I have never felt this alone in my life.
I am doubting myself and everything and everybody I have ever believed in. What if this whole bipolar thing is just a personality flaw and I am just too weak to make the grade in the concrete jungle?
Sometimes I cry (OK, every time I sit still and even begin to think, I cry) and sometimes I have outrageous ideas. I had an ant on my desk and called him Tony. My team played along. When the cleaner killed Tony yesterday, they did not see my tears. The Tony-thing was just a joke though, I do not hear voices and I am not delusional (but my heart was really sore when my Tony got killed). I know I am irrational and I find it really difficult to gage myself and other people.
I find it difficult to believe in a God that allows this kind of hell. I don’t understand how he decides who will get bipolar disorder (if it even exists) or how severe your moods wings ought to be.
I wonder if I will be punished for not believing when there might be a handicap locked up in my brain.
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Skin
For as long as I remember, I have been a "Christian". My parents read me Bible stories and I used to pray for the men fighting on our borders and the people in hospitals long before I even knew what a border is.
When I grew older, I made a conscious decision to "follow Jesus". I studied the Bible, sometimes with friends and sometimes without. I tried to adapt my lifestyle to what I believe Jesus would want me to do. I battled with concepts like healing (I still do) and faith. Studying Theology was a logical step and getting a salary from the church I worked at made sense.
A few years later, I met an amazing bunch of people. We came up with (what I really believe God inspired) disciplines. These disciplines became a way for me to connect with God and kind of anchored me when times were tough.
Now I am in a strange place. I do not fit into my skin. I am battling to reach out to an invisible God. I am battling to believe in anything at all and those disciplines now became my accusers.
I have been avoiding my friends for months, because I cannot relate to them. I cannot meet with them to pray, because I stopped praying. I cannot 'break bread' with them, because I have nothing to share about my relationship with God. I cannot walk in another's shoes, because I cannot find my own feet. I cannot apply my talent to build up the community, because I think I make a mess of 'everything'. I still stick to downward mobility... I am pushing the boundaries on working hours, because it makes me feel like there is something I can still do. There is no way God is Number ONE in my life at the moment.
I feel like I am being sucked into a dark pit and I cannot break free. I have nightmares about how I am trying to resign from the church (as a job) and I cannot get away. I am crying when I get stuck in traffic. At the same time, I want to throw things and break it. I want to drive too fast. I just do not care anymore.
I saw my psychiatrist and she calls this a mixed episode. Apparently it is tricky, because I am experiencing mania and depression at the same time. If she takes away my anti-depressants, I might become more suicidal. If she leaves it, I might become more manic. If she introduces new stabilizers, I will gain more weight (and I really trying to loose weight). Bottomline - it is messy.
My skin does not fit. I am trying to be the me I always thought I was, but I am battling. I speak without thinking, I am hurting others. Not on purpose, I promise. It just seems to happen. I am both destructive and self-destructive and I do not want to be this me. I am just so tired of fighting this fight and not getting anywhere.
I do not love God. I do not even want to love God. But I want to want to love God. I want to want Him to be number ONE. More than anything... I want to be able to connect with this Invisible Being.
When I grew older, I made a conscious decision to "follow Jesus". I studied the Bible, sometimes with friends and sometimes without. I tried to adapt my lifestyle to what I believe Jesus would want me to do. I battled with concepts like healing (I still do) and faith. Studying Theology was a logical step and getting a salary from the church I worked at made sense.
A few years later, I met an amazing bunch of people. We came up with (what I really believe God inspired) disciplines. These disciplines became a way for me to connect with God and kind of anchored me when times were tough.
Now I am in a strange place. I do not fit into my skin. I am battling to reach out to an invisible God. I am battling to believe in anything at all and those disciplines now became my accusers.
I have been avoiding my friends for months, because I cannot relate to them. I cannot meet with them to pray, because I stopped praying. I cannot 'break bread' with them, because I have nothing to share about my relationship with God. I cannot walk in another's shoes, because I cannot find my own feet. I cannot apply my talent to build up the community, because I think I make a mess of 'everything'. I still stick to downward mobility... I am pushing the boundaries on working hours, because it makes me feel like there is something I can still do. There is no way God is Number ONE in my life at the moment.
I feel like I am being sucked into a dark pit and I cannot break free. I have nightmares about how I am trying to resign from the church (as a job) and I cannot get away. I am crying when I get stuck in traffic. At the same time, I want to throw things and break it. I want to drive too fast. I just do not care anymore.
I saw my psychiatrist and she calls this a mixed episode. Apparently it is tricky, because I am experiencing mania and depression at the same time. If she takes away my anti-depressants, I might become more suicidal. If she leaves it, I might become more manic. If she introduces new stabilizers, I will gain more weight (and I really trying to loose weight). Bottomline - it is messy.
My skin does not fit. I am trying to be the me I always thought I was, but I am battling. I speak without thinking, I am hurting others. Not on purpose, I promise. It just seems to happen. I am both destructive and self-destructive and I do not want to be this me. I am just so tired of fighting this fight and not getting anywhere.
I do not love God. I do not even want to love God. But I want to want to love God. I want to want Him to be number ONE. More than anything... I want to be able to connect with this Invisible Being.
Friday, March 09, 2012
Teresa of Avila
"Oh, God, I don't love you. I don't even want to love you, but I
want to want to love you." - Teresa of Avila (and me)
want to want to love you." - Teresa of Avila (and me)
Friday, May 06, 2011
Healing
I have been battling with healing for 20 years now. I remember my almost unstoppable enthusiasm when I just 'discovered' the charismata and the possibility of healing. I laid my hands on anybody with the slightest ailment and to this day believe that God healed my dog, because I asked.
At the same age, I decided never to take medicine and I used to pray for healing for myself when I had headaches and even when I had mumps at the age of seventeen. Sometimes I believe God healed me and other times not (I had mumps for almost a month!).
Ironically, the first time I came across skepticism when I studied Theology. The more I was told that we live in a broken world and sickness and disease is part of it, the more fervently I believed that God is a healing God who hears my prayers. In my second year at university, I decided to put away my glasses and ask God to heal my eyes. He didn't. Three years later I eventually had to put my glasses back on in order to drive.
I tried to figure out why I was not healed - did I not believe enough? Was there sin in my life? Did the people praying for me not believe? Was this simply not a priority to God?
I saw people getting hurt in the church as church leaders told them they did not believe enough or they didn't get healed because of hidden sin. I had to ask myself if we weren't doing more harm than good by laying our hands on people and raising their hopes? Was it fair?
After I have left the 'fulltime ministry', i.e. drawing a salary from the church, I started thinking differently about a lot of things. I read all of Philip Yancey's books and could relate to the 'hidden God' he describes. I wanted to know where God was while I was hurting and never quite got the answers.
When I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, I came to believe that I should take the medical help available and then make lifestyle changes. I saw the medicine and these lifestyle changes (healthy eating, exercise, enough sleep, a bit of sun and the fact that I had to stop drinking caffeine and alcohol) as God's way to 'keep me OK'. I never questioned it.
I know two people who are battling with cancer and saw their therapy as God's way to help. When my friend, Tom, had a heart attack and triple bypass I thought the same. It did not occur to me that I should lay my hands on him and pray, but rather for our community to support him and his family in order to facilitate his recovery.
And then... my mom got sick again.
Three years ago she was diagnosed with stomach cancer and her stomach was removed. A new stomach was molded from a part of the duodenum. A year later, the stomach grew closed at the top and had to be removed and yet another one was molded. She spent a substantial amount of time in ICU's during recovery and she was really very sick. There were times when I thought it is the end.
For the past (almost six) months, she has been displaying the same symptoms she had before the second operation. My first response was that I thought the stomach had grown closed again. My mom insisted that God would not allow it and kept going to the GP, trying different medicines.
Just more than two weeks ago, I finally got her to go to a specialist physician. He did a bariummeal and it showed that the stomach is closed at the bottom. He referred my mom to a surgeon. The surgeon showed us on the x-rays that the part of the duodenum shrivelled up and it looks like there is no blood supply to the area. She then decided that God will heal her and refused an operation to correct the problem. Bear in mind that she has hardly been able to keep a meal down in the past six months and that is losing more and more weight.
As a compromise, the surgeon agreed to do a gastroscopy yesterday. Afterwards my mom told me that it is 'just inflammation'. I want to believe her, but I know what I have seen on the x-rays and it feels like she is postponing the inevitable.
I have to ask myself if my belief in western medicine is a stumbling block to her faith? My instinct is to have the operation as soon as possible so she can eat again and her body can absorb what it needs. On the other hand, it is not my body and I know I should respect her wishes. The surgeon took samples for biposies yesterday and we should have the results on Tuesday. It just feel like this process is dragging on and on and in the meantime, she is starving.
I am at a loss here and after twenty years, I still don't understand healing.
At the same age, I decided never to take medicine and I used to pray for healing for myself when I had headaches and even when I had mumps at the age of seventeen. Sometimes I believe God healed me and other times not (I had mumps for almost a month!).
Ironically, the first time I came across skepticism when I studied Theology. The more I was told that we live in a broken world and sickness and disease is part of it, the more fervently I believed that God is a healing God who hears my prayers. In my second year at university, I decided to put away my glasses and ask God to heal my eyes. He didn't. Three years later I eventually had to put my glasses back on in order to drive.
I tried to figure out why I was not healed - did I not believe enough? Was there sin in my life? Did the people praying for me not believe? Was this simply not a priority to God?
I saw people getting hurt in the church as church leaders told them they did not believe enough or they didn't get healed because of hidden sin. I had to ask myself if we weren't doing more harm than good by laying our hands on people and raising their hopes? Was it fair?
