Rx For Ennui
An old friend wrote about the topic of Ennui on his blog The Cage. I and others have known first hand this persistent sense of malaise. Ennui is personal, a condition of soul that is beyond any abstract focus of interest. Speaking personally, a confluence of climate disruption resulting from runaway capitalism, and the rise of authoritarianism in the United States are catalysis for Ennui.
These words, written by MADI EM, are the best offset to the paralysis of spirit that I have discovered. I received this via the FREEWILL ASTROLOGY email newsletter published by Rob Brezsny. Once in a while I read something that seems meant for me. You may decide if “this” is just what you need as well!
First the diagnosis: a “belief audit.”
- Is suffering the price of awareness?
- Is suffering the “proof” of empathy?
- If I obtain joy and happiness, thereby less available for others?
- Is being happy a privilege you haven’t “earned” yet?
- Is it selfish to feel joy when others are suffering?
- Does it ease your suffering for others to turn away from their happiness?
And now, some HARD TRUTH.
- Denying yourself joy doesn’t improve the world – it only depletes you.
- Always on-the-alert for suffering doesn’t prevent it – it just prevents your thriving.
- There will always be suffering. There will always be chaos. As it has always been.
And one more dose of the hard truth treatment:
- If suffering could save the world, the world would be saved by now.
- Bypassing your pleasure doesn’t heal the World’s pain.
- Suppressing your vitality doesn’t eliminate despair.
- Feeling heavy doesn’t make the weight of the world lighter.
- How much of an impact are you able to make when the world is on fire, and you are burning down with it?
So, break the spell!
- Joy is NOT betrayal. It’s fuel.
- Aliveness is NOT ignorance. It’s power.
- You can hold awareness of difficulty AND happiness. Grief AND gratitude, Anger AND pleasure. Life contains multitudes of contradictory truths.
- What if joy isn’t selfish?
- What if your happiness is not a betrayal, but a rebellion?
- What if you became a living antidote to the weight of the world?
- You are allowed to feel good. Even now.
- Especially now.
2 thoughts on “Rx For Ennui”
Well, it’s certainly one way of looking at this sense of despair I feel on a daily basis. I guess there are parts of Mr. Brezsny’s piece of writing that I take umbrage with. It seems he’s assuming if someone is immersed in aspects of suffering they must also not be happy and somehow feel that if they do feel happiness they are usurping someone else’s joy. I’ve never even considered that others are seriously impacted by whatever my sense of the world may or may not be. If they are, they have their own issues.
It is true that I feel the pain of the world in my gut each and every day. I also understand that there is very little any single person can do. And yet within my own psyche I’m compelled to try to do something regardless of the almost assured futility of those efforts. I am the leopard that cannot change its spots. But thats okay. Not a lot of years remain so I’ll stick with this for now.
I agree with you that suffering and happiness are held together many times.
Still, the quotations published by Brezsny are on point for many whose quotient of suffering is inordinate, on account of mistaken, and self-defeating beliefs which they have adopted. If one is fortunate one recognizes that “something is wrong” and the questioning begins. Perhaps this is another description of learning, the dispelling of ignorance. A great deal of suffering is due to the proliferation of ignorance. Ignorance is nothing other than holding to a cluster of obsolete views, beliefs. My sense of the quotations offered by Brezsny is that everyone is worthy of joy, full stop. To take inventory of our essential beliefs, asking ourselves if I am feeling pain on account of this or that…? If so, to seek a more firm, more secure “place to stand.”