Grave expectations

“So, how’s the writing going?” he says. And I had to admit that it’s not. At all. “I’ve not done anything productive since [sic]” and instantly I could hear all the excuses I’d been giving myself for the past 6 months, for how I’ve failed to do the one thing I know will give me purpose, accountability, even joy in some weird sense.

Self-sabotage, pt. 2, eh…

You see, when something good happens, hope starts to build. Not even that, maybe just a glimmer of hope triggers something so alien and futile as a new neural path struck in the opposite direction of all the others. So, we choose not to do the things that’ll enable such hapless and fruitless endeavours. Until the next time, of course, something unexpectedly positive in nature comes around and we’re forced to look lady luck in the eye.

After all, what’s more terrifying than going after the holy grail knowing you’ve got an actual winning chance?

Welcome to Desolation Highway.

If you’re taught, early on, that disappointment is inevitable due to your existence alone, you’re no doubt better off trying to shield yourself from the things that seem unequivocally and genuinely good. And your scepticism would be coming from a place of experience, that good things only happen to other people and not to you. We’re meant to contribute to the greater good by making sure others will both have and eat all of the bukkake. Or, was it cake? Who knows – not a fan of either. But the one certainty is that self-indulgence of any kind is not only wrong, but so wrong that it takes away from the so-called greater good. Which is why completing the one thing that would show others that you’re motivated by the one good thing that actually did happen, despite your lack of trying and incessant efforts to burn all bridges, becomes a reminder of how guilty you should feel for recognising even the slightest flicker of self-worth.

Why is hope such a dangerous thing, when hurt is the feeling you know best? Perhaps it’s because you already know that, when you allow yourself to feel hopeful, you set yourself up for even more chances of finding those small pockets of happiness. But not only by chance, but with actual effort. And, if that were to go away after having had the chance to get used to it, the inevitable hurt at the end of it would be such that we could not even stand to bare it. So we do our best to stop the good things from happening, just to avoid the extreme pain of potentially becoming rejected by something we actually wanted for once.

Hope and epistemology are, to me, interlinked by the fact that they both relate to expectation. The latter may be more science-based than the former, but it’s all about being able to envision realistic outcomes based on your experience. I may not be the biggest fan of Socrates’ biggest fluffer, but I do think he ‘d know exactly what I’m getting at here. Arguably, without Plato we wouldn’t even know about Socrates. Famously, Plato never spoke in his own voice in his dialogues, yet he seemed to understand the importance of his own role in bringing forth the messages of them. Double-edged swords and all that.

I’m not sure what’s brought this philosophical babble on, it might have been a discussion I had earlier today about the theory of the Id and the Ego being excuses for horrible personality traits that you don’t want to acknowledge, and I may or may not write a word or two on that soon. But not tonight. It is far too late and I seem to have decided that I’m going to try to not sabotage tomorrow for myself just yet.

I’ll see you next Tuesday. Until then, let’s all just remind ourselves that good things can happen and that it’s okay to hope – maybe not fully expect, but certainly dare to hope – for some things to work out in our favour too. And not only despite our best efforts to stop them from doing just that.