Connecting through despair
hi earth angels,
I hope this finds you at ease and at peace. Recently I’ve been feeling a deep sense of despair, brought to a peak by the white supremacist, anti-Black, anti-poor, and ableist lynching of Jordan Neely. May he rest in peace. But by now these words are almost insulting. Despair in particular is an emotion that I struggle to write about. It feels very final and incurable to me. When despair visits me, it feels like rock bottom. I feel frozen, and since I’m working on reconnecting to my body and the embodiment of my emotions, I let myself freeze and be immovable. I do not rush to ignore the inner part of me that longs to be icily frozen still. I feel the being beneath my skin, beneath the outer layer of my consciousness, itching to move. but I don’t let her. I feel and am helpless and frozen. and I let myself sink into the hyperreality of that feeling.
Yesterday, I was in a cafe writing a piece for you on romantic friendship, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that everything I had to say was worthless and meaningless. There are so many words. So many words. I am surrounded by words. Do we need more? I kept asking myself. We do, of course. But which words? That’s what led me here. I often think to myself, How can we go on in such a cruel world? A world of war, violence, poverty — all things that do not have to exist. And yet I know we must go on. Those of us who can.
Even as I say these things to you, it feels difficult for me to wrap my arms and words around despair — or to feel like I’m doing so sufficiently. and that frustrates me because it’s as if I have to lean on the word to do the heavy lifting of my experience of it. no explanation can transcend the finality of the word itself. If you ask me about excitement, or fear, I can tell you all the flavors of it; all the textures. But if you ask me about despair, my response becomes circular.
The artist in me needs to make this emotion generative, if not for myself then for you; for us. If I stare despair in the face, if I invite it in, if I let it show me what it wants to, and have its way with me, then perhaps something meaningful can come of it. This to me is the power of embracing the spiritual realm of existence. If Despair has taken me as its host, then I have to satisfy her in order for her to leave. Something my therapist encourages me to ask of emotions I experience but don’t like (eg envy, anxiety, despair) is: what does it give you? What does it want from you? In a spiritual sense, personified and solid, what is Despair asking of me?
What I came to is this. I’m 27, and I’m not the first person to go through despair. So how can I use it to connect to people — to you — and how can I use it to connect to elders who have had to face the ebbs and flows of hope and despair for many more decades? Today, I turn to the words of older love warriors and revolutionaries and thinkers who have been in this fight for justice and joy for decades and decades. I know there are so many more that I have not included here, but I’m working on my perfectionism, so I’m stopping at three that moved me. Please comment your fav words below if you have any to share!
Today I am thinking of all the precious beings suffering under the weight of white supremacy, slavery, colonialism, capitalism, imperialism, war, poverty, and much more. Today, I am thinking of all of us imagining, fighting, organizing, speaking, trying to bring about the kind of world where violence and marginalization are impossible. for the past couple of days i’ve just been crying and feeling like there is like no point in anything. but I know I can’t linger on this latter point for too long.
if we see our despair as part of our love, and our love as a call to action, then let our despair not leave us in complacency. one tangible act those with means can do is support mutual aid efforts that go directly into the pockets of poor/impoverished people, as we work towards a world where these power differences don't exist. you can learn more about mutual aid here.
I want to uplift the work of activist OpenYourWallet, an account I recently found on Twitter. They funnel money into the pockets of Black LGBTQIA+ people. Support their GoFundMe which is currently at $30 out of a goal of $100K! Or Venmo: @OpenYourWallet, or CashApp: $itsOYW. If you have the funds, please deeply consider taking action vs. considering taking action. And I want to do the same for Black South Africans as well so I’m trying to find ways to do that. Let me know if you have any ideas!
Let our despair propel us to action. This is just one suggestion. And for those in need of help or boosting an ask, please reach out to me or the comment section and let us try and help you. Sending love your way. Here are some quotes from elders. Please share more quotes you find solace in in the comments!
Cornel West
“…poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world… By poetry [we mean] all human beings who muster imagination and empathy to conceive of an alternative reality given the nightmarish catastrophic driven realities most of us have to come to terms with, which means to live a life of a certain kind is to be a poet, an artist of life, an artist of living, one who through one's deeds and actions and witness exemplifies an imagination and an empathy that is subversive in terms of relating to the past, which has fortitude and courageous in the present to pass onto the next generation, some wind at their back.”
Angela Davis
Nelson Mandela
From my journal
Some ideas I’d love to discuss in the comments! How does despair affect you? What does it feel like? What do you do in response? Do you escape or address it, and how? Whose words do you cling to or reach for? What do you tell yourself that helps you and might help others? Have any words or movies or books or shows or poems or podcasts or songs or playlists held you through despair? How can we help each other? Please comment below with anything!
My cousin told me she watches X factor audition fails or a comedy show.
here is my first coloring exercise. it was quite soothing! but of course not a cure lol
Thank you for being here! Sending you all the love! May you be held emotionally and physically by love and community. If not today, then some day. soon.
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Despair is hard. For years, I was also in a place where I thought everything was meaningless. It's a very difficult feeling to shake. I would constantly wish I hadn't been born because I didn't see the point of my existence. I wasn't suicidal, but it was hard for me to grasp the benefit of being alive. I think being still/frozen definitely helped me. It gave me time to think. Oddly enough, listening to sad music helped as well. I think it made me feel less alone in what I was feeling.
Stories help as well. Fiction or nonfiction stories about people overcoming tremendous odds. They always remind me that the first step toward achieving any progress is to have a bit of hope, faith, or belief. We can't move forward and begin to create a better life for ourselves or for the people around us, if we don't have that small bit of hope to start with. We have to do what we can to cultivate that small seed so that it keeps growing and leads us out of despair. There's no other way.
Thank you for your vulnerability and authenticity. I too have been feeling despair and sadness about and towards the world recently.
I really resonated with what you said about the artist in you trying to make this emotion generative. I feel that a lot about my art and my work and activism.
I think that sometimes the sadness and collective trauma and suffering around us can result in a feeling of futility but something that has really helped me when I think that everything is bad is something I saw on Instagram. It was a simple post that said “I know the world is good because I know I am good”. I think it works both as an affirmation and a way to promote hopefulness.
💜