TLDR

(too long, didn’t read)

• Navigating the Loaded Term "Moral": As I dive into the complexities of the term "moral," I find myself grappling with the defensive reactions and questions it often stirs, pondering its significance in today's context.

• Reflection on Anger and Social Progress: Prompted by the angsty music of The Used, I can't help but contemplate the role of anger in social change, emphasizing the cyclical nature of progress and humanity's inclination to separate itself.

• Challenging Identity Boundaries: Discussing the tendency to distance myself from others based on identity markers, I'm drawn to the potential dangers of shallow or insecure identities in perpetuating divisions.

• Embracing Emotional Intelligence: While acknowledging the usefulness of anger in survival situations, I advocate for recognizing its underlying emotions and cultivating emotional intelligence to move beyond destructive anger.

• Inspiring Connection over Division: Sharing my personal experiences and reflections, I hope to inspire individuals to transcend anger when it hinders personal and societal progress, advocating for empathy and unity.

Give Me the Deets!

Give me the juicy details

IN hopes of not sounding too cliché, I will give this post a stab. While I normally write on a specific topic with more background info flowing freely, I was struck yesterday by a thought/feeling that I wanted to share, in case it is helpful to anyone else. I was driving to one of my friend’s homes, when the Taste of Ink by the Used came on. If you don’t know the song or the band, I’ll tell you the song is rather upbeat, while the Used, as you might guess by the name, is EMO AF. I have listened to this song for years, and it never occurred to me how happy the song really is. This is especially when compared to their other works. Don’t get me wrong, they have other upbeat songs, but something struck me new yesterday, and I can’t exactly comprehend why. 

I know for myself there has always been a longing or some subliminal comparison to others in regards to happiness. I think we all feel it with social media and consumerism shoving it into our faces every chance they get. As life events do, I have recently simultaneously experienced very happy circumstances along with extremely painful ones. As an analytical mind and highly feeling person, to be completely honest, my neurosis can get the best of me at times. Specifically, I am referring not just to general depression or anxiety, but the hashing and rehashing that happens when you wish you’d done something differently. Or you said or did that thing that brought on intense shame and now you can’t stop being mortified. 

Lastly, I am in my third trimester and due in only six short weeks. If you don’t already know, being pregnant is strange, infinitely cool, and extremely uncomfortable. I should say, that is my experience of it. My niece joked recently that I decided to have a baby based on hormones and a YOLO mentality. I laughingly agreed after I explained that as far as existential experiences went, physically creating a life and giving birth, while extremely common, is one of those experiences no one else can have for you or even explain in a way that means anything. Not to mention the experience of the love attachment and the relationship development that science and emotion naturally create (most of the time-ish).   Pair that with the complete lack of preparedness and the extreme change of life and identity that comes with being a parent, and ta-da! Elated Horror! I am extraordinarily excited and equally terrified. 

This got me thinking about how every step of my life has not worked out the way I planned. In a funny, ironic way, not a sad or mopey one. Even though I have made some pretty big accomplishments, in my own opinion as they were goals I set out to reach alone; nothing was perfect and in fact, a lot of it was so messed up and didn’t come to pass the way I planned. A lot of it for the better because there were circumstances I did not have full grasp of or were completely different than I originally thought. While it is not always true, I agree with Nietzsche when he said, “What doesn’t kill us, makes us stronger.” I definitely feel stronger. 

All of these ideas together made me search for a word that is positive, but means to “enjoy your pain” that isn’t masochism. Or in a Harry Potter reference, “Living half to death”, as in living so fully that when you die, no matter what comes next, it doesn’t matter because you’ve lived every moment so fully that even the pain was pleasure. This also made me think of Dostoevsky’s “Notes from the Underground”, sent me down a rabbit hole of if there is a word like “Schadenfreude” that means to enjoy your own pain, and the super cliché references popular culture throws out like, “Here Today, Gone Tomorrow” or “Live Like You are Dying”. Neither one of these really captures what I mean. 

“Here Today, Gone Tomorrow” really misses the sublimeness of the feeling I am having. For someone like me, who has lived with existential dread/crisis almost my whole life and the idea of not completing life properly somehow, it is the opposite of existential dread. It is feeling the importance of cherishing even the worst that life has to throw at you, because this will end. Who knows what comes next. “Live Like You are Dying” is one of those expressions that seems stupid or cheesy at first glance, because yes, we are all dying. It lacks the ooomph or gusto that I am feeling. SO, maybe there is a word out there that means what I have been feeling in the last couple days, but I just haven’t found it yet. 

I think of how often I have wasted time in the past, lamenting the discomfort, unplanned and therefore unexpected circumstances, or just the moments when I lost someone so completely I felt like I would die too. Maybe in hindsight, it isn’t wasted time, but if I could have “looked back” on the present in present time, I would remember that this is being alive. I could feel nothing instead and realistically I might feel nothing in the future when I am no longer breathing. There have been times in my life where I wished to feel nothing (yeah, I even wished for death), but here at 34 and on the verge of yet another giant change in my life and identity, I am fully realizing the bitter sweetness that the good comes with the bad, almost always, but with exquisite clarity and gratitude. I have a choice to lament or celebrate not being more comfortable, unplanned circumstances, or putting myself out there and feeling intense shame. Because this is it. This is life. This is all we get, and today I feel extremely grateful. 

<3 Astrid