Hope - Joy - and Existential Dread

 My son was working on a - intro to himself paper for his teacher. Actually it was an odd poem form.  One of the lines was - Hope - Joy - Existential Dread.

It makes sense. Most of the time, he's pretty happy. Even though he hasn't seen his friends in person since - March! 

He's back in school - but only virtually. His friends that went back - didn't want to because - Covid - but he said they have a morbid humor about it. Apparently - they are all going to die from climate change - so why would it matter if they die a few years early. 

The adult in me - is horrified. Children should NOT be thinking like that. On the other hand - I remember doing duck and cover drills for nuclear war when I was a kid, living in Los Angeles, - ground zero. All our parents worked in aerospace. And I remember - every time we did a duck and cover drill how stupid it was because - while hiding under a desk can save us from an earthquake - it can't save us from disintegration.  My best friend Meghan and I agreed - if we heard the sirens go off for real (we had a noon test of the warning system daily), we would head to the beach and - die there. 

My son and his friends existential dread - is horrifying as a parent - but also - kind of normal when I think back on my childhood. 

I actually think my son's approach - that he is both hopeful and joyful and filled with existential dread - is just - normal for life.  Whoopie, We're all going to die! That predates me. So does - How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Bomb. 

Should we worry about our children? Of course. But worrying about death is - to a certain extent normal and we all have to come to terms with our eventual mortality and be grateful for the time we do have. 

Living beats the alternative. 

Humanism - helps people cope without putting all their hope into what is essentially … a hoax.

I was chatting with a fellow Humanist Educator and we were discussing the benefits of Humanism. One of the benefits is -that it helps people cope without putting their hopes into - what is essentially a hoax.

What do we mean by that? Well - a lot of what humans do - is worry. I worry quite a bit. Uncertainty is stressful.  When I really want to know if things will work out - I flip coins to divine the future - until I start laughing at myself - because - seriously - I'm flipping coins.

It's a way to cope without putting my hope and energy and money - into things that don't actually work.  It's a placebo action. Something I can physically do to pretend to help - but that doesn't actually help. The point about flipping coins though, it doesnt hurt either.

Many times, we do things - that have no impact - because we feel we need to do something, and we end up making things worse.  So - in those moments - I flip coins - precisely because - it is harmless. 

There are other ways our anxiety about uncertainty manifests. When we have to make choices. 

The other day I was at a restaurant - and I couldn't decide what to order, so I did eeny meeny miny mo. My friend said - the great thing about doing that is - it helps clarify what you really want - when your answer is not what you really want.

And if you don't really care - then this random selection - helps fix your selection anxiety problem. 

What these things have in common - is they are ways to cope with uncertainty - to help is create clarity in your mind while giving you a tangible action to take that will do no harm. 

Placebo rituals - are a real thing that we humans really seem to need. My friend, who I was originally discussing this with - has his own placebo rituals he does - to help him resist the temptation to spend time, money and energy on things that don't actually work and we are ok with that. Why? Because we know - they are just physical things we are doing to reduce our anxiety. We aren't actually putting our hope into them.  It is when we put our time, energy, money and hope into hoaxes - that we cause ourselves problems. 

Positive Perseverance

While persevering is no guarantee of success, there can be no success without it.

Life is hard. Sometimes annoyingly so. I feel like my husband and I have been going through a period of bad luck where things just aren’t going our way. It’s frustrating. But, we stick at it, and keep plugging along working to make things better for ourselves, our family and the world in which we live.

What keeps us going? Well, first, that we don’t have an alternative. Things are what they are and we have no choice but to deal with them. We might as well tackle these things with a positive attitude.

I liken this to my son who hates doing homework and is bored doing it. Whenever he says, I’m bored, I say, so am I, so get the homework done so we can go do something else more fun. Drudgery is a part of life. Get it done and move on and the better the attitude you have about the drudgery, the quicker you get it over with. Fighting it just draws it out.

The next thing that keeps us going is hope.  Hope for the future. Again, we may continue to have bad luck. There is only so much that we can control in our lives. But that shouldn’t stop us from making an effort. There is a lot we can control and by doing those things we improve the possibility that our luck might change. That we may get a break.

