A long time ago, I could see into the future I am living now. I suppose at the time, it could be considered the future. It is my present now. I predicted my own future and refused to believe it until I stepped forth, blinded by the light of the new day, into my own prediction. It’s one of those good storytelling foreshadowing tricks. If you flip back enough pages, you can see that the characters had the EXACT conversation that describes this EXACT present circumstance which could have been avoided if only the protagonist did just the smallest, insignificant thing differently.
At a point in my present, I attended a free lecture after skipping all my classes for the day. I suppose that this time, the present was my past. I chose to attend for no reason other than I had thoroughly enjoyed reading a book by the speaker at one point. And nothing and no one could stop me from attending. Not even myself - I was staggering through anxiety attacks throughout the day, pumping back coffees just to keep my heart pumping and my feet walking.
I did not predict myself attending the lecture. But I did predict myself being all by myself. I foreshadowed the loneliness I felt; the lack of love and support; the cold shivering of fear. But in the real future (not the predicted future), in the present I am writing from now, I am not alone.
I feel lonely but I am not alone. I feel unworthy of love but I am surrounded by it. I feel undeserving of any kind of support but I am enveloped by it.
My vision and thoughts are clouded by a gaseous being that refuses to disperse into the air. It blinds me from seeing my own possibilities. It stops me from exploring my own potential. it holds my eyes shut so i cannot see the people waiting in the wings for me.
Attending the lecture, I learnt that there is a way out of the problem that triggered these problems in the first place. Sally Haslanger started the answer to a question by describing the flow of a river.
It’s slow but steady; ever flowing.
(Life is that river. This world waking up and going to sleep is represented by that river.)
Now, there are some sticks floating in the river. They are being carried on by the flow of the water until they hit a large rock.
(We are the sticks.)
Some sticks are light enough and get carried over the rock by means other than the water; they continue to flow with the water.
The sticks that are too heavy get stuck in a cycle that recycles and revolves the sticks back towards the rock. Since they cannot go up and above, they go down and are pushed back towards the rock because that is the way the river flows.
(The rock is the problem; it is a problem that we face that doesn’t seem to go away. It is the ideologies, the institutions, the processes and systems that trap us in a never-ending loop of fighting and losing.)
Here are the facts, as I understand them:
It is fruitless to envy the sticks that are light enough to make it over the rock. From the perspective of the sticks behind the rock, the world is too chaotic to care about the calm over the rock.
It is fruitless to will the river to flow in another direction. The river will continue to float in the direction until such a time when it won’t. For the time being, we can presume that the river will continue to flow in the current direction forever.
The sticks may be able to get over the rock eventually if they wait long enough for the rock to slowly erode over time, although this may take years and the sticks might crumble to pieces well before the rock is affected.
The sticks may be able to get over the rock if they wait long enough for a storm or some other natural phenomena to come around and increase the flow of water. But the natural phenomena could also be harmful to the sticks themselves. It is only the river that will not be harmed.
The sticks may be able to get over the rock if they wait long enough for more sticks to join the flow. Maybe not all the sticks will get over the rock but surely some of them will. However, this does not solve the problem for all the sticks.
But the problems we face are not rocks in a river. We are, thankfully, not sticks.
But this exercise helps us realize that it is not the river or the sticks or the behaviour of the river or the sticks that needs to change. It also helps us realize that the rock is neither good nor bad. It just is.
But it’s existence is an unjust one and thus needs to be changed. It's existence requires that it be changed, for better or for worse.
As Sally Haslanger finished highlighting her point by searching the audience with her eyes, a wonderful man at the back of the room gasped aloud in beautiful delight. I have yet to meet a philosopher, in my past present or future, who hasn’t in some way shaped my life. The gasp allowed me to solve a problem I have been carrying on my back for a decade.
Ultimately, I cannot do this by myself.
I cannot succeed, I cannot achieve my dreams, I cannot break the barriers that try to contain the uncontainable without all the people that love, support, and refuse to let me feel lonely.
I think that feeling of loneliness-when-I-am-not-alone stems from the gaseous being clouding my thoughts and vision. Depression and anxiety holds us back from seeing reality in its true and factual manner.
It’s hard to trust yourself when you’ve got monsters inside you. But there are always people in this world willing to fight monsters with you.
As cliche as it sounds, the good will always come together to fight the bad. By definition, through semiotic understanding across all the billions of languages we have invented across all of history, the good and the bad occurs simultaneously in opposition with each other. While the definition of what is good and what is bad is constantly in flux and relative to personal experiences and beliefs, it still exists simultaneously and in opposition with each other.
So if you’re out there, vision and thoughts clouded by your own gaseous being, feeling lonely and undeserving of love and kindness and support, you ought to know that I am here with you.
You are not alone.
I love you.
I will find any way of supporting you.
We can fight our monsters together.
We can defeat them together.
I urge you to reach out if you require any help, of any sort. Even if I cannot help, I will try and find someone who will. If it's easier to just talk to someone on the internet while maintaining the anonymity of who you are, then I am here. We're all fighting this battle but the war is far from over. I am here, if you need someone.