In the end, it was the Sunday afternoons he couldn't cope with, and that terrible listlessness that starts to set in about 2:55, when you know you've taken all the baths that you can usefully take that day, that however hard you stare at any given paragraph in the newspaper you will never actually read it, or use the revolutionary new pruning technique it describes, and that as you stare at the clock the hands will move relentlessly on to four o'clock, and you will enter the long dark teatime of the soul.
--Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe and Everything
I got home today from a rather tough day at work. It can be really boring. Its the same people and we do the same stuff. We all have this feeling like we should be getting better and better and faster and faster, but in reality ... there is a point where one has to just be grateful that we have one another at all. On top of this, I am really tired. I have been going to bed late at night because I drove home from Lexington the night before last at about ten o'clock and was up reading a cook book (yes, a cook book; no, not "How to Serve Man"). The sky was gray, you know that horrible tint of terrible that one runs across from time to time. It feels as if the sky wishes to land and smother the world below like a beached whale on an unsuspecting surfer.
I tried to make it through like any red-blooded American would. I went shopping. I found a couple of cooking knives, some pots, some pans, a food processor, condiments, etc.; but there is a sort of cathartic apathy that ensues after the Christmas credit binge and I just didn't feel up to spending any more money. I drove home and tried to muster my thoughts and emotions and will (my platonic goodie basket called the psyche) into one good long prayer. The words come out, but sometimes it just feels like one is mumbling at the sky or ground or, in my case, the road straight ahead of me. I took stock of my life and found the truly painful truth, there is one thing that I believe.
I came home and the gray skies that I had left behind in the day time followed me home as I watched news that I disagreed with and talked over the same daily ennui that I had brought up countless times before.
A friend of mine said that we cannot rely on others for our happiness. This is true, but we cannot rely on ourselves either. My mind came back to the thought I had had in the car. I am cursed to be a Christian. It is the one thing that in which I believe, and I have tried to grow doubt in my heart and head, and it just gets crushed by the overpowering facts. In the end, what I have found is something very interesting. The more we lose, the more we have room for other things. Faith is not some promise that things are going to be rosy-colored sunshine days. Faith is a promise that there are bigger things than gray skies and ennui emotions. There are bigger things than the things we want. Faith is about the realization that we are aware that there are bigger things than ourselves. And it in a world that can be kind of boring, isn't it nice to know there are still things that make life a little more interesting.
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2 comments:
Good post Phil. Grey days and grey events require a chess mind when we we're in the mood for checkers. Humor helps in the trudge forward.
I remember the song, "Gray in L.A." by Loudon Wainwright III. I am not one of those people who relishes being miserable by any stretch of the imagination, but I am one of those people that applies my mind to that kind of stuff. Plus, I haven't been sleeping perfectly as of late. I got a pretty good night's sleep last night, so all is well.
I do get tired of people covering up that their ennui. We play all sorts of games so as not to be found out as it were. We all want people to think we have it all together and we certainly don't need anyone else's help. Now, I have had friends who have become excessively needy; but I think by in large, what you notice about people is that they don't want to accept things. Giving is a lot easier than receiving, especially when it is something of very little worth. But receiving means that one has to put one's self in the position lower than the giver. They are without that which the other has and can impart. (Speaking of this, thank you for the vinegar.)
I don't want to live a life of mundane banality existing on the fringes of what it means to be human. I want to set myself on fire with something for which to be passionate and I would like that something to happen soon. I would like to not be so afraid to grip the chaos of the unknown future.
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