This blog is for the discontented. It will deal with the fact that the world is a rotten place with little comfort in it. You could call it a pessimist’s blog. But then pessimism is boring when it is frightful, narrow-minded and dogmatic. This blog is for the open-minded pessimist. The one that doesn’t shy away from looking closer at things, even if they seem promising. It’s probably not for Barbie’s dream-house inhabitants and the chronic optimists that start the day smiling into their bathroom mirror and telling themselves how great and fascinating they are. These are people who have no idea how they look like when they’re asleep, mouth wide open, saliva slowly running down their face.
But: This is not about whining and complaining, either. It’s about being realistic, about facing all the setbacks we endure in life. I suggest we don’t call these setbacks challenges. Getting a realistic grip on life means cutting out all the verbal fog that surrounds us. Some things are not challenging, they don’t make you „grow“ or become a bestselling self-help book author. They are merely devastating.
Loss can be devastating: Losing a parent when you are only eight years old will change the course of your life forever. Not finding love and support in your life can be devastating. Sabotaging yourself by repeating harmful patterns of behavior can be devastating. It is absolutely devastating that people drop bombs on the living, that people drown in the sea because they set out to find a life that grants them some dignity.
Contrary to what psychologists and professional optimists may say, suffering is not always rewarded with better insights into human existence. It’s not always rewarded with enlightenment and personal growth. Maybe there is no reward, in many cases. Maybe there is just plain suffering. Or there is just this very ordinary feeling of being overwhelmed because the world has become too complex and too frightening to deal with it properly.
I was very touched when I read a post on the internet some time ago. Surprisingly, it was placed in the comment section of a make-up artist’s youtube channel. I like this particular make-up artist, a very gentle man from Wales, England, who, after shedding 20 pounds after a doomed love affair also became strikingly good-looking. Sometimes instead of applying primers to his own face he just sets out to reason about life and people. For example, he might say: Tell me about a love you’ve lost. Or: What makes you angry? Here is one of the answers to this last question, written by a young woman, the very post that impressed me deeply.
I’m so fed up with not having any control over my life. I’m so fed up with not being happy with myself, yet I cannot bring myself to change. I’m so fucking fed up with all the shit happening in our world, & I’m here complaining and depressed about not having any control, when there are people dying and being burned alive for being happy & themselves. I’m so fucking done with politics & injustice. I’m so sick of this generation being so lazy & selfish & so fucking materialistic. I’m fed up with not being able to be the best version of myself.
She had described my own feelings. They are not your ordinary optimist’s feelings, obviously. But I like the energy and the utter honesty in her words, this wild, rebellious, albeit helpless frenzy. If this sounds familiar to you, go on reading this blog and accompany me on a journey into the world as it is. Let’s look at people as they are. Let’s find out how we can cope with being helpless and overwhelmed. We are going to consult writers and philosophers, trying to understand their perspective on life. And we are going to try and find the funny aspects of the mess we call life.
Bothered and Bewildered 