Voicing Despair

[lhexa]

I despair in silence. I am not alone in this, but three weeks ago I managed to find words for my despair for perhaps the second time in my life, and discovered for myself the calming effect of voicing it. This calm brought me the strength to give my physics presentation, but it worried me as well, because it brought an unfamiliar mood, lacking a familiar tension. I wondered whether I needed that tension to drive myself as I am accustomed, as though my emotions were a rope I used to pull myself up, and that rope needed its knots. But today brought back a better-known mood, one which assures me that the progression of emotions on which I rely has not been broken. It assures me that I felt the calm of sleep, nothing more. Here is what I learned these past three weeks.

A person alone cannot voice his own despair, and needs trusted friends, lovers, family or peers for the task. Call that the nature of despair. A person who tries, on his own, to give his despair words will fail, and produce something plaintively incomplete. (As much as I admire Cube for his efforts to voice his worst emotions, those efforts often have such a quality. Sett, too, but to a lesser extent, because anguish differs from despair.) I've come to marvel at how easily this incompleteness can be recognized, and how often it will be met with revulsion -- though it is often a justified revulsion, caused by a need that the reader or listener knows cannot presently be met. The revulsion, in turn, encourages silence on the part of whoever despairs. The silent despair (the quiet desperation) may as well be a conspiracy, for the effect it has in promoting secretiveness and shame.

Despair, as most of you already know, is unreasonable. It does not have the irrationality of an argument with invalid logic or unsound premises, but rather the unreasonableness of an argument that goes unspoken. In despair, the breaking of silence, in the rare circumstances in which it can be accomplished, amounts to the finding or dawning of reason, and so can have just as profound an effect, and just as cathartic a one. My moment of catharsis three weeks ago came when Spotty, catalyzed by Whines, told me, "You can't live in Emerson's backyard." The statement had me crying all over again, because those are the words of my despair. I want to be Thoreau, but I can't. There is no Emerson for me. I can't find wisdom in solitude: because I have no wise company to punctuate that solitude, I end up living alone with both my cleverness and my foolishness. I have no one with whom I can discuss philosophy as an equal, and my attempts to esteem others as such equals have only brought fierce disappointment. And even when I find a place I can consider sacred, something so trivial as a police officer can drive me away. I am not wise. Worse, I do not know how to become wise.

There is a sense in which a person, alone, can nonetheless come to voice his despair, by creating another person (a character) to voice it. I managed to do so late in my second year as a philosophy major, in a period of near-total isolation. In the entry that follows you can find the characters who voiced my despair in philosophy, and the words they gave me.

Comments

[canis-tempus.livejournal.com]

I wish you could find a small trancendental patch of land at UT. But it meets different needs for different people. It's a microcosm sort of experience, moreso than the real world, and a (somewhat) supportive environment that can help you make ends meet while pursuing a lifestyle that you can hardly ever find outside--viz., being able to get money to read and study. There are elements that come close, but don't actually match without some creative truth-stretching.

Except for the solitude. It's hard to find solitude in grad school. Maybe you'd be better able to find it than I would be, since you seek it out and I try to avoid it.

Not to be too trite, but wisdom seems more like a platonic process of inquiry for you than a destination, I don't see how you could ever be wise without being able to define wisdom.

Hugs, Fades/Spotty

[lhexa.livejournal.com]

It's hardly the land that's transcendental, but rather the use I make of my setting. But it looks like I can't make graduate school into something comparably profound.

As for solitude: I'll stick with Emerson's note that it is a fortunate man who can find solitude in the midst of company.

The aphorisms of wisdom are one of the worst impediments to learning how to become wise.

*hugs back*

[baktre.livejournal.com]

One of the things that's interesting about Thoreau's book is the glimpse it gives of life in a different time, and back then people were more self-reliant and more spread out than they are. I get the impression that he was less isolated in that context than someone doing the exact same thing today would be.

...bah, you can probably see where I'm going with this. Even if one could have the same experience today, it wouldn't be the same, etc etc.

I heard about a school (summer program?) that alluded heavily to Thoreau; they studied his stuff outdoors around Walden...and I wondered if they were missing the point. I'm sure it would be an interesting experience, but I don't think his core message was 'live in a hut around this particular pond.'

I don't doubt that he got a lot out of conversations with people who visited him while he lived there (a -lot- of people visited him, and apparently he visited town enough to know the way in the dark; his social connections weren't dwelled on, but I suspect that he had more than I would if I was in his place), but I think he got stuff out of them because he was ameniable to. He speaks glowingly of conversations and observations but dosen't imply (that I can see) that any of them couldn't be had elsewhere.

...on the other hand, I -do- see how moving, or getting a new job, or living in a different place, or changing one's name/species is signifigant and can help one focus. Just changing your name or moving dosen't make you a different person by itself, much, but combined with the desire to do or be different it can really work. I like to think that the desire is the prime mover, but everyone WANTS things that they aren't able to put into action, so maybe the important thing is if one pulls it off...and everything that went into that can take credit.

Living in a modern city lacks a lot of freedoms or spaces that were common or at least realistically attainable way back when, but it has its own opportunities and beauties, its own places where people can find what they're looking for. I like to think there are folks that can get something out of being asked to move by the police. :) Hmm, I'm thinking of 'The Magic Christian' now...

[lhexa.livejournal.com]

*nods* The trouble is learning how to live here in as meaningful a way as Thoreau lived by Walden. As it is, many of my actions have little significance, and only connect to the rest of my life in a superficial manner... whereas for Thoreau, such activities as hoeing, conversing, building, exploring and marveling were all philosophical activities.

[krinndnz.livejournal.com]

I wish you well in finding both solitude and solace in the quantities that you need.

I have for years associated despair with this:

[lhexa.livejournal.com]

...That makes sense. Thanks.

[broken-bokken.livejournal.com]

I think you summed up those dynamics perfectly, and explained why people feel the need to write the kinds of characters they do, and why I fell into a pattern of never completing my thoughts.
I really look forward to seeing your entries--sparse as they are, they're always a complete meal of food for thought.

[lhexa.livejournal.com]

Impulsive criticisms notwithstanding, I think highly of you and your awareness of the world, which is why this praise stayed in the back of my mind this past month. Thank you, and I will try to live up to my past quality even as I learn to master my flaws.