The Beauty and the Darkness: The Power of Narrative to Create or Destroy

People can become addicted to all sorts of things. The reasons vary widely. Trauma, genetic predispositions, and social influences are just a few. But hopefully, it’s not too reductive to posit that all addictions are some form of pain management, be it physical, emotional, or existential. In that sense, they’re an escape from reality.

Thankfully, I’ve avoided the big addictions. I know, and you probably know, people who haven’t. They deserve empathy. There’s plenty of pain to go around and ample reasons to want to escape reality. All it takes sometimes is one loose choice to become addicted.

I’ve had a lifelong addiction to thinking. What does that mean? Well, I’ve always had a bent for problem solving. That’s what I love about writing — you solve problem after problem, hopefully in a way that satisfies both you and the reader. It brings me great pleasure to help my character think his way out of a jam or to figure out what plot complication will spin the story off in an intriguing direction. The dopamine hit I get from figuring shit out is why I keep doing it and always will.

The problem is, relatively few real-world problems can be solved by thinking. Emotional or relationship problems, for example. An emotional problem can’t be solved through a cognitive process. I wish to hell it could. What it can do is help convince yourself of this fact. Last year, I’ll bet I wrote a novel’s worth of analyses of my relationship issues only to reach the conclusion that they were at least half my fault. At the time, that was easier than vulnerability and honest introspection. Asking, “How do I contribute to the problem?” would’ve saved me an awful lot of time, and Dark Dodgers would’ve come out much sooner.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, I used to spend inordinate amounts of time chewing on problems that I can never, and will never have any role in solving. I didn’t know it then, but my brain was often so preoccupied with thoughts and worries that I frequently wasn’t fully engaged with the present. Thinking when no thinking is required is like paddling frantically downriver instead of letting the current do the work. The desire to fix anything outside your immediate control — of which you have precious little — is just an effort to control your environment. It’s a waste of energy.

It’s fine and healthy to wonder why people are the way they are, and sometimes, you can even get them to tell you. But thinking about what someone could or should do is useless. Figuring someone out isn’t your job. Being curious about them is.

Which brings us finally to thinking about oneself. For me, that was the deepest wormhole of them all, and it’s ongoing. Why did I react that way? Why do I walk with hunched shoulders? I really should do more cardio. Don’t get me wrong — it’s good to ask some of these questions some of the time. But the premise is flawed. You aren’t a problem to be solved. You’re a human being carrying around a big, smelly bag of shit. Some of it came from your parents, and their parents, and so on. Some came from the world — your boss, your neighbor, the morning news, etc. But a lot of it came from you. You can and should endeavor to lighten it, but you’ll never wash your hands of it, so to speak, or set it down.

The most insidious part of overthinking is getting stuck in loops. When I encounter an especially puzzling question, like, “What fresh hell is this?”, I tend to ask it over and over and over and over. This is called rumination, and it’s unhelpful mental activity.

So how did I start to break my addiction to thinking? I did, and continue to do three things:

1. I gave myself a break. 99.9% of all problems either shouldn’t be framed as problems or aren’t mine to solve. Therefore, they aren’t worth the energy it takes to think about them.
2. I monitor myself. If I get fixated on a thought or problem, which still happens sometimes, I say, “STOP!” in my head and shift my attention to the present, such as it is. The more I meditate, the easier this becomes.
3. I accept and embrace my reality as it is. This statement is taped to my wall along with many other affirmations. Accepting what you cannot change feels like sticking your head in the sand sometimes, and maybe it is, but it’s essential. I don’t like the reality we’re living in, and I wish it were different, but I can’t make it so.

If you’re an overthinker, maybe this will give you some useful insights. If not, then good for you. Either way, I welcome your thoughts at [email protected].

I don’t have any tattoos, but I’m thinking of getting one that says, “Today could be the last good day.”

I’ve referred to the experience of writing a dystopian series (the Cytocorp Saga) during the height of the pandemic. It wasn’t difficult to imagine all the ways that society could fall apart during that time because I perceived that it was beginning to do just that.

