Wednesday, October 3, 2018

The Desert


Tonight I felt hopeless. It’s not the first time I’ve felt hopeless in the last year or so. I’ve been in an ongoing battle for hope for several months now. It’s been one disaster after another. My own mind doesn’t help matters. I recently learned that I struggle with anxiety. I’m not sure to what degree, but it explains a lot. In his book, The Courage to Be, Paul Tillich differentiates anxiety from fear, the latter being a response to a real event or danger. Anxiety is more free-floating and can be present when no actual threat is present. I think many of us might be anxious. Some anxiety may feel justified. As I’ve said, I’ve had several events in the last year and a half that have ranged from exhausting to traumatic. Some are ongoing. None have completely resolved and I have many things hanging over my head.
Lately I’ve had this fantasy in which I get up one morning, very early, pack a few things, and drive away while it’s still dark, telling no one, leaving everything and everyone behind, except that which I can put in my car. In my fantasy I drive to some small desert town and get a job as a janitor or as a convenience store clerk. In my spare time I read and live alone. I keep to myself and live out my days alone and quiet. I’m never seen again.
It’s a great fantasy. It’s the fantasy of someone who is emotionally exhausted. But it’s also a fantasy of a coward. I don’t have the luxury of running away. Nor do I truly have a desire to do so. What keeps me from acting out my fantasy? The first reason is that I have people l love and am committed to where I am. My Muse wants me here, not for my comfort, but for my growth. My children want me here, not for my comfort, but for their growth. I cannot be the man I am supposed to be in the wilderness. I cannot dessert to the desert.
The second reason I will not flee is because I am with me wherever I go. I created, directly and indirectly the life I have now, and I would just re-create it somewhere else because I would still be me. I would still be the man who loves his children and tries to do the right thing and tries to listen to his Muse. We keep creating and re-creating our problems until we truly solve them.
Finally, life, true life, requires courage. Paul Tillich says this: “Courage is strength of mind, capable of conquering whatever threatens the attainment of the highest good. It is united with wisdom, the virtue which represents the four cardinal virtues, (the two others being temperance and justice.”[1]   
Courage then, when used, brings with it wisdom, temperance, and justice.
These blogs almost always encourage the reader to Get Started and Keep Going. I’ve often said that Getting Started is the harder part. I was wrong. It’s often surprisingly easy to get started (but not always). To keep going, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year – that’s hard. These last several months have been the hardest of my life, not only because of the difficulties, but because of their severity, their frequency, and their seeming unending nature. I have sometimes felt that I am specially cursed by God for reasons I don’t understand and that my life will always be like this. Or maybe, just maybe, if I Keep Going, I will end up at the beach instead of the desert with my Muse and my children watching the waves from my house.



[1] Tillich, Paul, The Courage to Be, Yale University Press, New Haven, CT and London, 2000.