It is interesting to me that so little is technically going on right now, but everything is happening.
Relationships are ending, lives have been turned upside down, and people are seeking therapy at alarming rates. Putting aside the legitimate tragedies some people are experiencing, why is isolation so disastrous? I guess we don’t notice that our minds are not a nice place to live normally because we avoid living there. We go out into the world and try to experience something other than ourselves. Now we cannot do that.
We distract ourselves and then claim we are too busy to go after the lives we want. “I just don’t have the time,” we said. “Here you go,” said God. “No,” we say, “not like this.” The truth is, the busier you are the more you end up doing. When you get used to constantly having a task, it feels odd to not have one. Now we have nothing and struggle to do anything. It’s inertia or something like that.
What have I used this time for? For one thing, I have combed through my behavior and mistakes over the last 10 years in depth, and I have decided to cancel myself. Unfortunately, just like most cancelled people, I am still very much here.
I have tried to convince myself that wasting 70% of my time is not that bad because 30% of my free time is a lot more than it used to be. So I should be getting more done. I have also tried to convince myself that I only waste 70% of my time.
I have concocted an elaborate theory about how autocorrect starts acting up around the full moon. I have also come up with something called The Ben and Jerry’s Diet, where you live on one carton per day. Each pint is roughly 1200 calories, so logically, you would lose weight. It’s like the Subway diet, except more fun and with better long-term marketing prospects because I’m not a pedophile.
It’s not that I haven’t done anything useful. It’s just with all this time it is painfully clear what could be and how much what is falls short. We have been given the gift of time and we don’t know what to do with gifts. We are better at surviving in the face of hardship than enjoying blessings. Studies show that humans create their own problems when they don’t have any, and I am expecting these scientists to show up at my door any day now and request to examine my brain when I die. Would that make my suicide worth it for the greater good? Haha. Anyway.
I don’t have a solution. All I can say is forgive yourself, maybe. Whatever you’re going through right now, I feel like that is relevant. Forgive yourself for not living up to the standard they tell you it’s unforgiveable not to meet. Forgive yourself for having messier problems than other people seem to have, because they struggle with the same thing or worse but they’re too ashamed to talk about it. Forgive yourself for not being born smarter or prettier. Forgive yourself for wanting what “emotionally healthy” people are supposed to be too self-sufficient and self-loving to want. Forgive yourself for not living up to the terrible burden of “potential.”
We do not live in forgiving times. Sometimes it seems like people are praised for how much they condemn. I think women especially struggle with this because for so long they were told to put up with everything for the sake of having a husband or keeping their family together, and now the pendulum has swung in the opposite direction, where tolerating anything is a sign of weakness. But you can’t genuinely accept yourself without accepting others. And if your goal is to accept another person, you can’t do that without accepting yourself either.
At the end of the day, we are all we have. And, for better or for worse, that is clearer now than ever before. Maybe that’s why everyone is so upset.
Half-Blood Kuwaiti 