An example of this is looking for a new job. There are still way to many people out of work and it doesn’t matter how well qualified you are, you may still lose out on a job to another candidate. Don’t take it personally. My husband lost out on a job a while back that he was actually the top candidate for until another guy lost his job and became available and knocked my husband out of the running. Sometimes things like that happen and sometimes you catch a break. The point is that unless you persevere and keep trying you won’t even be in the running.

For me, the work I do is lonely. I’m a writer. I post stuff and rarely does anyone respond. But sometimes they do and sometimes you find that you had a tremendous impact on someone else’s life. Like yesterday I got a call from a mother who told me that her daughter has become totally empowered because of a book I wrote. If I wasn’t out there persevering despite the lack of positive response, I would not have even met that woman in the first place to have had that impact.

You never know what will come of your efforts. Possibly nothing. But even if that is true, it is still worth it to positively persevere. Because you just never know.

Do you have a story of perseverance you’d like to share? Please share if you do because it will help motivate the rest of us to keep going when the going gets hard. 

Futility of War

Over the summer I took my son to the Armed Forces HistoryMuseum in St Petersburg. It is an excellent museum and worth the vist.

The visit, however, was very emotional for me. It surprised me actually how emotional I become.  In the WWII section, there is a replica of a German outpost. The room is filled with swastikas. I had to explain to my 6 yr old why I started crying and had to leave the room.

Other areas of the museum made me feel really grateful that there were men and women who were willing to put their lives on the line to help other people in need.

I left feeling a strange mixture of pride in humanity and sadness at the futility of all of it.  War is a tragic waste of human lives. There is no other way to describe it. I can’t help wondering how many of the wars humans have waged were absolutely necessary. 

I understand that some of the wars were necessary. After all, brutal dictators cannot be allowed to enslave the world. I realize that pacifism is a noble goal, but in some circumstances, unrealistic.  It is just that, it would be nice if we could end wars and find less violent ways to solve conflicts.

In the meantime, thank goodness that there are men and women willing to do the difficult and dangerous work that is still unfortunately required from time to time. Let’s just hope that humanity progresses past this point eventually.

In the meantime, as I said, for a museum to move me in two completely different directions emotional means that this is one heck of a museum and worth visiting regardless of whether you are a pacifist or not.

Image: "Old Army Jacket" by Maggie Smith http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/

Tell me everything is gonna be alright!

Today is International Love Song Day. A day to think about your favorite love song, because, lets face it, the world would be a much sadder place without love songs.  As I was thinking about what my favorite love song is - I thought - well, what’s my favorite Beatle’s love song?  “I’ve Just Seen a Face” is one of my favorites.  I like it’s simplicity and innocence.  Then I thought, maybe a Duran Duran or Spandau Ballet song might be my favorite.  And I immediately thought of “I’ll Fly for You.”

But as I was thinking about this - I realized, nothing beats a Hawaiian love song.  I literally can spend all day listening to Hawaiian love songs. And then I have trouble.  There are so many I love, that none immediately jump to mind as my favorite.

Do I choose something from Cecilio and Kapono? Goodnight and Goodmorning is certainly one of my favorites. But so is pretty much every song they ever recorded.  Song for Someone, Lovin in your eyes, or About You, come to mind.  But why limit myself to C&K?  Why not go with You Ku’uipo, which is one of my all-time favorite songs. And by all-time favorite, I mean, if all I could do is listen to this song for the rest of my life I would be ok with that. But then how can you forget Far Too Wide For Me by Peter Moon and Patrick Downes? Anyone who’s lived in the islands goes to complete mush when they hear that song. There’s a reason it’s used in the telephone commercial.

But then I realized, no, I know the best love song in the world.  Danny’s Song by Loggins and Messina but sung by a Hawaiian. Every band in Hawaii covers this song. Pretty much every show is ended with this song and everyone in the audience sings along at the top of their lungs with tears in their eyes as they do so.  It is one of the best love songs ever written. Everyone can relate and once you’ve experienced the joy of a community sing along to it, your life will never be the same again.  So there you go. Don’t believe me?  Here is a video of Kapono in New Orleans in 2007 with the crowd singing along. 

Even though we ain’t got money, I’m so in love with you honey. Everything will bring a chain of love. And in the morning when I rise, you bring a tear of joy to my eyes and tell me everything is gonna be alright!