After I have left the 'fulltime ministry', i.e. drawing a salary from the church, I started thinking differently about a lot of things. I read all of Philip Yancey's books and could relate to the 'hidden God' he describes. I wanted to know where God was while I was hurting and never quite got the answers.
When I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, I came to believe that I should take the medical help available and then make lifestyle changes. I saw the medicine and these lifestyle changes (healthy eating, exercise, enough sleep, a bit of sun and the fact that I had to stop drinking caffeine and alcohol) as God's way to 'keep me OK'. I never questioned it.
I know two people who are battling with cancer and saw their therapy as God's way to help. When my friend, Tom, had a heart attack and triple bypass I thought the same. It did not occur to me that I should lay my hands on him and pray, but rather for our community to support him and his family in order to facilitate his recovery.
And then... my mom got sick again.
Three years ago she was diagnosed with stomach cancer and her stomach was removed. A new stomach was molded from a part of the duodenum. A year later, the stomach grew closed at the top and had to be removed and yet another one was molded. She spent a substantial amount of time in ICU's during recovery and she was really very sick. There were times when I thought it is the end.
For the past (almost six) months, she has been displaying the same symptoms she had before the second operation. My first response was that I thought the stomach had grown closed again. My mom insisted that God would not allow it and kept going to the GP, trying different medicines.
Just more than two weeks ago, I finally got her to go to a specialist physician. He did a bariummeal and it showed that the stomach is closed at the bottom. He referred my mom to a surgeon. The surgeon showed us on the x-rays that the part of the duodenum shrivelled up and it looks like there is no blood supply to the area. She then decided that God will heal her and refused an operation to correct the problem. Bear in mind that she has hardly been able to keep a meal down in the past six months and that is losing more and more weight.
As a compromise, the surgeon agreed to do a gastroscopy yesterday. Afterwards my mom told me that it is 'just inflammation'. I want to believe her, but I know what I have seen on the x-rays and it feels like she is postponing the inevitable.
I have to ask myself if my belief in western medicine is a stumbling block to her faith? My instinct is to have the operation as soon as possible so she can eat again and her body can absorb what it needs. On the other hand, it is not my body and I know I should respect her wishes. The surgeon took samples for biposies yesterday and we should have the results on Tuesday. It just feel like this process is dragging on and on and in the meantime, she is starving.
I am at a loss here and after twenty years, I still don't understand healing.
Monday, January 10, 2011
Electro Convulsive Therapy
Over the past six months I got caught up in a steady downward spiral. Eventually the only way out that made any sense was suicide. This is not a call for attention - quite the contrary.
This morning we started ECT (electro convulsive therapy) where I get electrical shocks under anaesthetic. There are supposed to be 6 treatments in a course (Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Monday, Wednesday & Friday). However, this time we might have more as this morning wasn't really what my doctor had hoped for.
To make these treatments possible, I am also detoxing from just about all my meds. I am allowed 1/3 of my lithium and 300mg Seroquel per day. I am dizzy and nauseous. I am also not allowed to drive.
Tomorrow will be a better day.
This morning we started ECT (electro convulsive therapy) where I get electrical shocks under anaesthetic. There are supposed to be 6 treatments in a course (Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Monday, Wednesday & Friday). However, this time we might have more as this morning wasn't really what my doctor had hoped for.
To make these treatments possible, I am also detoxing from just about all my meds. I am allowed 1/3 of my lithium and 300mg Seroquel per day. I am dizzy and nauseous. I am also not allowed to drive.
Tomorrow will be a better day.
Friday, December 31, 2010
Celtic prayer for 2011
CELTIC BLESSING
(author unknown - translated by Charles Mitchell)
"I wish you not a path devoid of clouds,
Nor a life on a bed of roses,
not that you might never need regret,
nor that you should never feel pain.
No, that is not my wish for you.
My wish for you is:
That you might be brave in times of trial,
when others lay crosses upon your shoulders.
When mountains must be climbed,
and chasms are to be crossed.
When hope can scarce shine through.
That your gift God gave you
Might grow along with you
and let you give the gift of joy
to all who care for you.
That you may always have a friend
who is worth that name.
Whom you can trust, and who helps
you in times of sadness.
Who will defy the storms
of daily life at your side.
One more wish I have for you
that in every hour of joy and pain
you may feel God close to you.
This is my wish for you,
and all who care for you.
This is my hope for you,
Now and forever."
**********
(author unknown - translated by Charles Mitchell)
"I wish you not a path devoid of clouds,
Nor a life on a bed of roses,
not that you might never need regret,
nor that you should never feel pain.
No, that is not my wish for you.
My wish for you is:
That you might be brave in times of trial,
when others lay crosses upon your shoulders.
When mountains must be climbed,
and chasms are to be crossed.
When hope can scarce shine through.
That your gift God gave you
Might grow along with you
and let you give the gift of joy
to all who care for you.
That you may always have a friend
who is worth that name.
Whom you can trust, and who helps
you in times of sadness.
Who will defy the storms
of daily life at your side.
One more wish I have for you
that in every hour of joy and pain
you may feel God close to you.
This is my wish for you,
and all who care for you.
This is my hope for you,
Now and forever."
**********
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
I believe
I believe in the sun -
even when it is not shining.
I believe in love -
even when not feeling it.
I believe in God -
even when He is silent.
even when it is not shining.
I believe in love -
even when not feeling it.
I believe in God -
even when He is silent.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Robben Island
Last week my brother got married. He lives in the UK, but they wanted a South African ceremony.
Being in Cape Town for the wedding, I made use of the opportunity to see Robben Island. Nelson Mandela, Madiba, spent 18 years in a small cell on the island. The tour was both insightful and touching. All the important sites are pointed out from a bus until you reach the prison and meet someone who was imprisoned there as a 'political prisoner'. I cannot meet a person like that nor visit a place like Robben Island without feeling sincere regret for the sins of Apartheid.
After the visit to the prison, you walk back to the ferry. On Tuesday morning the rain was pouring down and with the wind became almost horizontal. As I walked into the rain and got soaking wet, I felt more alive than I did in weeks.
Maybe seeing a physical prison helped. Maybe the rain, washing away my cobwebs did the trick. My new cocktail (meds) might have kicked in. I choose to believe that God did a miracle. It does not matter what He used to do so.
Being in Cape Town for the wedding, I made use of the opportunity to see Robben Island. Nelson Mandela, Madiba, spent 18 years in a small cell on the island. The tour was both insightful and touching. All the important sites are pointed out from a bus until you reach the prison and meet someone who was imprisoned there as a 'political prisoner'. I cannot meet a person like that nor visit a place like Robben Island without feeling sincere regret for the sins of Apartheid.
After the visit to the prison, you walk back to the ferry. On Tuesday morning the rain was pouring down and with the wind became almost horizontal. As I walked into the rain and got soaking wet, I felt more alive than I did in weeks.
Maybe seeing a physical prison helped. Maybe the rain, washing away my cobwebs did the trick. My new cocktail (meds) might have kicked in. I choose to believe that God did a miracle. It does not matter what He used to do so.
Wednesday, September 08, 2010
Darkness
I am in a dark place. What started as a mixed episode (up and down), now went black.
It is difficult to relate to God, my community, my friends - even colleagues. I am finding more and more reasons to avoid just about every important person in my life. If I am tired of my dark mood, how must they feel?
I am about to give up on myself. I am tired of fighting a fight I cannot win. I battle to see any sense or purpose. Just tired. And dark.
It is difficult to relate to God, my community, my friends - even colleagues. I am finding more and more reasons to avoid just about every important person in my life. If I am tired of my dark mood, how must they feel?
I am about to give up on myself. I am tired of fighting a fight I cannot win. I battle to see any sense or purpose. Just tired. And dark.
Monday, July 19, 2010
Parachute
For the past month I had fun. I was living and working fast. I had lots of ideas and the energy to implement them. It was great. In a picture, it was a bit like freefalling out of a plane. It was bound to end.
What I did not know, was that I was flushing the lithium out of my system and this freefalling had no brake.
(Un)fortuntely my doctor realised what was going on and made changes to my diet and how much liquid I am allowed to drink. It is torture - I am constantly thirsty and suddenly have headaches.
In addition to this, the parachute opened. I had a wild jerk back to reality and my speed is broken.
In the long run, I understand that I need a parachute. In the short term, I really had fun and I miss the pace. My mind slowed down, I need to read the same paragraph three times over just to grasp it. I think slower. My studies scare me, because truthfully, I'm not sure I can pull it off.
As a side effect of another drug, I am having nightmares and wake up too anxious to go back to sleep.
And then... I still have the same questions - where is God in the chaos of my life? What does He think of all the chemicals I take and the person I become? Is all of this really worth it?
What I did not know, was that I was flushing the lithium out of my system and this freefalling had no brake.
(Un)fortuntely my doctor realised what was going on and made changes to my diet and how much liquid I am allowed to drink. It is torture - I am constantly thirsty and suddenly have headaches.
In addition to this, the parachute opened. I had a wild jerk back to reality and my speed is broken.
In the long run, I understand that I need a parachute. In the short term, I really had fun and I miss the pace. My mind slowed down, I need to read the same paragraph three times over just to grasp it. I think slower. My studies scare me, because truthfully, I'm not sure I can pull it off.
As a side effect of another drug, I am having nightmares and wake up too anxious to go back to sleep.
And then... I still have the same questions - where is God in the chaos of my life? What does He think of all the chemicals I take and the person I become? Is all of this really worth it?
Wednesday, June 09, 2010
South Africa
Last night my brother commented on South Africa on Facebook. He hates the fact that South Africa is always portrayed as a third world country and there is always a lady in a shack talking about her 17 chilfren and how hungry they are on the news. My brother has been living in London for 9 years.
