Why is it so hard to be a human?
Why is it so hard to be a human?
Why am I so stupid about what should be so very simple—how to live a relatively good and contended life? Why does that feel like goddam rocket science?
I’m a big fan of Saeed Jones’s newsletter, Werk-In-Progress. A couple of weeks ago he talked about feeling like a mental health machine—this idea that just living in the world right now has become so difficult that maintaining our mental health is a full-time job. Slip up a little bit—skip meditating in the morning or allow yourself to doom scroll for an hour—and it all comes tumbling down around you.
This just feels so, so true.
Sometimes I wonder, why haven’t I figured this out yet? Why haven’t I cracked this fucking code? I’m a smart person. Why am I so stupid about what should be so very simple—how to live a relatively good and contended life? Why does that feel like goddam rocket science? Like, as Saeed Jones describes, if I’m not constantly on top of it, it will all spiral out of control?
I have the luxury of instant access to thousands of years of accumulated wisdom on the topic.1 It’s not like other people haven’t figured this out. It’s not like I haven’t read, over and over again, some fairly detailed instruction books for exactly how to live a good and contented life (see Thich Nhat Hanh’s, Peace Is Every Breath). Why does it take so long for those lessons to sink in? And when I say ‘long,’ I’m talking a lifetime long.
Like this big deal with the present moment, which I’ve been reading about for a at least a couple of decades. The present moment is important. I get that. If you’re not living in the present moment, where are you living? Nowhere. With the ghosts of the past or the fantasies (or nightmare, depending on how you roll) of the future.
I can understand how it hurts not to be in the present moment. Like, with a party or social gathering. I’m super excited before the event, imagining how fun it will be (and also worrying a little about what might go wrong). Afterwards, I spend a lot of time replaying all the stupid or obnoxious things I said on an endless highlight reel. But in the moment of the party itself, I’m not really there. I’m not enjoying just being with people I love. I’m not present and it sucks.
Or the fact that I’m now leaning into fall instead of enjoying the summer. It took me two months, but in the last couple of weeks, I finally settled into the season. Got a little routine going. Shook off that restless sense that there was something else I should be doing. No sooner did I reach that good space then I found myself dreaming of fall. Or winter. Or any other season than the one I’m currently in.
What is that about?
Truly, Yoda said it best, about Luke: “All his life has he looked away…to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was, hmm? What he was doing.” No kidding, Yoda.
I don’t have the answers, obviously. I just told you that I’m very stupid at this whole being a human deal. I stumble along. Sometimes I think maybe I’m getting better. Figuring things out. Taking tiny baby steps.
Baby steps like realizing that this big brain of mine—this human consciousness that’s supposed to be so amazing and the pinnacle of evolution and blah, blah, blah—isn’t always particularly helpful. This monkey brain is always pulling me away from the present moment, like an endless and exhausting tug of war. Oh, you’re enjoying your garden? What about the weeds? Oh, you like hearing the sound of your husband in the next room? You know he’ll be dead someday. And on and on.
Becoming aware of this tug-of-war is one tiny step in the right direction. Coming back to the present moment sooner rather than later? Harder than you’d think. My monkey brain, in addition to being scattered and a little crazy, is also pretty strong. I don’t always win that tug of war with it. But each time I do, it’s a tiny forward movement. It doesn’t feel like much, but I’ll take it, claiming back my life one moment at a time.
Welcome new subscribers! Thanks as always for reading and sharing and liking and commenting! I always love hearing what everyone has to say. If you want to hear me rambling more, check out this episode of The Manuscript Academy podcast featuring, yep, me! I’m talking mostly about revising a query letter, but also about Madison and creepy basements and ghosts.
In case you missed it, last week I talked about what my cat has taught me about how to live and some very specific (slightly obnoxious) rules about food. My most popular post is about…a shirt? Okay.
That same luxury (the internet) also allows me to know about every horrible thing, big and small, happening on the planet at any given instant and this is neither how we were ever equipped as humans to live nor a path toward a good and contended life. So, cutting myself some slack for that.
If you study American time use, it becomes a little clearer. The primary we stay in the present is consuming media. Meditation is a stretch for most of us. When it should be socializing and doing things with our hands. If hunter gatherers had a stronger mental health foundation in a survival situation with death all around, it’s because they socialized frequently and did things with their hands.
At no other time in history have we been flooded with information, constant distraction AND been absorbing mass amounts of cumulative trauma and grief without any collective processing. The pace of life is insane. Some of these tools were designed by people living a monastic life - I mean, I could do it too, living a monastic life! So I think we do the best we can to acquire the tools. AND we give ourselves grace because these tools were not designed for what we are dealing with now really.