Yes, of course I have ways of dealing with disappointments. It's hard to talk about them for some reason. Not that they're 'private,' just that... it wouldn't help anyone else. I think everyone needs everything that happens in their life to contain meaning of some sort. Meaning is all. Having faced that there is no great and good 'God' who knows what's going on and is taking care of business, I have sought meaning elsewhere. Sometimes I think in terms of 'perspective' instead of 'meaning.'
Also, I've had and have a whole lot more than my fair share of good things, too. When something awful is happening to you, it's hard to take comfort in what's been good; but with time you get perspective.
My father, an atheist, had no fear of death at all. He said that whenever he imagined himself dying, he held in his mind's eye the word, 'infinity,' and that that filled him with a calmness.
One little thing I do is this. I'll try to tell it, and will look silly, but that's all right.
I think that what is wonderful is human feeling and thought and experience. I think of 'love' or 'sex' or 'excitment' or 'joy' or qualities like 'goodness' or 'sweetness' or 'brilliance' or 'funniness' or 'wit' or 'kindness' or 'generosity' or 'honor' or 'courage' or even mundane human attributes and experiences , like enjoyment of food or swimming or art or ice skating or friendship... And in my mind, i think of there being this enormous quantity of valuable experience, experience being had, I think of it almost as a 'substance,' and I believe that the important thing is that it exists, exists in the universe, not who has it, contains it or is feeling it, at any given moment; and when bad things happen to me and i am in despair, I try to hold in my mind the knowledge that other human minds are still experiencing, sort of superintending, those valuable 'substances,' and that as long as those 'substances' continue in the universe, it isn't an entirely grim place, and i might be able to get back to where my consciousness can feel again those great and valuable attributes of others, or to where I might contain them myself. This is also one of the ways i handle the prospect of death. This one reservoir of feeling and beneficiary of others' attributes will be snuffed out, but it doesn't matter, because the 'substances' I value will continue to be personified-- enacted and experienced.
I am entirely aware I've just sounded wacko. You asked and i answered, a little. Maybe others produce embarrassing intellectual constructs, too, in their search for meaning. I think both that what i just wrote makes me look foolish, and that it is, in its way, valid. What it is, is that I stipulate what represents 'value' to me; and place myself in a comforting relation to it; your basic human maneuver. That's one thing I do. |