My perception of South Africa is totally different. I love South Africa and I love being South African.
This nation has come a long way. I can remember the Apartheid laws and the fear when they were scrapped one by one. I can remember Nelson Mandela's release and the 'white agitation'. I remember the years prior to the first democratic election, the fights between black and black as well as black and white. I remember that first election and the belief that a war will erupt.
Subsequently, I saw a nation being built. I saw black and white hands extended. There were books written on both sides of the divide. Nelson Mandela, Madiba, wrote his "Long walk to Freedom", Bishop Desmond Tutu wrote "God has a dream" (and one the most amazing experiences was hearing this black man say: "God loves you...". Then there was Antjie Krog and so many others on the 'white end'.
I see people befriending people despite colour. I see efforts being made to understand culture and language. I see common ground and I see a melting pot.
Yes, we have poor people. Yes, we do have people with 17 children. Are we helping them? I believe we are. One at a time. However, we are more than this, we are a nation. We love, we laugh, we learn.
Sport was and is always a huge factor in binding us together. As I am writing this, I hear the sound of vuvuzelas being blown. This was originally an 'instrument' associated with soccer, but I saw and heard it at the Super 14 rugby as well. Sport is big in this country, but I can never discount God's hand in the mending of a nation. I don't even want to think of what could have happened if it wasn't for Him.
Nkosi sikeleli Afrika.
My perception of South Africa is totally different. I love South Africa and I love being South African.
This nation has come a long way. I can remember the Apartheid laws and the fear when they were scrapped one by one. I can remember Nelson Mandela's release and the 'white agitation'. I remember the years prior to the first democratic election, the fights between black and black as well as black and white. I remember that first election and the belief that a war will erupt.
Subsequently, I saw a nation being built. I saw black and white hands extended. There were books written on both sides of the divide. Nelson Mandela, Madiba, wrote his "Long walk to Freedom", Bishop Desmond Tutu wrote "God has a dream" (and one the most amazing experiences was hearing this black man say: "God loves you...". Then there was Antjie Krog and so many others on the 'white end'.
I see people befriending people despite colour. I see efforts being made to understand culture and language. I see common ground and I see a melting pot.
Yes, we have poor people. Yes, we do have people with 17 children. Are we helping them? I believe we are. One at a time. However, we are more than this, we are a nation. We love, we laugh, we learn.
Sport was and is always a huge factor in binding us together. As I am writing this, I hear the sound of vuvuzelas being blown. This was originally an 'instrument' associated with soccer, but I saw and heard it at the Super 14 rugby as well. Sport is big in this country, but I can never discount God's hand in the mending of a nation. I don't even want to think of what could have happened if it wasn't for Him.
Nkosi sikeleli Afrika.
Tuesday, June 08, 2010
My friend, Jan
I love my friend, Jan. I have known Jan and his wife, Yvonne for the past 15 years. When I met them, I was a student and they the new pastor and his wife.
Since then a lot of things happened. Jan has bipolar disorder and was only correctly diagnosed almost 5 years after his first breakdown. Jan cannot minister any longer. There is a lot of things he can no longer do, but he remains one of the sharpest brains I know. He wrote the bulk of my previous 3 posts. Yet, when Jan has a lot of people around him, he gets nervous and then his hands start shaking (side effect of lithium). He therefore spends his time mostly on his own or with the occasional friend.
Yvonne works fulltime and supports him. It used to be the other way around, but they both seem to have taken this in their stride.
When I first got sick, they were two of the amazing people who insisted I see a doctor. They also told me they think I have bipolar disorder two years before I was diagnosed. We can compare drugs and talk about side effects. We can discuss alternative therapies like ECT's without any frowns.
When I am too weak, I know that they will somehow be there. The opposite is also true. Their journey gives me hope for mine.
So why am I telling you this? Firstly, I want to acknowledge these amazing people. Secondly, Jan has to have a shoulder operation tomorrow. We don't know if there will be side effects, but the op needs to be done.
So, when you say your prayers tonight, please remember my dear friends, Jan and Yvonne?
Since then a lot of things happened. Jan has bipolar disorder and was only correctly diagnosed almost 5 years after his first breakdown. Jan cannot minister any longer. There is a lot of things he can no longer do, but he remains one of the sharpest brains I know. He wrote the bulk of my previous 3 posts. Yet, when Jan has a lot of people around him, he gets nervous and then his hands start shaking (side effect of lithium). He therefore spends his time mostly on his own or with the occasional friend.
Yvonne works fulltime and supports him. It used to be the other way around, but they both seem to have taken this in their stride.
When I first got sick, they were two of the amazing people who insisted I see a doctor. They also told me they think I have bipolar disorder two years before I was diagnosed. We can compare drugs and talk about side effects. We can discuss alternative therapies like ECT's without any frowns.
When I am too weak, I know that they will somehow be there. The opposite is also true. Their journey gives me hope for mine.
So why am I telling you this? Firstly, I want to acknowledge these amazing people. Secondly, Jan has to have a shoulder operation tomorrow. We don't know if there will be side effects, but the op needs to be done.
So, when you say your prayers tonight, please remember my dear friends, Jan and Yvonne?
Monday, May 31, 2010
A borrowed tale (Sisyphus / Camus 3/3)
Listening to the myth of Sisyphus, Camus and Hume conclude that the rational man will in all likelihood commit suicide. What kind of existence is it where one will never win, never beat the odds, never achieve?
Their next assumption surprises me more. They say that the strong man will keep rolling that rock up the hill, knowing that the rock will come down again.
Living with bipolar disorder is like rolling that rock up a hill and every time you (I) think (you) I have conquered, the rock comes down and you need to jump to get out of its way.
Living with bipolar is a fight to get to the top. To conquer circumstances and every now and again the disease.
So what should I then take away from this tale?
Maybe that the rock will come down? Maybe that I should start over and try again when that happens? Maybe I should learn from Camus and make peace with this senseless existence where I need to do the same things over and over?
In all of this, I pray that God will be close to you and to me, that He will help us to make sense of this life.
Their next assumption surprises me more. They say that the strong man will keep rolling that rock up the hill, knowing that the rock will come down again.
Living with bipolar disorder is like rolling that rock up a hill and every time you (I) think (you) I have conquered, the rock comes down and you need to jump to get out of its way.
Living with bipolar is a fight to get to the top. To conquer circumstances and every now and again the disease.
So what should I then take away from this tale?
Maybe that the rock will come down? Maybe that I should start over and try again when that happens? Maybe I should learn from Camus and make peace with this senseless existence where I need to do the same things over and over?
In all of this, I pray that God will be close to you and to me, that He will help us to make sense of this life.
A borrowed tale (Sisyphus / Camus 2/3)
Should we, in possession of a sound mind and with complete freedom of will, kill ourselves? To an inhabitant of Britain in the early 21st century, curled up on a sofa with a glass of wine and the TV remote control within easy reach, the question sounds laughable. To a condemned man facing the gallows or firing squad, the question is perhaps even more ridiculous. However, look more closely and it becomes apparent that the entire history of Western philosophy is contained within this question. As individuals, as members of a society and as a species we seek meaning [1]. From the earliest Socratic dialogues to post-Modernist contextual analyses Western philosophy is driven by a search for meaning within the human experience: in our inner lives, and in our interactions with each other and the world. Enormously powerful religious, political and philosophical structures have been built on the foundations of this search.
For at least four thousand years the idea of a higher level of intelligence - a single benevolent God or a pantheon of deities with different characters and interests – has provided a tremendously powerful source of meaning in the everyday life of the human race. But what would be the consequences for human life if the foundations of this meaning were to crumble? If meaning derives from a particular faith, or inheres in a particular relationship, what happens if this faith is destroyed, or if this relationship is broken? The suicide implied in this question is not a response to mental illness, or to intolerable grief. It is a rational choice, made with the realisation that life has no higher meaning. If life is genuinely meaningless, why should we tolerate the pain, disappointments and sheer hard slog of our day-to-day existence? Is it not better to put a final end to our weltschmerz?
So far, this discussion has been in fairly abstract terms. It is now time to place the question in a historical and subjective context. For a variety of reasons, 19th-century Europe experienced a decline in Christian faith. As the 19th century turned into the 20th century, many Christian observers wrote of their hopes for a revival of faith, and described the new moral order that they believed would bring together all nations. From the perspective of the 21st century it is apparent that these hopes were horribly misplaced. Through mechanised and impersonal wars on a global scale, through economic depression, through brutal totalitarian regimes, the ability of traditional systems of morality and meaning to provide answers was questioned. How could science claim to represent objective progress, if what it gave the world was the machine-gun, Zyklon-B, long-range bombers and the atom bomb? How could a loving God allow the deaths of millions of soldiers in pointless battles over a few hundred yards of mud? If every event was part of some higher scheme, what sort of benevolent deity (no matter how ineffable) could condemn six million human beings to a terrifying and ultimately pointless death? As Primo Levi has pointed out: if God is omnipresent, He was in the gas chambers of Auschwitz.
This dissatisfaction with conventional morality was present on the personal, as well as philosophical, level. In the vast Western industrial and post-industrial societies, the concept of personal freedom and individuality became compromised. In the face of mass conformity – the ‘herd morality’, as Martin Heidegger described it – could each individual assert his or her own unique identity? At the start of the century an increasingly pessimistic Friedrich Nietzsche had prophesied ‘the death of God’, and the events following his prediction had for many destroyed any possibility of faith in a benevolent creator. The question of meaning was once again raised. Where could the human race look for truth, for knowledge, for some comprehension of what had happened? Religious belief provided little more than a dead end. Science and rationality seemed empty after so much incomprehensible suffering. Political and social structures provided no answers; were they not to blame, at least in part, for encouraging hatred and division? This problem – the source of meaning in a Godless universe – was at the core of existentialist theory, and was addressed directly by Albert Camus in The Myth of Sisyphus.
