An abiding reality of human life is that, unless we go to great lengths to pad ourselves in delusion, the world is a terrifying place. Some padding and a little delusion are necessary. We take comfort where it can be found. We do this to remain upright.
To live holding both the terrifying and unjust in mind while at the same time finding strength to do the drone work of living is a juggling act we perform with various degrees of success at different times of our lives. Sometimes, when our juggling is going well, we even manage to access a rebellious, subversive joy.
Last week, my padding was wearing thin. South Africa’s power facility, Eskom, has been bled dry through such gross mismanagement and corruption, that ordinary South Africans have less and less access to constant, reliable power. The effects are too numerous and too horrendous to hold in mind. Last week it felt as though for many people it was all too overwhelming to brace themselves against.
The fear is real.
The very, very worst part of the Eskom debacle seems to me the complete and utter lack of light (ahem) at the end of this tunnel. There appears to be no stopping the crashing now, no plans and no ideas; no leaders so appalled by the free fall that they’re prepared to light their own torches to usher us out of this unfolding calamity. It feels hopeless.
A terrible thing overcomes me sometimes when a widespread (and very real) despair becomes so intrusive that I cannot steel myself against it. It happened with the xenophobic violence of 2015. The ‘terrible thing’ is a clusterfuck of grief, grievance and hopelessness that simultaneously ignites a fuse of panic and dumps a weighted blanket of depression over my head so I cannot see any light at all. It is such a spectacular disenchantment with people and systems that I want to dig a hole and crawl into it forever. I see no way to be of use to anyone or anything, let alone pit myself in my small ways against a colossus of outrage and injustice.
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Now that I am older, I know that I have remedies stuffed into an imaginary Gladstone bag for this affliction of the soul, so that the despondency is less persistent, if not less intense.
But last week a new tincture was added unexpectedly. It happened during a lightly life-changing conversation over a candlelit (loadshedding) vegan meal of tomato risotto and salad with Sam, both our daughters and our two very good friends, Dassie and Annie, who were hosting us.
I subsequently asked Annie to help me remember the conversation, because I wouldn’t do her thought processes justice in my own words.
I am so happy to share her very thoughtful ideas on hope with you, because they came to me at a time I needed some new perspective with which to engage on how to live fruitfully in the midst of hope’s apparent absence.
I follow up the short interview with some of the remedies I use when The World Is Too Much With Us.
I hope you’ll find some comforts here.
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