Welcome back to another week of thrifted fashion and the musings of your friendly neighborhood fat girl. You may recognize this skirt from our rainy summer day manifesto back when MyXXFLY was but a few weeks old. I assure you it’s pure coincidence that this skirt makes an appearance on two rainy day posts, and while it’s a tad small (because thrifters can’t be choosers), it’s a definite favorite, because pockets! Today we’re singin’ in the rain and talking about listlessness, or, the indifference that bubbles up when despite how things may be going you simply cannot muster a single fuck to give. Yup, we can do both, life is about dichotomies aint it?
I’m sure you’ve had one of those days (or weeks) where the energy to power through the mundanity of your humdrum existence is nowhere to be found. Right? No? Just me? Am I projecting? Bueller?
Well, we’ve talked about many of the panaceas for human existence on MyXXFLY, from denouncing consumerism, to changing your perception on what it means to work, and even exalting the power of just going outside. If you haven’t tried any of these existential remedies, by all means, start there. But even when you live your life in a way that is mentally and emotionally healthy, even when you’ve got no perceived reason to gripe or feel shitty, you inevitably, sometimes, will (definitely) feel the pang of ennui. So why the hell are we so fragile?
The Existential Crisis
Well my dear friend, it’s because you are the center of everything. From the days when humanity was sure that the Earth was the center of the universe, to the center of the solar system, to the center of nothing except our own heads, we have been positive about our importance and cosmic significance.
It’s difficult to argue that you’re not the center of everything because everything you touch, smell, see, and hear, comes directly from your perfect little snowflake point of view. Ever wonder why small children are so damn needy? Well dear parent, it’s because (if you’re doing your job) your very existence has revolved around keeping your offspring alive and content, and by the time your kid grows up into an animated walking and talking meat sack, they just assume that everything and everyone is at their beck and call because well, that’s the way it has always been.
This doesn’t make you (or your kid) a dick (although you might be), it just makes you sentient flesh and bone. The problem with this egocentric view of everything however, is that you have to be pretty larger than life to live up to this grand fantasy of yourself in your own head. Even when everything is going right and you’re perfectly content with the state of your life, you may find yourself falling into the “what about something more” trap.
I’ve been there. I’m there all time. Right now even. If existential crisis had a zip code I would permanently live there. I think about the meaning of life and my purpose in it more than you can probably imagine. The goal is to come out on the other side a better more enlightened version of myself, but sometimes, I’m like a car with a back wheel spinning out of control because you’re flooring it and that sucker is just too deep in the mud. Stuck. But whyyyyy?!
Loss
There is no greater despair than the one felt when you experience a deep loss. But even when death isn’t on our doorstep, we silly humans are reminded of our mortality every single day. We see things, people, careers, and relationships break or fall apart. We hear about wars, death, and famine on the world scale. Even if you manage to evade all of the real bad news, when you’re in a funk, the rising and setting of the sun can be a reminder of the eternal footman that holds your coat and snickers. Save for the future success of cryonics, our inevitable expiration date is constantly looming in the back of our monkey brains, whether we acknowledge it or not.
Of fucking course we fall into existential pits of doom and gloom.
In The Denial of Death, Ernest Becker introduces the idea that humanity has been molded by the knowledge of our impending death, and that society copes by engaging in immortality projects. By becoming and contributing to something bigger, we escape the dread of our finite existence and become heroes in our own stories. Our immortality projects are the legacies we leave, the religions we practice, the marks that will far outlive our physical selves. Existential turmoil and interpersonal conflict come about when we are not fulfilling them, when they are conflicting, or when we become obsessed with these projects.
If you’ve read our blog at all, or follow us on social media, you know that I try to live with the bigger picture in mind. The Buddhist practice of mindfulness is one that permeates my very existence. I believe in the power of thought, and know that a lot of what ails us comes from the monsters that live in our heads. My immortality project is my connection to others and the positive change I can influence through emotional healing and education. My job, and this blog, are an extention of that. Feelings of ennui may come from not having found your “purpose”, and if you don’t know what ignites you, that’s definitely a place to start, but what if you already relentlessly pursue your passion?