Existentialism is perhaps one of the most misrepresented schools of philosophy. The word alone conjures up images of sour-faced Frenchmen in black polonecks, sitting in boulevard cafes and holding forth on the pointlessness of existence whilst puffing on a Gauloise. On a more serious level, existentialism is often depicted as a bleak and nihilistic world-view, dismissing human life as meaningless and ethics as an illusion. However, even a cursory reading of the key existentialist texts does not support these criticisms. The father of existentialism, Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855), was a fundamentalist Christian whose stated aim was ‘to go back into the monastery out of which Luther broke’ – in other words, to return to the stark, uncompromising beliefs of pre-Reformation Christianity. Although the movement later became avowedly atheistic in outlook, Kierkegaard’s ideas provided the framework in which later writers such as Camus and Sartre operated. To understand their outlook, it is therefore necessary to take at least a brief look at this structure.
Kierkegaard’s work began as a reaction to the rationalist school of Immanuel Kant and George Hegel. Opposing Kant’s notion of religious faith as an essentially rational concept, Kierkegaard claimed that faith was necessarily irrational. It could not be subject to logical analysis and proof, as this would destroy its meaning. Faith, he asserted, should be a matter of fervent devotion, a ‘leap in the dark’. True existence is not just ‘being there’. Each individual must choose his or her way of life freely, and be passionately committed to it. In asserting the primacy of the individual and their free choice, Kierkegaard also created a notion of ‘subjective truth’ [2]. The ethical choices that confront humans on a day-to-day basis are not accessible to reason and cannot be shown to have ‘true’ or ‘false’ answers. Such choices cannot therefore be made on rational grounds, but rather should be resolutions in the face of the objectively unknown.
Even this very brief description of Kierkegaard’s existentialism demonstrates the great importance he attributed to meaning and morality. Existentialism does not assert that all choices are meaningless: rather, it insists that individuals take complete responsibility for their choices, and do not attempt to disguise their motives with false claims of rationality. Unlike so many western philosophers, Kierkegaard insists on the primacy of feelings, of angst and irrationality, of living life passionately despite the unavoidability of uncertainty. Paradoxically, despite Kierkegaard’s intense Christianity there is nothing within his philosophy that demands religious belief. An existentialist world-view is as capable of accommodating the most ardent believer as it is the most dutiful sceptic.
This theme of existentialism was developed not only in philosophy, but also in some of the most important literature of the period. In The Brothers Karamazov (1880) Fyodor Dostoyevsky explored the tensions between the conservative Russian ruling classes and a younger generation coming to terms with the irrationality of everyday life. Much of Leo Tolstoy’s writings (in particular the monumental War and Peace (1869)) are suffused with a sense of absurdity: he portrays the human race as a mass of isolated individuals cast adrift in a world that neither loves nor hates them, but rather is completely indifferent to their sufferings. In the early decades of the 20th century existentialism as a philosophy developed in this direction. Kierkegaard’s profound belief in the existence of a benevolent creator was differentiated from the ‘leap of faith’ necessary to imbue life with meaning.
Any history of existentialism in the 20th century must have as a central theme the influence of world events on the development of this philosophy. I raised this point at the start of the essay, but it is worth restating it here. Existentialism is frequently described as a philosophy of ‘response’: the response of a species that desires meaning and comprehension to the revelation that the Universe is ultimately devoid of higher meaning and order. However, it must also be seen as a response on a practical, as well as abstract, level to the political and military crises of the time in which it developed. The two most important 20th-century existentialist writers, Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, lived under Nazi occupation for much of the Second World War (in Paris and Algeria respectively). Rather than dismiss what they saw around them as anomalies in an otherwise rational and ordered universe, they saw the Nazi atrocities as expressions of human choice – the choice to act immorally [3].
It was in the bleakest years of the Second World War – 1942 and 1943 – that the most influential Existentialist texts were published. Sartre’s Being and Time (1943) is a remarkable statement of optimism and human freedom in the midst of meaninglessness and despair. Like Kierkegaard, Sartre emphasized the importance of individual uniqueness rather than mere mediocrity and conformity. An individual, he argued, is always free to choose (the only freedom he lacks is to not choose), and can always ‘negate’ (or reject) his own characteristics and those of the world he lives in. The ‘meaning of life’ is not something bestowed upon the human race by a higher power, but is created in our actions, our choices and, most importantly, in our commitment to the choices we make. However, this freedom is tempered by a great responsibility: the responsibility to stand by the choices we make and to remain ‘authentic’ or true to ourselves. It is in making choices, in asserting our ultimate freedom in the face of an uncaring world, that human life can be lived in its fullest and richest sense.
Sartre also introduced the notion of angst into his philosophy. Critics of existentialism have frequently taken angst to represent the ultimate pointlessness of life, and used it as an example of the pessimistic nature of existentialism. A reading of Being and Time shows the reverse to be true. Angst (or weltschmerz – world pain) is an idea employed by many different philosophies under several guises. In Christianity it represents the vestiges of original sin within the human soul. Life is ‘nasty, brutish and short’ (in the words of Thomas Hobbes) because human nature is essentially sinful, and needs to be saved in order to be happy and enjoy eternal life. Sartre hated the concept of original sin. He argued that angst is the natural response of the individual to the realisation that his search for higher meaning and order in the universe is ultimately pointless. However, this is not a reason to despair. Angst is a symptom of freedom, a powerful demonstration that life is being lived in complete self-awareness, and should be accepted and celebrated.
Camus’ first major work, L’Etranger (1942), proposed a rather more defiant model of existentialism. Whilst adopting Sartre’s essentially optimistic view of existence, Camus went a stage further. He argued that, although human life could be made meaningful in the way that Sartre described, death made all actions ultimately futile. The only response was to accept that we are all ‘condemned to death’. Once this occurred every individual should rebel against this ‘ultimate negation’, throw themselves into life and with every choice affirm their existence in the face of death. Camus described this human battle with ultimate meaninglessness and indifference as the Absurd.
The Myth of Sisyphus, also published in 1942, is perhaps the clearest statement of Camus’ philosophy of the Absurd. In it, Camus directly addressed the question that began this essay: should we commit suicide? His answer to the question is a powerful argument for optimism, and a complex rhetorical and polemical rejection of the need for faith in a higher power. Unlike many works of philosophy, Camus is overwhelmingly concerned with the impact of his ideas on everyday life. His existentialism is essentially a way to live, a mode of thinking for coping with the harsh and confusing realities of everyday life. But it is also an elegant and minimalist piece of theory, rejecting abstruse philosophical concepts in favour of the basic truths of human existence.
Camus begins with the image of Sisyphus. A mythical King of Corinth, Sisyphus scorned the Gods and escaped from the Underworld. He was condemned to spend all of eternity pushing a rock up a mountain, only for it to roll back down to the bottom. There was no end in sight for Sisyphus, no respite and no sense that what he was doing had any meaning. This is the metaphor that Camus chooses for humanity. If we discard the notion of God, Heaven and Hell, we are left with a titanic and lifelong struggle that, ultimately, we are condemned to lose. Death comes not as a release from our struggle, but as a negation of all that we accomplish by our efforts. Against all this, Camus asks, in the face of death and in the full knowledge that we are defeated before we begin, can we be happy?
We can. Life is not absurd; the Absurd is life. This painful and futile struggle that we are all condemned to participate in (for, as Sartre pointed out, the only choice that is denied to us is to opt out) is all that we know. It is the only reality we have; all else is faith. In this world, Camus’ individual is forced to confront the limitations of his knowledge:
I don’t know whether this world has a meaning that transcends it. But I know that I cannot know that meaning and that it is impossible for me just now to know it. What can a meaning outside my condition mean to me? I can understand only in human terms… I do not want to found anything on the incomprehensible. I want to know whether I can live with what I know and with that alone.’ [4]
No invocation of an Absolute Reality; no Categorical Imperatives or Creators. Camus is determined to use only what he can know to answer his question. There can be no appeal to religious faith, based as it is on centuries of tradition and dogma. It is at this point that he finally parts company with the religious existentialism of Kierkegaard. Where Kierkegaard finds comfort in the notion of a benevolent Creator, Camus sees nothing but nostalgia, a fond memory of the illusion of order.
Awareness of the Absurd is a one-way street. There can be no ‘leap of faith’, no return to belief: to do so would be self-delusory. Indeed, Camus describes religious belief in the face of the Absurd as ‘philosophical suicide’. Consistency, authenticity, self-awareness – these form the basis of the Absurd life. Another quote from Primo Levi (himself a lifelong atheist) provides an eloquent example of what Camus is driving at. In October 1944 Levi was arrested and sent to Auschwitz. As the camp doctor examined him, deciding whether he would be gassed or sent to work, Levi found himself tempted to pray for assistance:
A prayer under these conditions would not only have been absurd (what rights could I claim? And from whom?) but blasphemous, obscene, laden with the greatest impiety of which a non-believer is capable. I resisted the temptation: I knew that otherwise were I to survive, I would have to be ashamed of it. [5]
Man is therefore presented with two choices. He can reject life and kill himself; but in doing so he allows both Absurd life and meaningless death to triumph over him. Or he can become a rebel in all senses of the word, constantly rejecting death in the complete knowledge that he will one day die. At this point Camus moves from the metaphorical language of rebellion to a more practical discussion of self-awareness in everyday life. The mechanical, repetitive nature of life in industrial society contains for Camus both tragedy and comedy. Seen from within such an existence is tragic, with no room for individual expression and no higher meaning than day-to-day survival. From the outside - from the perspective of one living the Absurd life - a repetitive existence is comic: a meaaningless mechanical dumb-show. By recognising life as comic, by incorporating it into the Absurd, one can escape the endless tragic repetitiveness.
