The double edge of writing is people often expect profound wisdom from writers but in the same utterance discount writing as “easy” or something anyone can do, especially when they do not agree with your prose. To say that the exhaustion of this timeline has not affected my desire to write, even possibly my abilities would be to lie as if I were another narrative spinner. To be honest, the exhaustion is the lack.
To write, we all need inspiration. Whether it be love, politics, music, food, environment, or people – you must feel some version of inspired to sit down and allow those thoughts to flow. Lately I have had to reconcile myself with the only feeling I have held for, well, years if I am truly honest with the page, disappointment.
Disappointment holds many faces. I am disappointed with people I know, friends, family, colleagues. I am disappointed with society. Its lack of luster response to hatred, violence, narrative, and outright disintegration of functionality. I am disappointed with myself for being too over-stimulated at times to pick up a laptop and do the only thing I truly know how to do well. I am disappointed with myself for lacking the social battery when someone calls to talk about something normal – like their vacation or their kid’s birthday.
For years now, we have been listening to people try and define what they are feeling in this timeline that feels like a blackhole of never-ending events. Some call it dissonance. Some call it despair. Others call it anger and hate. While all these have their place, disappointment is the only one I come back to.
When you think about how you thought life would be, I do not believe any of us thought this is what it would look like. When you look at how we interact, we do not connect. If we observe the most basic daily actions, such as getting a coffee or buying your groceries, can you point to a time whomever engaged with you did not bring up the price of groceries? Or when you did so without overhearing some overt conversation about politics? This is not the societal sphere we thought we would exist in.
Contrastingly, this leads us to our expectations. We hold expectations of ourselves. These include our careers, our family, our friends. If we all sat in a room and asked everyone to raise their hand if they felt victimized by their expectations- everyone would have both hands up.
This is how I keep landing on disappointment. It feels like we are living in the real-time version of Trial of the Furies.
I often feel disappointed in the people closest to me in the same way I feel disappointed in the tone of the world. So often we hear how people want to stay out of the fray, they have disengaged for their “sanity,” or they are plain scared of what they see. They do not have the reaction we expect. I have had to realize my expectations do not hold to anyone but myself. If we go down that road of holding everyone to the same morality, the same personal expectation we hold of oneself, we are going to end up in a Platonesque, Epicurean debate about what our social contracts really mean.
Do I believe this is a conversation we should be having? Absolutely. Do I believe everyone holds the same perception, let alone the same comprehension capable of this conversation? Well, that is just another disappointment waiting to happen.