Despair:Kindness

Despair. Yes, I am now in the grip of a deep and seemingly unending despair. Once I took a measure of comfort, even pride, from Sartre's dictum that "life begins on the other side of despair". After a bout of depression, there is a return to a semblance of clarity of vision, a sense of a weight having been lifted that does indeed feel as though life begins anew. I now think he was mistaken, that he was in fact speaking of depression. But, although the two conditions do share common ground, they are not congruent. It is possible to be depressed without despair, and, as odd as it may appear, it is possible to face despair without depression.

I have written about depression and creativity, now I want to talk about despair and kindness. A recent I Ching reading informed me that "Words have influence only when they are pertinent and clearly related to definite circumstances. General discussions and admonitions have no effect whatsoever", reinforcing my perception that it is the most intimately personal that is most apt to strike a chord in a reader. Some have suggested that it requires courage to expose myself so nakedly. No, for despair strips away all shame, all pride.

So what is this despair? It is not the loss, or the absence, of hope. On the contrary, hope does indeed spring eternal. But now the hope that greets me each dawn is a cruel blade, for on its heels must come the knowledge that the dream is now lost forever. I once, I do not remember how many years ago, wrote a note that "home is a feeling in the heart where I, that place and that time are sufficient". It has been made plain to me that my heart is not sufficient. I have never known "home", I never shall. Still less share a home with another. The dreams to which I have awoken each day are now, forever, out of reach. I live in the sad certainty that I shall never know joy's embrace. It is not a question of a broken heart, but a broken spirit.

I have asked myself how I have arrived at this desolate place. The simple answer that remains when all is stripped away, is unkindness. Such a small word to lie at the heart of so much pain - and when I say this I speak not of my own alone, but all the tragic unnecessary suffering abroad in the world. Life, the world we live in, bring unkindness into our lives: cruel accidents, disease, hunger. These are our lot to bear. They are not assigned fairly, indeed it may often seem that fate singles out for special suffering those who least deserve it. But there is no malevolent agency behind this cruelty, this unkindness endemic to our world, none at least that we can identify. Though that has not prevented the naming of "god" or "the devil" as responsible by those unable to come to terms with the ugly truth that quite simply "shit happens". No the unkindnesses I speak of are those unnecessary, heedless acts of cruelty, great and small, deliberate or simply unthinking that we do to each other every day. And despair arises from my own seeming inability to curb my own acts of cruelty, let alone the vast injustices heaped on so many other innocents, and finally my inability to bear the weight of the losses of a lifetime. Call me weak, if you will, but I was there before you.

Christopher Isherwood wrote that "Even the most trivial unkindness is heartbreaking". A profound truth. But perhaps the converse is also true? Is even the most trivial kindness healing? Surely it cannot be harmful, at least? Many years ago I made a rule for myself that every day I would bring a smile, even laughter, to a stranger. I like to think that this may in some way mitigate all my unkindnesses, and, what has always troubled me more, all my intended kindnesses that have somehow made things worse. This is not altruism, these gestures are intended to bolster my own sense of worth. But, if indeed there is good here, is that good any the less for my selfish motive?

I find now some solace, some response to, and defense against this despair in raising my voice, however feebly, against injustice, cruelty, unkindness in all its forms. I do my poor best to offer counsel and comfort to those others, so many too many, that I know or meet and who are bearing their own burdens of unkindness. If I raise my voice against war, torture, the hideous crimes committed in our name in the Congo and all over the world where the weak, the poor are exploited and worse, if I speak out I am in reality speaking out against those who have wronged me. Is this dishonest? Does it make me a hypocrite if I seek some kind of comfort for myself in making this utterly inadequate gesture against the unimaginable suffering of these strangers? Is my anger against injustice any less genuine if its root lies in my rage at injustices that I imagine I have been subjected to? And if I answer that I do not care to any of these questions, does that make me somehow less of a man, less human?

I do not know. It is not important. Like all of us, I am doomed to live until I die. As I wait, I find I must try to be honest, try to be kind. I must speak out. Despair demands it. Despair is the true death of the spirit. Despair, not hatred is the true opposite of love, which is to say life. Kindness is the simplest, most direct expression of love. No matter how final despair might be, a million cells raise their voices for life, for love, for kindness. I am powerless to deny them.