A few brief paragraphs can give only a flavour of Camus’ arguments in The Myth of Sisyphus. In addition to the tragicomic nature of everyday existence he examines the Absurd elements of various lives: the actor, the conqueror, the writer, the seducer and so on. Creativity is for Camus a very particular and intense form of rebellion; the fruits of the creative life provide the only possibility of even limited immortality. However, he acknowledges that most individuals simply cannot devote their lives to art or literature. To struggle is sufficient. An Absurd hero is not a warrior or a poet, but an ordinary individual who accepts the inevitability of death and yet fights it with all his power:
I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain! One always finds one’s burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He, too, concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night-filled mountain, in itself forms a world. The struggle towards the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy. [6]
What Camus produced in The Myth of Sisyphus was perhaps the most uncompromising and individual atheist polemic of the 20th century. As such, it has found many critics. Some have argued that it proposes little more than an inverted system of faith, riven with contradictions and quasi-religious dogma. Others take exception to Camus’ rejection of rationality as a means of understanding everyday life. Perhaps most significantly, the uncertain and apparently irrational world in which Camus wrote has been replaced by one that is, at least in the short term, more stable. In the affluent and self-satisfied West of the early 21st century it is difficult to conceive of life as a consuming and passionate struggle against a meaningless death.
Despite these criticisms, The Myth of Sisyphus still repays generously the effort involved in reading it. As a historical document it displays the astonishing degree to which philosophy could flourish under a repressive occupation. On a more personal level, it is a fascinating journey into the mind of an articulate young man confronted with the realisation that his knowledge of the world is extremely limited. More than that, it is a powerful assertion of human freedom, and a command to the individual to take responsibility for the course of his life. Perhaps most exceptionally, The Myth of Sisyphus is a piece of literature with its roots in practical experience, rather than a series of abstract, quasi-mathematical syllogisms. The way in which individuals make their lives meaningful is ultimately a personal, subjective choice, and Camus’ work is an elegant and fiercely intelligent contribution to this subject.
For at least four thousand years the idea of a higher level of intelligence - a single benevolent God or a pantheon of deities with different characters and interests – has provided a tremendously powerful source of meaning in the everyday life of the human race. But what would be the consequences for human life if the foundations of this meaning were to crumble? If meaning derives from a particular faith, or inheres in a particular relationship, what happens if this faith is destroyed, or if this relationship is broken? The suicide implied in this question is not a response to mental illness, or to intolerable grief. It is a rational choice, made with the realisation that life has no higher meaning. If life is genuinely meaningless, why should we tolerate the pain, disappointments and sheer hard slog of our day-to-day existence? Is it not better to put a final end to our weltschmerz?
So far, this discussion has been in fairly abstract terms. It is now time to place the question in a historical and subjective context. For a variety of reasons, 19th-century Europe experienced a decline in Christian faith. As the 19th century turned into the 20th century, many Christian observers wrote of their hopes for a revival of faith, and described the new moral order that they believed would bring together all nations. From the perspective of the 21st century it is apparent that these hopes were horribly misplaced. Through mechanised and impersonal wars on a global scale, through economic depression, through brutal totalitarian regimes, the ability of traditional systems of morality and meaning to provide answers was questioned. How could science claim to represent objective progress, if what it gave the world was the machine-gun, Zyklon-B, long-range bombers and the atom bomb? How could a loving God allow the deaths of millions of soldiers in pointless battles over a few hundred yards of mud? If every event was part of some higher scheme, what sort of benevolent deity (no matter how ineffable) could condemn six million human beings to a terrifying and ultimately pointless death? As Primo Levi has pointed out: if God is omnipresent, He was in the gas chambers of Auschwitz.
This dissatisfaction with conventional morality was present on the personal, as well as philosophical, level. In the vast Western industrial and post-industrial societies, the concept of personal freedom and individuality became compromised. In the face of mass conformity – the ‘herd morality’, as Martin Heidegger described it – could each individual assert his or her own unique identity? At the start of the century an increasingly pessimistic Friedrich Nietzsche had prophesied ‘the death of God’, and the events following his prediction had for many destroyed any possibility of faith in a benevolent creator. The question of meaning was once again raised. Where could the human race look for truth, for knowledge, for some comprehension of what had happened? Religious belief provided little more than a dead end. Science and rationality seemed empty after so much incomprehensible suffering. Political and social structures provided no answers; were they not to blame, at least in part, for encouraging hatred and division? This problem – the source of meaning in a Godless universe – was at the core of existentialist theory, and was addressed directly by Albert Camus in The Myth of Sisyphus.
Existentialism is perhaps one of the most misrepresented schools of philosophy. The word alone conjures up images of sour-faced Frenchmen in black polonecks, sitting in boulevard cafes and holding forth on the pointlessness of existence whilst puffing on a Gauloise. On a more serious level, existentialism is often depicted as a bleak and nihilistic world-view, dismissing human life as meaningless and ethics as an illusion. However, even a cursory reading of the key existentialist texts does not support these criticisms. The father of existentialism, Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855), was a fundamentalist Christian whose stated aim was ‘to go back into the monastery out of which Luther broke’ – in other words, to return to the stark, uncompromising beliefs of pre-Reformation Christianity. Although the movement later became avowedly atheistic in outlook, Kierkegaard’s ideas provided the framework in which later writers such as Camus and Sartre operated. To understand their outlook, it is therefore necessary to take at least a brief look at this structure.
Kierkegaard’s work began as a reaction to the rationalist school of Immanuel Kant and George Hegel. Opposing Kant’s notion of religious faith as an essentially rational concept, Kierkegaard claimed that faith was necessarily irrational. It could not be subject to logical analysis and proof, as this would destroy its meaning. Faith, he asserted, should be a matter of fervent devotion, a ‘leap in the dark’. True existence is not just ‘being there’. Each individual must choose his or her way of life freely, and be passionately committed to it. In asserting the primacy of the individual and their free choice, Kierkegaard also created a notion of ‘subjective truth’ [2]. The ethical choices that confront humans on a day-to-day basis are not accessible to reason and cannot be shown to have ‘true’ or ‘false’ answers. Such choices cannot therefore be made on rational grounds, but rather should be resolutions in the face of the objectively unknown.
Even this very brief description of Kierkegaard’s existentialism demonstrates the great importance he attributed to meaning and morality. Existentialism does not assert that all choices are meaningless: rather, it insists that individuals take complete responsibility for their choices, and do not attempt to disguise their motives with false claims of rationality. Unlike so many western philosophers, Kierkegaard insists on the primacy of feelings, of angst and irrationality, of living life passionately despite the unavoidability of uncertainty. Paradoxically, despite Kierkegaard’s intense Christianity there is nothing within his philosophy that demands religious belief. An existentialist world-view is as capable of accommodating the most ardent believer as it is the most dutiful sceptic.
This theme of existentialism was developed not only in philosophy, but also in some of the most important literature of the period. In The Brothers Karamazov (1880) Fyodor Dostoyevsky explored the tensions between the conservative Russian ruling classes and a younger generation coming to terms with the irrationality of everyday life. Much of Leo Tolstoy’s writings (in particular the monumental War and Peace (1869)) are suffused with a sense of absurdity: he portrays the human race as a mass of isolated individuals cast adrift in a world that neither loves nor hates them, but rather is completely indifferent to their sufferings. In the early decades of the 20th century existentialism as a philosophy developed in this direction. Kierkegaard’s profound belief in the existence of a benevolent creator was differentiated from the ‘leap of faith’ necessary to imbue life with meaning.
Any history of existentialism in the 20th century must have as a central theme the influence of world events on the development of this philosophy. I raised this point at the start of the essay, but it is worth restating it here. Existentialism is frequently described as a philosophy of ‘response’: the response of a species that desires meaning and comprehension to the revelation that the Universe is ultimately devoid of higher meaning and order. However, it must also be seen as a response on a practical, as well as abstract, level to the political and military crises of the time in which it developed. The two most important 20th-century existentialist writers, Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, lived under Nazi occupation for much of the Second World War (in Paris and Algeria respectively). Rather than dismiss what they saw around them as anomalies in an otherwise rational and ordered universe, they saw the Nazi atrocities as expressions of human choice – the choice to act immorally [3].
It was in the bleakest years of the Second World War – 1942 and 1943 – that the most influential Existentialist texts were published. Sartre’s Being and Time (1943) is a remarkable statement of optimism and human freedom in the midst of meaninglessness and despair. Like Kierkegaard, Sartre emphasized the importance of individual uniqueness rather than mere mediocrity and conformity. An individual, he argued, is always free to choose (the only freedom he lacks is to not choose), and can always ‘negate’ (or reject) his own characteristics and those of the world he lives in. The ‘meaning of life’ is not something bestowed upon the human race by a higher power, but is created in our actions, our choices and, most importantly, in our commitment to the choices we make. However, this freedom is tempered by a great responsibility: the responsibility to stand by the choices we make and to remain ‘authentic’ or true to ourselves. It is in making choices, in asserting our ultimate freedom in the face of an uncaring world, that human life can be lived in its fullest and richest sense.
