There is a nice poem by Elizabeth Bishop about “the art of losing”. It’s about how we get used to losing things, from keys to places to people. Everything in life is ephemeral.
Sometimes I think I could write a similar poem called “The Art of Giving Up”. Because, as we grow old, we give up more and more things. Sometimes by necessity, sometimes by choice and sometimes because we just can’t be bothered anymore. So if you ask me why I haven’t been publishing here, it’s because of that feeling.
Of course, it doesn’t help that I tend to be more of a “half-empty glass” kind of person. I am usually negative about things. Not only the glass is half-empty, but the half-full part is a tasteless and warm flat American brand beer. Undrinkable.
But recently, even I decided that perhaps I was complaining a bit too much, and that I should try to have a more positive outlook of life in general.
But how?
We live in a very negative world. I think very few people will disagree with that. We seem to have wars everywhere, and politicians are trying hard to expand them even more, to Venezuela or to Western Europe. Several countries in Europe are even considering going back to mandatory conscription. The alleged reasons are insane, but it doesn’t matter. Most people would prefer peace, but a few rich and powerful people of ancient bloodlines are just too eager to start a new world war. I guess population reduction by chemicals, social changes and bad diets was not working fast enough?
The arts have entered a completely stale period. Visual arts have been mostly bad for many decades now, focusing on shock value instead of beauty, but now also film, music and literature seem to have followed the trend. Audiovisual content has increased exponentially in terms of quantity, but is very hard to find a really good movie these days.
Then there’s AI. Now a lot of content on YouTube is merely AI. The other day I was looking for Gregorian chants, only to find that many channels provide “songs” with AI synthetic voices. Even the illustrating pictures were made with AI. Are people so lazy that they can’t even be bothered to upload an actual painting or photograph?
The other type of video that seems to have increased manyfold in YouTube are “daily life” types of video, mostly from people who are alone, outcasts, or living alternative lives at the margins of society. I don’t know if it’s just the algorithm that for some reason shows me these videos — because I suppose it also sees me as a loser or an outcast based on my views — or if it signifies an actual social trend.
However it might be, it seems to me that there is a real increase in the number of people that are dissatisfied with modern society and who are trying to “check out” in any way they can — be it living alone in a hut in a forest, or taking care of their pets, or just remaining indoor playing video games.
This is another sad aspect of modernity: it seems that globalism, technology, forced multiculturalism and social media have finally managed to create a society of completely atomized individuals. There is no feeling of community, few real friendships and few ways for men and women to meet each other, and everyone is constantly glued to their phones and their own individual lives.
No wonder that today many people are nostalgic of the 1980s and 1990s, and not just the older people who grew up in that time, but many young people who didn’t live in that period as well. I suspect it is simply because the 1990s really was the last decade before modern computer technology and globalism basically killed normal human interactions, and films and music were still interesting and not just mass-produced garbage recycling the same thing over and over again.
Oh, wait. I said I was going to write only about positive things, right?
The question was: how to remain positive, given the many negative trends that we see all around us? But there is no easy single answer. I will try to propose, however, a few possibilities.
One. Accept all things that happen to you as good in at least some way. This is a lesson from the ancient Greek and Roman Stoics. For instance, if you, like me, lost a substantial amount on money in bad investments or stupid purchases, you can accept it as a lesson going forward, to try not to repeat the same mistake again, and to be more frugal and less impulsive. If you had disappointments in relationships, or were betrayed by someone you thought of as a friend, accept it as part and parcel of human nature, a nature you’re also part of, as Marcus Aurelius suggests in the beginning of his famous Meditations: “When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and unfriendly. They are like this because they can’t tell good from evil.”
Two. Live more for others than for yourself. This is a lesson from Christianity, I suppose, although it applies to non-religious people as well. Trying to make other people happier usually works better and gives more lasting satisfaction than trying to make yourself happy, which is usually a futile endeavour. For instance, in general I prefer giving gifts than receiving them. If you receive something, even if it is something really nice, the joy wears off pretty quickly, while if you manage to make a child or a friend happy, the reward is deeper and lasts longer.
Three. Find meaning and joy in little things. Hobbies, artistic creation, raising animals, or just hiking in the mountains or walking alone in the woods. Sometimes these simple transient joys give you an objective to go forward and make live worth living. In a way, it is true that it is the simpler things that money can’t buy are those that makes us happier.
Hmm, okay, I can’t thing of any other things right now, so I’ll leave it at that. This was our yearly positive message, sponsored by Santa Claus. I wish everyone a wonderful period of Advent, and a very Merry Christmas.
