(Nov. 7, 2022 ● Oslin Pierrette)
So much despair in the air. More than just sadness. Full on despair and darkness. I’ve seen it as a pandemic for quite a while. The lostness, the hopelessness, and the emptiness, it’s all around. Values that create despair are embedded in so many communities. That gets ingrained deeply into many people. Then you have so many people projecting and spreading the word of despair onto others. Pressuring it onto so many innocent people, impressionable people.
I value vulnerability, beauty, love, passions, all of that. That’s the realm I invest most of my time into. It’s the life I want to live. I can understand how I lived a life without this before. But I also understand I never wanna go back, and I also understand the price I paid to obtain this living, very hefty one. Feels like it can cost everything you know and are attached to sometimes, it kind of was. So many people you lose. The strenuous journey of getting comfortable with yourself. The majority of your surroundings within your “community” just making it 10x harder with everything they project on you. And a lot more.
It’s really the rewards of conforming, but you have to pay the demoralizing price it comes with vs. the price of love and happiness. Which makes it feel like everything is against you sometimes. But a cool thing about the price of love, once you get to a place of having a good genuine form of love for yourself. What it costs you, what you lose on the journey, you have a better understanding of maybe you should let go. No matter how close you were to whatever that was.
It’s such an intense battle, and many times can be a lonely one. Which is why I understand the pandemic of despair. You gotta beat the beast of the world which is a tough beast many of the times, depending on someone’s specific situation. Varies from community to community.
Vulnerability, spirit, passions, and all that stuff isn’t really valued in many cases. No major community prioritizes those values. But many of them have strong values placed on perception. The image you have to portray for your community. Even if you have to live a lie, because If you love something that your community is against, there’s a good chance they’ll reject you. Which is heavy for many when a lot of people place a lot of importance in the validation in their family, many indoctrinated with that need for the validation of their community. That community and family can shame you out of what you love, because of the power they have over you. Do everything in their power, or just do a lot to keep you away from what you love, so you can conform into the image they want for you. So many communities value the support of the demoralization of someone’s spirit. Have people afraid to be themselves. Once you go so many years without investing in spirit, It just seems hard to spark one in the later years. Very detrimental not to invest in spirit. I feel it’s everything you may need for life. It’s disheartening that people just don’t have the ability to connect really, to feel things. The ability to obtain passions. I’m not saying this is fact, but it just seems like there is a cutoff age to have a vibrant spirit. Like think of mid-life crisis. That just sounds like making it to the mid-ages with despair. All these years of living, feeling little to no life. All this time being this empty being, no life inside, just living aimlessly. Day after many days, into many months, then years after many years, it adds up, takes a heavy toll on you not living a life with spirit. They felt life has passed them by. Wasting away your only human experience. They’re just lost about life. So they do the most intense and drastic things to spark the feelings of life. To spark something inside the dark construct, the empty life they live in. It doesn’t matter to continue living a life that has no meaning, just dragging along, nothing to lose, might as well risk it. They are trying to feel anything at that point.
I feel a lot of humans have this plateau they run into in life. Like their life has plateaued. There’s really nothing major to look forward to. Their life is just their life, and it feels aimless the rest of the way. Worries that you felt the best feelings you’re ever gonna feel in life, experienced the best memories that you are ever going to experience. And I’ve seen this happen to young people. They internally died early, and I believe the death of the spirit is a true death.
It’s disheartening to see when someone doesn’t have the ability to create things for themselves. They didn’t develop the skills to be autonomous. They didn’t invest in their spirit, where they are able to have passions to be consumed by, then to create true aspirations to build up and look forward to. They are just a person experiencing a human experience, whatever that means. They just play the part they were given, whatever position cog they are on the wheel. And the position and experience they receive is based on their socioeconomic position. Basically getting fed whatever society has for you. And that also controls your plateauing. Based on your socioeconomic position and your community situation, that can dictate where someone plateaus in life. Life just stops happening for a lot of people.
To control your life, to gain autonomy, to break the game of chance that life gives you. You need to have skills and passion to create the situation you want for yourself. You can keep creating life for yourself, when you are constantly creating.