Sartre also introduced the notion of angst into his philosophy. Critics of existentialism have frequently taken angst to represent the ultimate pointlessness of life, and used it as an example of the pessimistic nature of existentialism. A reading of Being and Time shows the reverse to be true. Angst (or weltschmerz – world pain) is an idea employed by many different philosophies under several guises. In Christianity it represents the vestiges of original sin within the human soul. Life is ‘nasty, brutish and short’ (in the words of Thomas Hobbes) because human nature is essentially sinful, and needs to be saved in order to be happy and enjoy eternal life. Sartre hated the concept of original sin. He argued that angst is the natural response of the individual to the realisation that his search for higher meaning and order in the universe is ultimately pointless. However, this is not a reason to despair. Angst is a symptom of freedom, a powerful demonstration that life is being lived in complete self-awareness, and should be accepted and celebrated.
Camus’ first major work, L’Etranger (1942), proposed a rather more defiant model of existentialism. Whilst adopting Sartre’s essentially optimistic view of existence, Camus went a stage further. He argued that, although human life could be made meaningful in the way that Sartre described, death made all actions ultimately futile. The only response was to accept that we are all ‘condemned to death’. Once this occurred every individual should rebel against this ‘ultimate negation’, throw themselves into life and with every choice affirm their existence in the face of death. Camus described this human battle with ultimate meaninglessness and indifference as the Absurd.
The Myth of Sisyphus, also published in 1942, is perhaps the clearest statement of Camus’ philosophy of the Absurd. In it, Camus directly addressed the question that began this essay: should we commit suicide? His answer to the question is a powerful argument for optimism, and a complex rhetorical and polemical rejection of the need for faith in a higher power. Unlike many works of philosophy, Camus is overwhelmingly concerned with the impact of his ideas on everyday life. His existentialism is essentially a way to live, a mode of thinking for coping with the harsh and confusing realities of everyday life. But it is also an elegant and minimalist piece of theory, rejecting abstruse philosophical concepts in favour of the basic truths of human existence.
Camus begins with the image of Sisyphus. A mythical King of Corinth, Sisyphus scorned the Gods and escaped from the Underworld. He was condemned to spend all of eternity pushing a rock up a mountain, only for it to roll back down to the bottom. There was no end in sight for Sisyphus, no respite and no sense that what he was doing had any meaning. This is the metaphor that Camus chooses for humanity. If we discard the notion of God, Heaven and Hell, we are left with a titanic and lifelong struggle that, ultimately, we are condemned to lose. Death comes not as a release from our struggle, but as a negation of all that we accomplish by our efforts. Against all this, Camus asks, in the face of death and in the full knowledge that we are defeated before we begin, can we be happy?
We can. Life is not absurd; the Absurd is life. This painful and futile struggle that we are all condemned to participate in (for, as Sartre pointed out, the only choice that is denied to us is to opt out) is all that we know. It is the only reality we have; all else is faith. In this world, Camus’ individual is forced to confront the limitations of his knowledge:
I don’t know whether this world has a meaning that transcends it. But I know that I cannot know that meaning and that it is impossible for me just now to know it. What can a meaning outside my condition mean to me? I can understand only in human terms… I do not want to found anything on the incomprehensible. I want to know whether I can live with what I know and with that alone.’ [4]
No invocation of an Absolute Reality; no Categorical Imperatives or Creators. Camus is determined to use only what he can know to answer his question. There can be no appeal to religious faith, based as it is on centuries of tradition and dogma. It is at this point that he finally parts company with the religious existentialism of Kierkegaard. Where Kierkegaard finds comfort in the notion of a benevolent Creator, Camus sees nothing but nostalgia, a fond memory of the illusion of order.
Awareness of the Absurd is a one-way street. There can be no ‘leap of faith’, no return to belief: to do so would be self-delusory. Indeed, Camus describes religious belief in the face of the Absurd as ‘philosophical suicide’. Consistency, authenticity, self-awareness – these form the basis of the Absurd life. Another quote from Primo Levi (himself a lifelong atheist) provides an eloquent example of what Camus is driving at. In October 1944 Levi was arrested and sent to Auschwitz. As the camp doctor examined him, deciding whether he would be gassed or sent to work, Levi found himself tempted to pray for assistance:
A prayer under these conditions would not only have been absurd (what rights could I claim? And from whom?) but blasphemous, obscene, laden with the greatest impiety of which a non-believer is capable. I resisted the temptation: I knew that otherwise were I to survive, I would have to be ashamed of it. [5]
Man is therefore presented with two choices. He can reject life and kill himself; but in doing so he allows both Absurd life and meaningless death to triumph over him. Or he can become a rebel in all senses of the word, constantly rejecting death in the complete knowledge that he will one day die. At this point Camus moves from the metaphorical language of rebellion to a more practical discussion of self-awareness in everyday life. The mechanical, repetitive nature of life in industrial society contains for Camus both tragedy and comedy. Seen from within such an existence is tragic, with no room for individual expression and no higher meaning than day-to-day survival. From the outside - from the perspective of one living the Absurd life - a repetitive existence is comic: a meaaningless mechanical dumb-show. By recognising life as comic, by incorporating it into the Absurd, one can escape the endless tragic repetitiveness.
A few brief paragraphs can give only a flavour of Camus’ arguments in The Myth of Sisyphus. In addition to the tragicomic nature of everyday existence he examines the Absurd elements of various lives: the actor, the conqueror, the writer, the seducer and so on. Creativity is for Camus a very particular and intense form of rebellion; the fruits of the creative life provide the only possibility of even limited immortality. However, he acknowledges that most individuals simply cannot devote their lives to art or literature. To struggle is sufficient. An Absurd hero is not a warrior or a poet, but an ordinary individual who accepts the inevitability of death and yet fights it with all his power:
I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain! One always finds one’s burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He, too, concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night-filled mountain, in itself forms a world. The struggle towards the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy. [6]
What Camus produced in The Myth of Sisyphus was perhaps the most uncompromising and individual atheist polemic of the 20th century. As such, it has found many critics. Some have argued that it proposes little more than an inverted system of faith, riven with contradictions and quasi-religious dogma. Others take exception to Camus’ rejection of rationality as a means of understanding everyday life. Perhaps most significantly, the uncertain and apparently irrational world in which Camus wrote has been replaced by one that is, at least in the short term, more stable. In the affluent and self-satisfied West of the early 21st century it is difficult to conceive of life as a consuming and passionate struggle against a meaningless death.
Despite these criticisms, The Myth of Sisyphus still repays generously the effort involved in reading it. As a historical document it displays the astonishing degree to which philosophy could flourish under a repressive occupation. On a more personal level, it is a fascinating journey into the mind of an articulate young man confronted with the realisation that his knowledge of the world is extremely limited. More than that, it is a powerful assertion of human freedom, and a command to the individual to take responsibility for the course of his life. Perhaps most exceptionally, The Myth of Sisyphus is a piece of literature with its roots in practical experience, rather than a series of abstract, quasi-mathematical syllogisms. The way in which individuals make their lives meaningful is ultimately a personal, subjective choice, and Camus’ work is an elegant and fiercely intelligent contribution to this subject.
A borrowed tale (Sisyphus / Camus 1/3)
The gods had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain, whence the stone would fall back of its own weight. They had thought with some reason that there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labor.
If one believes Homer, Sisyphus was the wisest and most prudent of mortals. According to another tradition, however, he was disposed to practice the profession of highwayman. I see no contradiction in this. Opinions differ as to the reasons why he became the futile laborer of the underworld. To begin with, he is accused of a certain levity in regard to the gods. He stole their secrets. Egina, the daughter of Esopus, was carried off by Jupiter. The father was shocked by that disappearance and complained to Sisyphus. He, who knew of the abduction, offered to tell about it on condition that Esopus would give water to the citadel of Corinth. To the celestial thunderbolts he preferred the benediction of water. He was punished for this in the underworld. Homer tells us also that Sisyphus had put Death in chains. Pluto could not endure the sight of his deserted, silent empire. He dispatched the god of war, who liberated Death from the hands of her conqueror.
It is said that Sisyphus, being near to death, rashly wanted to test his wife's love. He ordered her to cast his unburied body into the middle of the public square. Sisyphus woke up in the underworld. And there, annoyed by an obedience so contrary to human love, he obtained from Pluto permission to return to earth in order to chastise his wife. But when he had seen again the face of this world, enjoyed water and sun, warm stones and the sea, he no longer wanted to go back to the infernal darkness. Recalls, signs of anger, warnings were of no avail. Many years more he lived facing the curve of the gulf, the sparkling sea, and the smiles of earth. A decree of the gods was necessary. Mercury came and seized the impudent man by the collar and, snatching him from his joys, lead him forcibly back to the underworld, where his rock was ready for him.
You have already grasped that Sisyphus is the absurd hero. He is, as much through his passions as through his torture. His scorn of the gods, his hatred of death, and his passion for life won him that unspeakable penalty in which the whole being is exerted toward accomplishing nothing. This is the price that must be paid for the passions of this earth. Nothing is told us about Sisyphus in the underworld. Myths are made for the imagination to breathe life into them. As for this myth, one sees merely the whole effort of a body straining to raise the huge stone, to roll it, and push it up a slope a hundred times over; one sees the face screwed up, the cheek tight against the stone, the shoulder bracing the clay-covered mass, the foot wedging it, the fresh start with arms outstretched, the wholly human security of two earth-clotted hands. At the very end of his long effort measured by skyless space and time without depth, the purpose is achieved. Then Sisyphus watches the stone rush down in a few moments toward that lower world whence he will have to push it up again toward the summit. He goes back down to the plain.
It is during that return, that pause, that Sisyphus interests me. A face that toils so close to stones is already stone itself! I see that man going back down with a heavy yet measured step toward the torment of which he will never know the end. That hour like a breathing-space which returns as surely as his suffering, that is the hour of consciousness. At each of those moments when he leaves the heights and gradually sinks toward the lairs of the gods, he is superior to his fate. He is stronger than his rock.
