Mortality.

My parents have left for the weekend, to honor family members who have passed away. My grandmother, when my father was a teenager, had a miscarriage. My mother has lost both of her parents who died within a few years of one another. I remember my dead grandparents very well, think of them often, and dream about them sometimes. Honest people. Loving people. But, death is as much about potential as it is about endings, as with the half-brother my father never knew. What would he have been like? How would my grandmother's nature or personality have changed with a child? 

It seems strange to me, that in the modern world, we don't spend more time honoring our dead. We have become so removed from death-- I wonder if people today are aware of what happens to our bodies when we die. Only a few decades ago, the ceremony of death could go on for days. Families sat with the deceased. Washed them. Prepared them for burial. 

I'd like to be cremated. I feel no need of my corpse being honored by a small plot of land or an engraved headstone; even these attempts to prolong our memories are only temporary. There is a graveyard I visited once where the names on the headstones were eroded and many of the headstones had fallen over. Weeds and trees had reclaimed the whole plot. 

We only live on for as long as the memory of us does. That notion scares people. It scares me, but the simple truth is that there isn't room in the history books for all of us. The good live on a few centuries maybe, and the great for thousands of years. 

How long before Mother Teresa is forgotten? 

How well do any of us really know Alexander the Great?

There is a greater truth to death. We're all much larger than our memories. We've done more, lived more and hopefully, contributed more than what our headstones or our gravestones could ever bear. That comforts me. Which is why I am okay with one day becoming ash. 

Fear.

I'd like to know what it is in us that determines what we are afraid of, and why. Being afraid is one of those truly universal conditions. Everyone intuitively understands what the emotion of fear is and everyone lives it at one moment or another.

I'd like to define fear as two different kinds; physical and emotional. Physical fear being those of actual things. Spiders. Snakes. Heights. Things that pose and represent real danger. I think it's easily understood why people have such fears. No one wants to be bit by a spider, or fall 4 stories.

But, how do you actually describe the purpose of emotional fears? Fears of failure. Fear of death. Fear of judgement, or criticism. What purpose do those kinds of phobias actually serve?

I have a very real and sincere fear of dependence. I never want to be seen as having to rely on others, or of needing anything-- physical or emotional, from other people. The core of it is, of course, weakness. I don't want to be perceived as weak.

Which, makes life difficult for more. How can a person rationally expect to go through life without every needing from another? It's impossible. As are most other emotional fears. We'll all be judged at one point or another. We all die. We will all be criticized, at some point.

I can't do or say anything about the fear of death-- which, is probably also a universal phobia. But, with every other fear-- we most expose ourselves to that thing which we are most afraid of. Anxious people must go out and be around others. People with emotional barriers have to expose themselves and confide.

I must be more dependent on others. It is really the only way.

Others. (Values. Judgement. Pain.)

As a white male born in the United States and belonging to a nuclear family, I feel a lot of guilt for having any kind of emotional issues or hang-ups. Suffering is relative, or so I'm told, but many people have it much worse off than I. What does knowing that I am relatively better off than many get me, or anyone?

Not much.

We all have things that have impacted us. There is always a dose of qualifying pain or disadvantage that is in order. In some regards, comparing ourselves to others is healthy. It puts our goals and our foundations on some kind of footing-- to be able to judge them.

No one can tell you what is important. No one can qualify what gets to have an impact on us. Only we can do that. Only we have the right to do that. And, what consumes one person may be nothing to someone else. What is important to some people, might not be for me or you.

A quick confession. Money is of no importance to me, which puts me at odds with society, my family and most other 'normal' people. I don't put much value in things either. I sincerely have no desire nor compulsion to own a giant flat-screen, a fancy car, a big house. I like not having to want for material things. Having emergency money and being able to pay the bill, but there are-- to me-- many things more important than money, or stuff.

 It is kind of what I mean. We shouldn't judge what is important by what others find important. It is all relative.

Values. Judgement. Pain.

So, why do any of us allow the opinions of others to affect us? Why do we honestly care what others think, of what we do or how we think? We are social creatures and values give us all a sense of belonging. We experience life not just through ourselves but also by those around us. Sure.

But in a large way, we often let other people's values to impose themselves upon our own. While natural, it is silly. It doesn't lead to more happiness, at least not in my experience. The only thing to do is be cognizant of it and occasionally reevaluate what you think you know.

Abandonment of Hope.

We all enter into the world completely innocent and naked. We grow and learn, in a world full of unanswered questions, full of potential. Nothing is beyond possibility.

Hope is the default human condition, only altered by the willful cruelty or the accidental ineptitude of others. The loss of hope, in my experience, is a long process full of boredom, disappointment and seeming failure. A habit of regret. Like, reliving conversations when you're awake at three in the morning. Standing up to the bully who tormented you twenty years ago. That kind of thing. 

Then of course, there is the negative influence that we allow others to have on us. We complain when others complain. We gossip. We allow someone else's judgments of our behavior or our lives to alter our course. We care what people think. We care what people say. We help those who don't deserve it. Those kind of things. 

The ideal of hope is tied to many of our emotional states. A person often gets angry when in a situation where they feel as though they have little control, a loss of hope that control (falsely) gives us. Sadness, when we lose a friend or family member-- we lose hope that we will see them again. We lose hope when we can't find the right job. We lose hope when we struggle or fail on assignment, or when we do poorly at work. We lose hope when things go wrong, when many things go wrong, when the right thing doesn't work out the way we want it to.

With happiness, there is hope to continue being happy. Hope of opportunity. Hope of being. Living in the moment. What ever that looks like for me or you. Reading a good book. Hearing good news. Spending time with those you enjoy being around. Enchanted by the notes of a guitar. How does that ever change? 

I've wondered for a long time if extroverts experience depression. Sadness for someone often in the company of others, living for the company of others, must be much more temporary. I guess, in a way, that I'm an example that they can. I have days where I am consumed entirely with energy and am full of wit. My partner has claimed that I make friends wherever I go. I sometimes take a boundless amount of joy in being around other people, talking with others, joking and making people laugh. I have days where I cannot contain the hum, the joy-- and it spills out of me. I paint. I write. I talk talk talk. 

But, not always. For three years, almost to the day, I've been living as a diagnosed bipolar. I have many more days that are the exact opposite. Where, I feel lethargic. I feel nothing. I battle a stream of negative thoughts. I berate myself. I am irritable, tired and take joy in very little. Days where there is no hope.

I suspect that many mental illnesses are gradually onset by the erosion of hope. My childhood wasn't ideal. It wasn't terrible, but my early life was a near-continual erosion of happiness. That is the way losing hope works. Unless maybe, you witness or are party to something truly horrific-- like the holocaust or genocide or mass murder-- hope isn't usually abandoned all at once. It is a progression, with every new day bringing little or no change. Being the same or slightly worse than the day before.

But, abandoning hope is also lazy. It is easy. Accepting that things will be no better, and not putting in the effort to change them... It is the easiest thing in the world. It's why there are so many victims. Real change, positive change-- it takes time. It takes will. It takes energy.

Perception is everything. I learn this and relearn this all the time. The world is what you see. If you see no hope, it is dark and small. Full of cruelty and injustice. Now, this is partially true. The world is not entirely just-- but, it isn't completely devoid of justice. The world isn't completely devoid of anything, 

So, starting today and starting every day. I will see hope. I will see opportunity. I will see change.