, without figures of speech. We are on the plane of the real, of matter, of the "flesh", and the mind only exists because there is this "carnal shell" here to serve as a base for it. Pure spirit is an inconceivable fiction. The most poignant and true despair, therefore, is the despair of seeing yourself, in this world, completely deprived of someone fundamental and subject to an illness that threatens to leave you completely dependent on those who care little about you.

Note that religion, even philosophy, has little to offer here, because the former offers the consolation of a post-mortem reward for our problems, but does not solve them in any way, and the latter offers countless theories that, although brilliantly well-crafted, do not serve to help us with what is truly basic, what is truly essential, in the dealing with everyday life.

Can egoism be an answer, a barrier to this despair? To cling with all your strength to what keeps you alive, to make sure of the little power you still have? Or does this despair, precisely, reveal the futility of egoism, by clearly demonstrating our perennial need for others?

I must have said several times that selfishness is not incompatible with the need for other people; on the contrary, it is through their presence that it is exercised. When dealing with loss, you are dealing with an attack on your ego; it is your ego that reacts by not accepting the departure of someone who was essential for you to live well.  Likewise, the mental discomfort caused by the onset of illness is purely selfish. Knowing that many of your days, your moments, will be filled with discomfort is a natural blow to your ego. You want to be well for as long as possible, preferably all the time.

Despair, therefore, does not contradict egoism, quite the opposite. Despair arises precisely from the impossibility of exercising it fully. But if we wanted to give a name to the source of despair, what would it be? The lack of God? No, because I know despair, but the concept of God is completely inconceivable to me. No, it is obvious that the source of despair is the impossibility of solving the problems that afflict us, simply because we do not have the power to do so. It is our POWERLESSNESS.

We all have will, we all have power, to a greater or lesser degree. But, also, we are all powerless to varying degrees. We simply cannot change the course of things that are beyond us. Of course, of course, I can learn to control how I see such things. Train my mind not to be so affected by them. Stoicism. But I do not have, and will never have, the power to bring back anyone I have irretrievably lost. In the same way, in relation to illness, my power goes to a certain point.  I can learn to react to it positively. A beautiful fallacy, because illness is a big mess and has nothing good to teach us. So, I am completely powerless to challenge an illness that goes beyond my strength.

This POWERLESSNESS, which is natural, is the very source of all frustration. It is the source of despair, and so the key to overcoming it seems to be to overcome our powerlessness. Or rather, the way it affects us. No, certain things are beyond our reach, and death is the first and most important of them. But death is a breath, a mere second, death does not affect us at all, only the thought of it. Nothing will exist after death, so our mind has to be trained to deal with the anguish that the idea itself brings.

When I experienced loss, my equanimity in the face of death failed miserably. Of course, I still have no fear of dying, but I understood that the death of another can transform life into a core. This is how the words of the great Leonard Cohen took new meaning: "And death is old, but it is always new." 

So, starting from this assumption, that the source of anguish is powerlessness, and that this anguish ends in despair, which is nothing more than the incessant contemplation of our impotence, how could I remodel myself psychologically to deal with these two inevitabilities? I have said before that life is a struggle of everyone against everyone. This should be understood almost literally. We fight for everything, even for the air we breathe. But we are not only fighting against others and against nature. We are fighting against ourselves too. Against every part of us that would rather give up. The survival instinct works in such a way that it regulates us at every moment of our lives.  And when illness arrives, it tries to balance things out in a certain way, so that what at first seems like an inevitable path to defeat becomes an opportunity for you to stop and reevaluate certain things. From then on, the will to live speaks louder, and you realize that, although you are essentially powerless, powerless in so many ways, you still have a lot of... power, a lot of will within you, you still have a lot, let's say, of life reserve, so that the very fact of realizing that you have a problem and that you don't want this problem, you don't want to suffer this problem, becomes the key to a solution.

So, I will never be able to change certain things. People leave. People disappear. And the body can also be victimized by the smallest trifles. But I'm still here. My greatest asset is my lucidity. Understanding. Keeping my eyes open. Not fooling myself. Without resorting to the "trips" that so many others love.  So much so that even in the moment of greatest agony I end up not succumbing to any addiction, because I cannot bear the idea of ​​not being lucid until the last moment of my life.

From this perspective, once the period of mourning has passed, the period of adaptation to the new reality of your body has passed, you stop focusing on your impotence, on your impossibilities, and turn entirely, from a selfish perspective, to enjoying all the power you still have, which, given the circumstances, is still a lot.

The thing is, my goal in this world is to spend my life. To exhaust it completely. And it hasn't run out yet, it's far from running out. I don't WANT to die. That's why suicide is impossible for me, I don't feel the slightest desire to die, no matter how bad I've felt, and this desire to stay alive at all costs ends up being the strongest medicine against despair that I know. I overcome myself, I fight with myself, against that tiny part of me that would find it comfortable to give up, to surrender, and I remain essentially the same, with my mind and my sanity intact, no matter how bad the experiences I've been through and will still have to go through.

This is a spiritual heritage that I cannot part with.