Sad

I had a few things in mind about what I was going to write my first “I’m a free agent now” word vomit about. I was thinking of writing about turning 28, or about, well, the feeling of freedom. But really right now I just want to talk about my feelings, and about feeling sad in particular.

It makes me sad that people can be so cruel, mean, harsh, uncharitable. I mean this in the broadest sense, from small cruelties like saying hurtful things to large ones like outright abusing others.

Why are we like this? Why are we cruel? It seems to be something very fundamental to humanity itself. Some might say that nature is cruel – cruelly indifferent, unforgiving. We could talk for a bit about the difference between the cruelty of nature and the cruelty of man, and how man’s cruelty can be so much more… deliberate? Intentional? But that’s not something I want to care about right now. Right now I’m just feeling sad about the general phenomenon of cruelty, and its seeming inevitability.

Vengeance and retribution might provide some measure of comfort to some people, but for me I find it… unsatisfying. More suffering isn’t the answer.

The phrase “love is the answer” streaks across my mind. I don’t know how I feel about that right now either. Yes, ideally the world would be all-loving, in a way that even gods seem to fail to be. But that ideal is a far, far way away from reality. Around the world, innocent children are being subjected to unconscionable horrors. And we seem to lack the political will to stop this. But we don’t need to talk about such ‘dramatic’ instances of cruelty – even friends and family members are cruel to one another, every single day.

Why are we like this?

I have a stock answer in my mind – oh, people are cruel because it’s easy. Oh, people are cruel because they don’t know better. Because they’re suffering too, “hurt people hurt people” and all that. Okay, fine, suppose those things are true. We know why people are cruel. It’s ignorance, small-mindedness, impatience, all the classic human failures.

Why do we fail? Why do we exist the way we do? Why don’t we do better? Oh, because it’s hard, because it’s challenging, because few people have the time and energy to put in all that effort into being a good person.

Okay, I accept that. I accept that life is tough. I accept that people are lonely and frightened and scared, and that being cruel is one way to alleviate that, maybe. Okay.

The feeling remains. I’m still sad. I don’t like who we are as a species. I have to accept it. I don’t know how to like it. I don’t have to like it. But I don’t like living an unlikeable life, either. “Nobody’s entitled to a likeable life, Visa.” Fair enough, nobody’s entitled to anything. Maybe we’re just weird accidents born into this weird universe and whatever happens, happens. 

This thought doesn’t give me any peace.

I don’t want to be cynical, jaded or pessimistic. I want to believe that things can be better. I want good peers in life, and I’ve found that good people are generally altruistic, try to serve and help others. I want to do that. I think I’m doing that. But no matter how much you do that, there will still be more suffering. There will still be more pain and cruelty. It’s just… always there, leering at you. You can’t do anything about THAT.

But hey, we can’t really do anything about the fact that we’re going to die, either. (Even if we found a way to avoid dying of old age, entropy claims all in the end.) The most we can do is live as well as we can, and hope that that’s enough. Enough for what? Enough to be satisfied? Enough to… feel like we’ve lived a good life? We will die with an incomplete todo list. There’s a strange paradox here – we have to make our peace with it. Or not. It’s up to us.

What am I trying to do here? Am I trying to get rid of my sad feelings? No, I don’t necessarily want to do that. I want to sit with them. I want to get to know them. I want to help. How can I help?

You have to take it day by day, bit by bit, and make the difference that you can make. You’re not entitled to more than that. It’s a shame, but it is what it is.

Still sad. Always sad. Life is incredibly sad in of itself. If more people appreciated this, maybe we’d be kinder to each other. 

I find myself thinking of people I admire. Mr. Rogers seems like the gold standard for this one. He focused on helping others. I guess that’s the best I can do, too. What would Mr. Rogers have done when the world made him sad? What would Jesus have done, what would Buddha? We’re these people somehow enlightened to the point where emotions like sadness were just fleeting, wispy clouds in the mind? Did they feel a great sense of the interconnectedness of all things, and how everything is transient and impermanent, like tracings in the sand? Did they like their lives? Is that a naive question to ask?

I do not want to grow up to be a cold cynical bastard. I believe that things can get better. And that we have to try, if only for each other. That’s all that matters.

I don’t want to propagate sadness unnecessarily. The world is sad enough. But it’s certainly far too cruel. I was going to say “far too angry”, but anger at injustice is completely warranted. We’re bad at talking about our feelings, we’re bad at being good to each other.

I want to get better at it. I’m going to keep trying to transmute my sadness into a positive force for good. That will have to be enough. My sadness is a compass, reminding me to try my best to avoid causing suffering to others, to avoid being cruel myself. I will try my best.