Sunday, November 11, 2018

“Ugh! I smell like a human."



As autumn works its way into the darkened framework of a Mid-West winter, my mind seems cued to trek down the familiar deepening of melancholia. Not the existential doom that’s punctuated certain periods of my life, more like the Sunday night blues stretched to cover the calendar week. While I can function as needed and be productive in my endeavors, there still exists a substrate of confusion and longing. In recent years, I’ve met this feeling by attacking philosophy and literature with the alacrity of a person who believes they can bear definitive fruit from their endeavors, but have subsequently backed off the idea that I’ll find any inherent understanding in life. This isn’t a renunciation of intellectual pursuits as much as it is an easing into the buoyant waters of acceptance. I have to accept that there are elements of existence I will never understand. I have to accept that life includes melancholy as well as joy, as things only exist because of their opposites. Like Chuang Tzu said,

“The growing and the decreasing, the full and the empty, when one comes to an end the other has its beginning”

Acceptance doesn’t equate to resignation. It’s simply forfeiting the emotional antagonism of dealing with the “bad” while taking action to manifest the “good”. If you allow the presence of adversity as opposed to meeting it with reactive emotional petulance, the situation, which exists either way, bears a lesser burden. Acceptance may not come naturally, but it can be viewed as a practice. If you practice acceptance, acceptance will come easier. Conversely, if you buck against the inevitable, if you hate your situation but take no action to change it, if you fail to ameliorate patterns of self-destruction, then you will do nothing but get better at doing that which damages you, because that is what you’re practicing. So as these Michigan days shorten and the dark only gives respite to a few hours of grey, I’m going to keep at my practices.

Meditation for patience.
Time with family and friends for joy and love.
Exercise for health.
Reading for knowledge.
Writing for reflection.

Acceptance for living.


No comments:

Post a Comment