I wish I could tell you that my perspective has shifted.

If one were to plot the long arc of human civilization on a graph, with time on the X axis and something impossibly reductive like “condition” on the Y, you would see a general upward trend but not a straight line. As technology, medicine, and intelligence have progressed, so has our civilization. For example, the advent of antibiotics made it so a gash in your leg didn’t mean losing it. That would be a sharp little spike in the graph. War, famine, the Black Plague and such would be troughs.

There’s ample evidence to suggest we have already entered another trough. And, like other troughs in our illustrious history, it may last decades or even centuries.

Science, for example, evolved out of the ostensibly obvious need to establish unassailable truths when possible and well-supported theories when not. The freedom to take something as factual allows for the exploration of unknowns, which is how knowledge advances. It’s the base of the pyramid. Perhaps you’ve noticed that science isn’t exactly ascendant at the moment, especially among the ruling class. In fact, outside of the sciences and the lives of ordinary people, I would argue that objective truth no longer matters in our society. And when truth no longer matters, nothing does.

In his 2009 book Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free, Charles Pierce established what he called the Three Great Premises:

The First Great Premise: Any theory is valid if it moves units.

The Second Great Premise: Anything can be true if someone says it loudly enough.

The Third Great Premise: Fact is that which enough people believe. Truth is measured by how fervently they believe it.

You don’t have to look very far to see how accurate these statements have become. Truth is out, and attention is in. Rather than solve actual problems, our most brilliant minds have built highly efficient and profitable confirmation bias machines. Disinformation and fakery has never been easier to sell. In his book, Pierce refers to “cracks,” an old-timey word for those tinfoil hat types who used to stand on the street corner and fulminate about radio waves or microchips while nobody paid them any mind. Now, those same people have podcasts or offices in the Capitol.

Climate scientists, by contrast, have been screaming for decades that we are cruising toward an environmental catastrophe that will render vast swathes of our planet unlivable. Now, they’re the cracks nobody listens to, and they might as well stop screaming because it’s almost certainly too late. Does anyone see unprecedented global cooperation in our future?

As we speak, history is being rewritten. Before long, the messy parts of our history, like slavery or the Holocaust, won’t serve as examples of what not to do anymore. At best, they’ll be stories that only old people know like Hansel and Gretel or World War 2. For example, how many of the politicians and pundits who refer to so-and-so as a fascist have been made to publicly articulate what that word even means?

Empires fall. Systems collapse. Foundations crumble. So it has always been, so it always will be. When it gets bad, it will stay bad for a very long time. But even if the whole thing doesn’t go to shit in the near future, something will. It could be our health or that of a loved one. All the “virtual” money we have could vanish in a blink. The power could go out and never come back on.

The point is, cherish today. Notice it. Appreciate the people in your life, past and present. The many conveniences you currently enjoy. Grass. Rivers. The sound of birds. Live it up. Because any day could be the last good day, and that day will arrive before any of us are ready to meet it.

A number of affirmations hang on the wall of my office. I remember watching Al Franken play Stuart Smalley sketch on SNL and howling with laughter at the absurdity of a grown man looking into a mirror and saying, “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it, people like me.”

It’s still a funny sketch, but now I kinda get it. In fact, I embody it.

The past decade has been marked by a slow but steady process of disillusionment, or to put it less pejoratively, the deconstruction of beautiful lies. For me, that process began in my early 20s, when I began to realize that adult life wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Eventually, that led me to the question almost all of us will ask ourselves at some point.

“Is this all there is?”

It’s an important question. Never asking it can only mean one of two things: Either you never had outsized expectations of life (or at least weren’t very attached to them), or you’re simply not wired to ponder such existential dilemmas. I’d wager most of us think it at some point, though, and I’m starting to believe that the best and most useful answer to internalize and accept as soon as possible is that yes, it is.

Young me thought chiefly about the future. I enjoyed the present, but I got more excited about what came next and how much better it would be. The next grade, for example, or the next family trip, or the next sleepover at my friend’s house. Growing up in a microscopic rural town, I felt so limited by my circumstances. I wanted to grow up, leave, and move on to something bigger and better.