But it’s tough to have time to craft a spirit and passions for yourself. You have to spend so much time keeping the light on, literally. Keeping your life stable. Some people gotta work the majority of the day. Then go home to sleep. Do that 5-7 days a week. For about 45+ weeks out of the year. For so many years. Which is insanity. Living the majority of your life doing something you don’t appreciate or like. Many people have to put on a made up personality, to conform into proper etiquette for work. Majority of your life being someone made up, and someone you dislike. That seems too scary, too taxing, too demoralizing. This shouldn’t be the life for humans.
This is not me trying to be condescending or pretentious. Just a real point of concern. But I remember people graduating college. And I was so scared for a very large percentage of them, because they felt they had to graduate. Especially in something they don’t care about. They felt coerced into going to school, coerced by the pressures around them. And a lot of them are still very lost in life, which is understandable. But I was just very scared for them, because for a lot of them, I felt and seen “What the f*** is next in life.” Like in high school, you could’ve been lost. But had college as a chance for something. Another chance to have some sort of purpose. But after that well dries up. That’s when the “what the f*** am I gonna do with the entire rest of my life” becomes intensely apparent. Is it just despair the rest of the way? Lot of people still needed a lot of nurturing before being pushed out the nest like that.
In general, I didn’t believe in a lot of them. Don’t see it happening for a lot of them. Not like it’s impossible. But it just can be relatively unseeable for them(that’s why I get happy, when I see someone after school. The ones that appeared that way. Pop up with something they have for themselves now). I understand how hard it is to spark passions and interests for yourself. They just didn’t know they had to invest in that realm of their life. And being late to the game is taking a huge toll on their life. Not many of their faults at all. But especially with the burdens of responsibility they have to carry on them now. Time isn’t really on their side, which some desperately need. Time and breathing space to figure shit out, a chance to try things. Which isn’t easy with all the burdens they accumulated now.
But honestly, so many people I don’t see it for them. Even faking it and living a lie. The job market is really tough, even if you try to sell out. I do hope people can find that thing they need to prosper in life.
After the first 1-2 semesters. You could’ve felt it out. Then could’ve said let me take a step back or a break. Or even say it’s not for me. But many want to escape that feeling of having nothing for themselves. Want to escape that feeling of purposelessness. Want to escape the pressures of going back home, and how people will view you. Escape all of it. So you buy into it. Buy you more time to avoid that. To avoid dealing with themselves. Because school, especially college can give you a great false sense of purpose. It’s a great excuse for everything, I’m busy with college. Insane concept, people are willing to buy into a monster, an expensive one to escape all those feelings of purposelessness, but it’s understandable. Reason why everyone wants to leave home. Those environments are just not livable, not a place you can flourish for many.
Why couldn’t there just be a supporting community for a lot of these people. That simply supports their well-being and progress. Support the path to happiness and prospering. Support them in their taking time to figure things out. Why does it have to be such an intense pressure to create such a destructive personality and living for yourself? Why hasn’t love, passions, and investing in self been a popular movement? I just want that to be the foundation. Then structure your life and the world around that. Instead of people structuring the life from the foundation of the image your community and the world wants you to be. The pandemic of despair took a toll on the older generations for sure. I don’t know how successful it would be to overturn that. A lot of those values are set in stone in the older generations. You have to learn radical acceptance and that there are a lot of lost causes(Brings peace in understanding that. Instead of fighting a wall all the time). But for the remaining youth who have a chance. The culture can be changed for them. I believe there will be massive progress. Even though many people are lost. A lot of us see the way of living the older generations taught us, lot of us see that those values are a piece of shit. And we don’t wanna demoralize the youth with that garbage.
I’m not saying everyone is like this though. I’ve seen positive college stories. I’ve seen people prospering. There’s beauty out there. People that suffer from despair don’t have to be too hard on themselves either, like constantly self loathing. When you look at your environment and community, many people didn’t have a fair chance. Not their fault for the most part, a lot of the time. But let go of the world and leave the path that led you to despair(Which might be most of the world you know), and just try something new. Invest time in yourself if you can and create your own values and worlds. Try your best to spark passions. If you keep trying and being hopeful. Good things can come.
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