Push Yourself
Well before you can figure out your “why”, you’ve got to live with the dread.
Life is just a string of moments and how we experience each one determines the kind of life we lead, but everyday won’t bring wisdom, aha moments, or glorious epiphanies. The purpose of some days, is to crawl through the sludge and go to bed with grime and stink all over you. I don’t push my listlessness aside or ignore it, I sit with every shitty feeling, and try to figure out what the fuck is wrong.
After days of fleeting ennui and casual boredom, I came to the conclusion that I simply wasn’t living up to my own expectations. When you push yourself beyond your limit, learn, and experience new things, falling back into your old rut is deeply unsatisfying. But that wasn’t it, well, not entirely.
For the last eleven years, the weariness washes over me come October. You see, my maternal grandparents were a huge part of my childhood and adolescence. My relationship with them was so awesome that I have yet to find the strength to put it into words. My abuela, passed in October of 2005, my abuelo, in December. Last year, to add more weight to the heaviness I feel at this time of year, my uncle (their son) Chele, passed away in November. Each loss impacted me differently, but deeply all the same. Every ounce of strength I muster to power through comes from the love I learned from them.
Pushing yourself at a time where you just want to sit and sulk is fucking hard, but it always helps me. Being comfortable is nice, but it’s a state that I visit, not a place I want to live. The most difficult times in my life came about when I tried my hardest to resist change, so now, I try to be like water.
Existential pits are like a tunnel without an exit, but if you work through it out loud, in your own head, with someone you trust, or by yourself. You will be stronger for it. For me? I basque in my own uncertain certainty that whatever’s gumming up the works will serve its purpose around some corner I cannot yet see, and even when there is no “reason“, life doesn’t owe me an explanation.
But what if these are platitudes you can’t swallow?
Gratitude
The easiest most innately satisfying feeling is often the most overlooked. Gratitude.
What is going on around you when the crisis of tedium hits? Are you there? Like, REALLY there? Are you taking in every sensation, every sight, every smell? Are you aware of your body, and more abstractly of your mood? If there’s a pattern, find it!
When I feel the wave of listlessness about to topple me over, I try and soak everything in as if I’ve never seen it before. I sit in my apartment, which I felt bored in moments before, and see the place I dreamed of having as a teenager. I see the possibilities of the things I can make and do, all around me. I look at, and talk to, and touch the face of, and inhale the smell of the handsome Oaf I live with, and I feel stupid for ever taking it for granted.
Sometimes powering through and pushing yourself to do something meaningful isn’t even necessary. Sometimes, we just aren’t stopping to really experience each moment. Sometimes we’re worried about what just happened, and anxious about what’s coming, and so influenced by our irrelevant internal rhetoric that life is passing us by.
Time is your most valuable currency, and we waste so much of it. We yell and complain about irrelevant shit instead of seeing the beauty and lessons in our less than perfect realities. We ask for more of our friends and lovers, instead of appreciating the moments we share with them in the now. Sometimes the what or why isn’t even important because this is your time. This is your fucking life, and you’re missing it.
Why do we have immortality projects, and why does loss hit us so hard?
Because we have the privilege of life. In every undead horror movie you’ve ever seen, the desire of every demon that has ever posessed a body is just to be alive. Why do we fall into the existential crisis? Maybe we feel like we’re squandering this gift of life, maybe we feel unworthy of it. When someone or something leaves us or changes indefinitely, we change along with it. When we don’t feel like we’re doing enough we start to feel bored, start to lose our spirit. So if you haven’t been told lately, I’m telling you now, you are here because this world needs you and everything you have to offer.
An object once it has been stretched beyond its limits and dimensions can never go back to the way it was before. The beauty of life is evolution, our listlessness comes from not doing more when we know we are capable of it. Live intensely, and be thankful for every second of it.
So are you there Bueller? Have you found your something more? Have you stopped to appreciate today’s breath? Life moves pretty fast, don’t let it pass you by, keep your double-x fly and join us next week, for an Ode to Tio Chele.
