On Despair

I'm not going to lie, it's been a tough month. The mental, emotional, and physical energy it's taken to train for the marathon, work on my business, evaluate some relationships, go back to Oregon for a week, and get rid of all my vices for the pre-marathon taper (read: my most loony week of the year) kicked my ass, and it's taken a daily diet of writing, meditation, affirmation, and inspired action to maintain some semblance of sanity.

And I'm not the only one. It seems everyone in my circle is a little off, from colds that won't go away to continued unemployment to just feeling out of it. So I'm not surprised that this article hit #1 on the Times most-emailed list. Give it a read.

“A human being is a synthesis of the infinite and the finite, of the temporal and the eternal, of freedom and necessity.” Despair occurs when there is an imbalance in this synthesis. From there Kierkegaard goes on to present a veritable portrait gallery of the forms that despair can take. Too much of the expansive factor, of infinitude, and you have the dreamer who cannot make anything concrete. Too much of the limiting element, and you have the narrow minded individual who cannot imagine anything more serious in life than bottom lines and spread sheets.

Though it will make the Bill Mahers of the world wince, despair according to Kierkegaard is a lack of awareness of being a self or spirit. A Freud with religious categories up his sleeves, the lyrical philosopher emphasized that the self is a slice of eternity. While depression involves heavy burdensome feelings, despair is not correlated with any particular set of emotions but is instead marked by a desire to get rid of the self, or put another way, by an unwillingness to become who you fundamentally are...

He goes on to discuss the American Dream, or in my interpretation, the way our national ambition can be a source of anxiety as much as accomplishment. If all the Kiyosaki-ans weren't so determined to BUY HOUSES NOW!, would the mortgage crisis have been so bad? Why do we all deserve whatever we can dream up? Have the American Idols and Biggest Losers made uber-success closer, or just dangled it in front of people who might be better off being content with what they've already got?

I like that the Times has the Happy Times blog to discuss the cultural climate and offer some wisdom.