But then you realize, to your dismay, that the world widens for you in some ways but narrows in others. For example, you can apply for thousands of jobs but only have a realistic shot at a couple. Social guardrails, processes, and bureaucratic dogma await you at every turn. Victories and achievements are harder won but less celebrated. Your expanded world takes you from being one in a few to one of many.

For me, this was all rather jarring. By age 21, I was in the grip of a deep depression. I didn’t realize it then, but I didn’t know myself at all. Everything that had propped me up as a kid was gone, and everything that could knock me down, did. I stared into the abyss and asked, “Is this all there is?”

But as anyone who struggles with depression knows, when you stare into the abyss, it only stares back. No matter. I already knew the answer. I just didn’t know what to do with it.

Looking back, what I felt was a form of grief. The First Big Illusion died in my arms. The next thing wasn’t always better. Sometimes there wasn’t a next thing at all. The future could, and often did, look an awful lot like the present.

I knew I’d someday travel and have exciting and novel experiences once again, but they would be fewer and farther between. And as a young assistant golf pro making $1,100 a month, even those weren’t in my reach.

I wish I could tell you that I processed my grief in healthy ways, adjusted my expectations, and moved on. Instead, I attended the funerals of countless dozens more illusions, and each one only added to my sense of hopelessness. Was nothing I believed about the world true? Why did I believe these things to begin with? Who were the architects of the beautiful lies behind my unrealistic expectations? How was I supposed to muster enthusiasm for life when nothing felt new anymore?

Thoughts of that ilk set up camp in my brain and stayed there, “rent-free” as my friend and stoicism author Andrew McConnell might say, for the next 25 years.

Lest you think I was miserable for that long, I wasn’t. I married a wonderful girl, had a nice career, befriended many incredible people, saw cool places and did cool shit. I experienced many disappointments but few real hardships and more than a few pleasant surprises. However, moments of joy become more and more elusive, because for me, joy had to come wrapped in novelty or I couldn’t see it as the gift it was.

One of the affirmations on my wall reads, “Joy hides in plain sight.” I don’t know if I invented that or saw it somewhere, but I’ve thought about it a lot lately. How do you find joy in the ordinary?

For me, it comes back to our question: Is this all there is?

Once you’re solidly in the second half of your life, I think it’s important to see that the answer to that question is basically yes. Most of what’s possible for YOU to see, feel, or experience, you’ve already seen, felt, or experienced. Maybe you haven’t been to some exotic foreign country, but you’ve been out of your element and had to adapt to new circumstances. Maybe you haven’t seen Mt. Chimborazo, but you’ve seen a majestic mountain of some sort. That’s what I’m saying.

Does novelty still await you no matter how old you are or what you’ve done in life? Probably, but not necessarily. Failing that, we must learn to see the world through a different lens. Ask yourself these two questions:

1. Do I want life to be as joyful as possible?
2. Have I already experienced most of what I am likely to experience, at least in some form?

#1 is easy enough. #2 requires some consideration. If you answer no, then you need to decide if accumulating new experiences truly is a priority, what you’ll sacrifice to get them, and what will happen if they don’t bring the joy you desire.

But if you answer yes, then you need to begin finding joy in the ordinary. I say “find” because joy doesn’t find you. It hides in plain sight. Just because your cynical, jaded eyes pass over it doesn’t mean it’s not there. This is the point of mindfulness. Don’t just drink your coffee; pause to consider its long journey to your cup. Don’t just shower; delight in its sensations while appreciating that the water is hot and clean.

When I realized that this is pretty much all there is, I wish someone could’ve told me that that’s okay. That I should stop being obsessed with what’s to come and take delight in what is. Inspirational speaker Kerwin Rae said, “Stress is resistance to what is.” I think that’s spot-on. If joy is elusive for you, then maybe it’s time to accept that this might be all there is. Because if you only look ahead, you never look around.