If this myth is tragic, that is because its hero is conscious. Where would his torture be, indeed, if at every step the hope of succeeding upheld him? The workman of today works everyday in his life at the same tasks, and his fate is no less absurd. But it is tragic only at the rare moments when it becomes conscious. Sisyphus, proletarian of the gods, powerless and rebellious, knows the whole extent of his wretched condition: it is what he thinks of during his descent. The lucidity that was to constitute his torture at the same time crowns his victory. There is no fate that can not be surmounted by scorn.
If the descent is thus sometimes performed in sorrow, it can also take place in joy. This word is not too much. Again I fancy Sisyphus returning toward his rock, and the sorrow was in the beginning. When the images of earth cling too tightly to memory, when the call of happiness becomes too insistent, it happens that melancholy arises in man's heart: this is the rock's victory, this is the rock itself. The boundless grief is too heavy to bear. These are our nights of Gethsemane. But crushing truths perish from being acknowledged. Thus, Edipus at the outset obeys fate without knowing it. But from the moment he knows, his tragedy begins. Yet at the same moment, blind and desperate, he realizes that the only bond linking him to the world is the cool hand of a girl. Then a tremendous remark rings out: "Despite so many ordeals, my advanced age and the nobility of my soul make me conclude that all is well." Sophocles' Edipus, like Dostoevsky's Kirilov, thus gives the recipe for the absurd victory. Ancient wisdom confirms modern heroism.
One does not discover the absurd without being tempted to write a manual of happiness. "What!---by such narrow ways--?" There is but one world, however. Happiness and the absurd are two sons of the same earth. They are inseparable. It would be a mistake to say that happiness necessarily springs from the absurd. discovery. It happens as well that the felling of the absurd springs from happiness. "I conclude that all is well," says Edipus, and that remark is sacred. It echoes in the wild and limited universe of man. It teaches that all is not, has not been, exhausted. It drives out of this world a god who had come into it with dissatisfaction and a preference for futile suffering. It makes of fate a human matter, which must be settled among men.
All Sisyphus' silent joy is contained therein. His fate belongs to him. His rock is a thing Likewise, the absurd man, when he contemplates his torment, silences all the idols. In the universe suddenly restored to its silence, the myriad wondering little voices of the earth rise up. Unconscious, secret calls, invitations from all the faces, they are the necessary reverse and price of victory. There is no sun without shadow, and it is essential to know the night. The absurd man says yes and his efforts will henceforth be unceasing. If there is a personal fate, there is no higher destiny, or at least there is, but one which he concludes is inevitable and despicable. For the rest, he knows himself to be the master of his days. At that subtle moment when man glances backward over his life, Sisyphus returning toward his rock, in that slight pivoting he contemplates that series of unrelated actions which become his fate, created by him, combined under his memory's eye and soon sealed by his death. Thus, convinced of the wholly human origin of all that is human, a blind man eager to see who knows that the night has no end, he is still on the go. The rock is still rolling.
I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain! One always finds one's burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night filled mountain, in itself forms a world. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.
---Albert Camus
The central concern of The Myth of Sisyphus is what Camus calls "the absurd." Camus claims that there is a fundamental conflict between what we want from the universe (whether it be meaning, order, or reasons) and what we find in the universe (formless chaos). We will never find in life itself the meaning that we want to find. Either we will discover that meaning through a leap of faith, by placing our hopes in a God beyond this world, or we will conclude that life is meaningless. Camus opens the essay by asking if this latter conclusion that life is meaningless necessarily leads one to commit suicide. If life has no meaning, does that mean life is not worth living? If that were the case, we would have no option but to make a leap of faith or to commit suicide, says Camus. Camus is interested in pursuing a third possibility: that we can accept and live in a world devoid of meaning or purpose.
The absurd is a contradiction that cannot be reconciled, and any attempt to reconcile this contradiction is simply an attempt to escape from it: facing the absurd is struggling against it. Camus claims that existentialist philosophers such as Kierkegaard, Chestov, and Jaspers, and phenomenologists such as Husserl, all confront the contradiction of the absurd but then try to escape from it. Existentialists find no meaning or order in existence and then attempt to find some sort of transcendence or meaning in this very meaninglessness.
Living with the absurd, Camus suggests, is a matter of facing this fundamental contradiction and maintaining constant awareness of it. Facing the absurd does not entail suicide, but, on the contrary, allows us to live life to its fullest.
Camus identifies three characteristics of the absurd life: revolt (we must not accept any answer or reconciliation in our struggle), freedom (we are absolutely free to think and behave as we choose), and passion (we must pursue a life of rich and diverse experiences).
Camus gives four examples of the absurd life: the seducer, who pursues the passions of the moment; the actor, who compresses the passions of hundreds of lives into a stage career; the conqueror, or rebel, whose political struggle focuses his energies; and the artist, who creates entire worlds. Absurd art does not try to explain experience, but simply describes it. It presents a certain worldview that deals with particular matters rather than aiming for universal themes.
The book ends with a discussion of the myth of Sisyphus, who, according to the Greek myth, was punished for all eternity to roll a rock up a mountain only to have it roll back down to the bottom when he reaches the top. Camus claims that Sisyphus is the ideal absurd hero and that his punishment is representative of the human condition: Sisyphus must struggle perpetually and without hope of success. So long as he accepts that there is nothing more to life than this absurd struggle, then he can find happiness in it, says Camus.
Camus appends his essay with a discussion of the works of Franz Kafka. He ultimately concludes that Kafka is an existentialist, who, like Kierkegaard, chooses to make a leap of faith rather than accept his absurd condition. However, Camus admires Kafka for expressing humanity's absurd predicament so perfectly.
If one believes Homer, Sisyphus was the wisest and most prudent of mortals. According to another tradition, however, he was disposed to practice the profession of highwayman. I see no contradiction in this. Opinions differ as to the reasons why he became the futile laborer of the underworld. To begin with, he is accused of a certain levity in regard to the gods. He stole their secrets. Egina, the daughter of Esopus, was carried off by Jupiter. The father was shocked by that disappearance and complained to Sisyphus. He, who knew of the abduction, offered to tell about it on condition that Esopus would give water to the citadel of Corinth. To the celestial thunderbolts he preferred the benediction of water. He was punished for this in the underworld. Homer tells us also that Sisyphus had put Death in chains. Pluto could not endure the sight of his deserted, silent empire. He dispatched the god of war, who liberated Death from the hands of her conqueror.
It is said that Sisyphus, being near to death, rashly wanted to test his wife's love. He ordered her to cast his unburied body into the middle of the public square. Sisyphus woke up in the underworld. And there, annoyed by an obedience so contrary to human love, he obtained from Pluto permission to return to earth in order to chastise his wife. But when he had seen again the face of this world, enjoyed water and sun, warm stones and the sea, he no longer wanted to go back to the infernal darkness. Recalls, signs of anger, warnings were of no avail. Many years more he lived facing the curve of the gulf, the sparkling sea, and the smiles of earth. A decree of the gods was necessary. Mercury came and seized the impudent man by the collar and, snatching him from his joys, lead him forcibly back to the underworld, where his rock was ready for him.
You have already grasped that Sisyphus is the absurd hero. He is, as much through his passions as through his torture. His scorn of the gods, his hatred of death, and his passion for life won him that unspeakable penalty in which the whole being is exerted toward accomplishing nothing. This is the price that must be paid for the passions of this earth. Nothing is told us about Sisyphus in the underworld. Myths are made for the imagination to breathe life into them. As for this myth, one sees merely the whole effort of a body straining to raise the huge stone, to roll it, and push it up a slope a hundred times over; one sees the face screwed up, the cheek tight against the stone, the shoulder bracing the clay-covered mass, the foot wedging it, the fresh start with arms outstretched, the wholly human security of two earth-clotted hands. At the very end of his long effort measured by skyless space and time without depth, the purpose is achieved. Then Sisyphus watches the stone rush down in a few moments toward that lower world whence he will have to push it up again toward the summit. He goes back down to the plain.
It is during that return, that pause, that Sisyphus interests me. A face that toils so close to stones is already stone itself! I see that man going back down with a heavy yet measured step toward the torment of which he will never know the end. That hour like a breathing-space which returns as surely as his suffering, that is the hour of consciousness. At each of those moments when he leaves the heights and gradually sinks toward the lairs of the gods, he is superior to his fate. He is stronger than his rock.
If this myth is tragic, that is because its hero is conscious. Where would his torture be, indeed, if at every step the hope of succeeding upheld him? The workman of today works everyday in his life at the same tasks, and his fate is no less absurd. But it is tragic only at the rare moments when it becomes conscious. Sisyphus, proletarian of the gods, powerless and rebellious, knows the whole extent of his wretched condition: it is what he thinks of during his descent. The lucidity that was to constitute his torture at the same time crowns his victory. There is no fate that can not be surmounted by scorn.
If the descent is thus sometimes performed in sorrow, it can also take place in joy. This word is not too much. Again I fancy Sisyphus returning toward his rock, and the sorrow was in the beginning. When the images of earth cling too tightly to memory, when the call of happiness becomes too insistent, it happens that melancholy arises in man's heart: this is the rock's victory, this is the rock itself. The boundless grief is too heavy to bear. These are our nights of Gethsemane. But crushing truths perish from being acknowledged. Thus, Edipus at the outset obeys fate without knowing it. But from the moment he knows, his tragedy begins. Yet at the same moment, blind and desperate, he realizes that the only bond linking him to the world is the cool hand of a girl. Then a tremendous remark rings out: "Despite so many ordeals, my advanced age and the nobility of my soul make me conclude that all is well." Sophocles' Edipus, like Dostoevsky's Kirilov, thus gives the recipe for the absurd victory. Ancient wisdom confirms modern heroism.
