Everyone goes through the many flavours of strife in their
own way. From a terrifying lack of identity, to an existential crisis, to a purely
stressful situation. The way one deals with strife or difficulty, in my
personal experience, is often not the difficulty itself, but the courage to
find justification in perseverance. It’s not the technical aspects of a problem
which trouble us, but the emotional baggage which comes with finding a
solution.
A hero’s journey is based around the problem of identity.
For me I sometimes suddenly feel distant, angry, my identity becomes like a cage.
I recently went to a party hosted by some old friends, and came to realise that
their perception of who I was, my character, had shifted completely since I
last saw them. How easily they directed conversation to compensate for who they
thought I was. How they reacted to me without saying a word. It made me
question who I was as a person, it made want to recluse, or give up on
influencing my own personal image.
When this happens I often comfort myself in the thought that
I am whoever those I’m with think I am. In order for me to define myself I can
either look to how others see me, or convince them otherwise. If I want to be
seen as the sporty jock, slowly but surely I can converse with the key players
in a friend group, talking only sport, until the thought becomes reality. If
I’m struggling to see myself as a defined being, I merely have to wait and see
how others finish my sentences. The struggle of identity, becomes a power,
power which can be used to break free from the inaction of dealing with this
disconnect, and eventually create a better you in everyone’s eyes.
When it comes to existentialism, and thoughts which drain
the meaning out of life allowing for laziness and melancholy, I compare myself.
No matter what happens you are as worthwhile and as worthless as the entire
world combined. I find walking alone in the dark, surrounded by shadows brings
this existential isolation to rest. I am, in the moment of my walk, the most
living thing I can see. The most lively, thinking, active component of this
tiny world. I can run along the empty streets, my decisions are unrivalled,
there is no one else who can give or take my value away, just me and the shadows.
When I encounter difficulty I also like to watch Youtube
videos on philosophical topics, especially the extremely well written education
videos by The School of Life: https://www.youtube.com/user/schooloflifechannel
There is nothing I can say that can adequately describe the
comfort I can find in learning about the deep thoughts of people from history.
Knowing that no one is alone in these dangerous and often debilitating ideas.
 |
| Image: Dark Street, by Nicolas Perriault, https://500px.com/photo/466415/dark-street-by-nicolas-perriault |
From these videos and their ideas and mantras, one of my
favourites is simply: “This too shall pass.” Four words incorporating memory,
identity and the constant forward flow of time. A beautiful reminder, that
since the dawn of our existence, difficulty has been overcome. We have carried
on.
