How can it be that a mood of discontent is able to
find its way into one’s very fine existence? What are its sources and its
desires? “Damned if I know,” my brother-in-law Terry would likely say. Yet
there it is, a sense that something is awry, a feeling of frustration that seeks
its cause, a mood that easily turns into a bout of self-condemnation or even
worse, of annoyance turned towards one’s sometimes long suffering partner. I
can understand why people can be attracted at certain moments of their lives to
all-encompassing ideologies or faiths that allow them a reference point with
which to deal with all that assails them. A Catholic poet, maybe Gerrard Manley
Hopkins, wrote “our hearts are restless ‘til they rest in Thee.” Having God or
a cause as the deepest touchstone of one’s existence can bring a degree of
certainty about the meaning or relevance of all of life’s events and challenges.
My own sources of discontent come I believe from some
ideas that I have ingested along the line that to be a worthwhile person my
days and weeks ought to contain particular elements. The details are not easily
articulated though they seem to consist of activities that prove to myself or
to some internalized observer that I am alright: i.e., solidly responsible and
productive in my world. A bit of the Protestant ethic, I assume. I suspect that
people positioned somewhat like myself, that is, people no longer living a life
of predictable activities like caring for others and/or pursuing a profession,
are more subject to this kind of inner discomfort. “What use am I?” one wonders
as one looks over the array of little details that make up one’s day. This
conundrum probably appears foolish to people whose difficulties lie more with
finding any time at all to call their own. “Get a grip,” they might holler,
following up with a list of worthwhile activities that one might pursue to fill one’s time. But finding things to do is not the issue. It is more a matter
of finding oneself, finding the rhythm and the activities that are consistent
who one is.
Transitions generally are stressful times. I sometimes
forget that I am engaged in a long-term transition, from being fully employed
to a state of barely employed at all. As that process has been gradual, I have
been spared the intense dislocation experienced by many people who have worked
outside their homes for decades and then suddenly face retirement. The person
who faced the working day in more or less predictable fashions must now find a
new way of being in the world. For some the transition is traumatic.
It’s a great feeling when you can simply voice your
discontents or frustrations to someone with a sympathetic ear. My daughter,
Elizabeth was here the other day seeing one of her clients. (She is using my
office a few hours each week.) She had some time before catching the GO train
back to Barrie so we went for a walk along Bloor. I had had a morning of being
at sixes and sevens with myself, making plans to do some things and then
because of one circumstance or another cancelling them. I asked her, “Do you
ever feel like you are a hodge-podge of several people all at the same time,
wanting and not wanting particular things, and then full of frustrated energy?”
“Absolutely,” was her response, and we launched in to a great talk about the
strangeness of the inner life.
One guiding principal that I return to most helps me
as I navigate this peculiar phase of my life: if I allow the day to unfold
rather than trying to assume control over it, I enjoy the things that come my
way. “Follow your bliss,” was Joseph Campbell’s primary advice to people seeking
a way of being in the world. Finding and following the things that make you
happy is not necessarily as simple as it sounds, however. But I’m working on
it.
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