One does not discover the absurd without being tempted to write a manual of happiness. "What!---by such narrow ways--?" There is but one world, however. Happiness and the absurd are two sons of the same earth. They are inseparable. It would be a mistake to say that happiness necessarily springs from the absurd. discovery. It happens as well that the felling of the absurd springs from happiness. "I conclude that all is well," says Edipus, and that remark is sacred. It echoes in the wild and limited universe of man. It teaches that all is not, has not been, exhausted. It drives out of this world a god who had come into it with dissatisfaction and a preference for futile suffering. It makes of fate a human matter, which must be settled among men.
All Sisyphus' silent joy is contained therein. His fate belongs to him. His rock is a thing Likewise, the absurd man, when he contemplates his torment, silences all the idols. In the universe suddenly restored to its silence, the myriad wondering little voices of the earth rise up. Unconscious, secret calls, invitations from all the faces, they are the necessary reverse and price of victory. There is no sun without shadow, and it is essential to know the night. The absurd man says yes and his efforts will henceforth be unceasing. If there is a personal fate, there is no higher destiny, or at least there is, but one which he concludes is inevitable and despicable. For the rest, he knows himself to be the master of his days. At that subtle moment when man glances backward over his life, Sisyphus returning toward his rock, in that slight pivoting he contemplates that series of unrelated actions which become his fate, created by him, combined under his memory's eye and soon sealed by his death. Thus, convinced of the wholly human origin of all that is human, a blind man eager to see who knows that the night has no end, he is still on the go. The rock is still rolling.
I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain! One always finds one's burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night filled mountain, in itself forms a world. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.
---Albert Camus
The central concern of The Myth of Sisyphus is what Camus calls "the absurd." Camus claims that there is a fundamental conflict between what we want from the universe (whether it be meaning, order, or reasons) and what we find in the universe (formless chaos). We will never find in life itself the meaning that we want to find. Either we will discover that meaning through a leap of faith, by placing our hopes in a God beyond this world, or we will conclude that life is meaningless. Camus opens the essay by asking if this latter conclusion that life is meaningless necessarily leads one to commit suicide. If life has no meaning, does that mean life is not worth living? If that were the case, we would have no option but to make a leap of faith or to commit suicide, says Camus. Camus is interested in pursuing a third possibility: that we can accept and live in a world devoid of meaning or purpose.
The absurd is a contradiction that cannot be reconciled, and any attempt to reconcile this contradiction is simply an attempt to escape from it: facing the absurd is struggling against it. Camus claims that existentialist philosophers such as Kierkegaard, Chestov, and Jaspers, and phenomenologists such as Husserl, all confront the contradiction of the absurd but then try to escape from it. Existentialists find no meaning or order in existence and then attempt to find some sort of transcendence or meaning in this very meaninglessness.
Living with the absurd, Camus suggests, is a matter of facing this fundamental contradiction and maintaining constant awareness of it. Facing the absurd does not entail suicide, but, on the contrary, allows us to live life to its fullest.
Camus identifies three characteristics of the absurd life: revolt (we must not accept any answer or reconciliation in our struggle), freedom (we are absolutely free to think and behave as we choose), and passion (we must pursue a life of rich and diverse experiences).
Camus gives four examples of the absurd life: the seducer, who pursues the passions of the moment; the actor, who compresses the passions of hundreds of lives into a stage career; the conqueror, or rebel, whose political struggle focuses his energies; and the artist, who creates entire worlds. Absurd art does not try to explain experience, but simply describes it. It presents a certain worldview that deals with particular matters rather than aiming for universal themes.
The book ends with a discussion of the myth of Sisyphus, who, according to the Greek myth, was punished for all eternity to roll a rock up a mountain only to have it roll back down to the bottom when he reaches the top. Camus claims that Sisyphus is the ideal absurd hero and that his punishment is representative of the human condition: Sisyphus must struggle perpetually and without hope of success. So long as he accepts that there is nothing more to life than this absurd struggle, then he can find happiness in it, says Camus.
Camus appends his essay with a discussion of the works of Franz Kafka. He ultimately concludes that Kafka is an existentialist, who, like Kierkegaard, chooses to make a leap of faith rather than accept his absurd condition. However, Camus admires Kafka for expressing humanity's absurd predicament so perfectly.
Monday, May 24, 2010
Saturday, May 22, 2010
MDP study block 2
I have spent the past 6 days on MDP Study block 2. We literally worked from 7:30 - 20:00 every day, only breaking for meals.
This time there was no CSI game with the 'bipolar looney' as (innocent) transgressor, but unfortunately bipolar jokes became a trend.
I am probably hyper-sensitive about the issue, but I honestly do not find those jokes funny. Bipolar disorder turned my life around - it determines when and how much I sleep, when and what I eat how often I exercise, the chemicals I swallow every day... in essence every moment I am awake.
One of the lecturers on softer issues started his presentation by saying we should pray we never have bipolar bosses and bipolar people should not be promoted. It hurt. I have been in management for the past 10 years and honestly try to be fair in my decisions. I would love to believe that something of Jesus comes through in the way I do my job. I would like to believe that I am more than a disease.
I would've liked to tell you the week was insightful and I learned a lot (which is true), but what stood out was my hurt about bipolar disorder.
There is a part of me who would like to speak up and tell them it is not funny. However, I do not want to draw attention to myself on this topic.
Sometimes, I wonder if this kind of life is worth living. It is so hard to bounce back. Even when I do everything I am supposed to, I am unreliable and moody and not fun to be with. I do not like the person I became.
I wonder what God's role in this madness is? Did He give me bipolar disorder? How does He decide who should have it? If it wasn't Him, why did He allow it?
I know I have asked these questions before, but I have still not found any of the answers.
This time there was no CSI game with the 'bipolar looney' as (innocent) transgressor, but unfortunately bipolar jokes became a trend.
I am probably hyper-sensitive about the issue, but I honestly do not find those jokes funny. Bipolar disorder turned my life around - it determines when and how much I sleep, when and what I eat how often I exercise, the chemicals I swallow every day... in essence every moment I am awake.
One of the lecturers on softer issues started his presentation by saying we should pray we never have bipolar bosses and bipolar people should not be promoted. It hurt. I have been in management for the past 10 years and honestly try to be fair in my decisions. I would love to believe that something of Jesus comes through in the way I do my job. I would like to believe that I am more than a disease.
I would've liked to tell you the week was insightful and I learned a lot (which is true), but what stood out was my hurt about bipolar disorder.
There is a part of me who would like to speak up and tell them it is not funny. However, I do not want to draw attention to myself on this topic.
Sometimes, I wonder if this kind of life is worth living. It is so hard to bounce back. Even when I do everything I am supposed to, I am unreliable and moody and not fun to be with. I do not like the person I became.
I wonder what God's role in this madness is? Did He give me bipolar disorder? How does He decide who should have it? If it wasn't Him, why did He allow it?
I know I have asked these questions before, but I have still not found any of the answers.
Friday, May 21, 2010
21 May 2010
Lord,
I miss you like the winterveld misses rain,
I long for you and your loving nourishment,
Amen
I miss you like the winterveld misses rain,
I long for you and your loving nourishment,
Amen
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
19 May 2010
Lord
Tonight I feel alone and abandoned by You.
My thoughts are probably irrational or even stupid,
but I don't know where you are.
I cannot imagine You,
I do not feel You,
I might be really ungrateful, but I do not see your care tonight.
I am in a cold, dark place.
Death looks like an easy way out of this mess.
I do not understand why I need to live with this curse and
I understand even less why You won't take it away...
Lord, have mercy on me?
Let me see your loving kindness?
Let me experience your provision?
Let me taste and see that You are good?
I know I probably sound confused and maybe neurotic... please have mercy on me?
Amen
Tonight I feel alone and abandoned by You.
My thoughts are probably irrational or even stupid,
but I don't know where you are.
I cannot imagine You,
I do not feel You,
I might be really ungrateful, but I do not see your care tonight.
I am in a cold, dark place.
Death looks like an easy way out of this mess.
I do not understand why I need to live with this curse and
I understand even less why You won't take it away...
Lord, have mercy on me?
Let me see your loving kindness?
Let me experience your provision?
Let me taste and see that You are good?
I know I probably sound confused and maybe neurotic... please have mercy on me?
Amen
Sunday, May 09, 2010
Ordinary TIme
Despite the fact that it is Easter on the Church calendar (with Ascension Day on Thursday, 13 May 2010), it is "Ordinary Time" in my life and I am grateful.
I am almost too scared to put it in writing, just incase I jinx it, but my micro-management of my life is paying off now. My mood is neither too high, nor too low. My lithium levels are constant. I am able to sleep and to work. I am able to think and even study. I am at peace with myself and the world. This is what I think every bipolar patient dreams of. Just to be. Just to be normal. Just to be able to connect with God. Just to be able to connect with His people. Just to be able to do a day's work. Just to be able to understand jokes and the occasional pun and symbolism... Just to be.
I do know that all of it can change in the blink of an eye, but for now, I am grateful and content.
I am almost too scared to put it in writing, just incase I jinx it, but my micro-management of my life is paying off now. My mood is neither too high, nor too low. My lithium levels are constant. I am able to sleep and to work. I am able to think and even study. I am at peace with myself and the world. This is what I think every bipolar patient dreams of. Just to be. Just to be normal. Just to be able to connect with God. Just to be able to connect with His people. Just to be able to do a day's work. Just to be able to understand jokes and the occasional pun and symbolism... Just to be.
I do know that all of it can change in the blink of an eye, but for now, I am grateful and content.
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