Where’s the Magic?
I’d sure love to move on, wouldn’t you? I’m tired of the numbness, the “blah-ness,” the lack of hope and creative energy that seems to permeate most of our days and nights.
We all seem to be lost in The Doldrums. I recall reading The Phantom Tollbooth as a child, the one with the big dog on the cover with a clock in its middle, and dwelling on the scene where the boy was lost in a sea of fog and “blah-ness” that was known as The Doldrums. As I remember, and I can assume I remembered it through the filter of my own child feelings, the Doldrums was a lost and hopeless place, gloomy, with no hope of escape. I believe that the last two years of isolation and fear have caused all of us to be hopelessly lost in our own personal Doldrums.
Where’s the sun, where’s the prince’s kiss, the pot of gold, the Miracle on 34th St, to free us from this miasma of hopelessness. Where’s the magic?
Many people that I talk to long to reconnect to their life-energy, to feel deeply again, to melt the numbness even if it’s replaced by pain and sadness. We’re weary of the grey. We’re weary of drifting through life watching time fly by with no demarcations to delineate one day from another, one week from another, one month from another. Looking forward to nothing in particular.
The psyche has a spiffy mechanism called “Psychic Numbing” which, like it’s cousin, Physical Numbing, allows a person to survive a frightening, perhaps life-threatening event, by blocking out the paralyzing terror until they reach a safe enough place to allow the feelings to emerge. Both Psychic and Physical numbing were meant to protect the species. For example, a soldier who had been badly wounded during battle, is able to crawl to safety despite his physical wounds and emotional terror…and then collapse, both physically and emotionally. The ability to numb is often life-saving.
However, in this instance, the psychic numbing appears to be lasting too long. The panic during the first year of COVID is long gone. Though we now live in a more constricted world, the threat of death and serious illness has faded with the advent of potent vaccines and safety procedures. Yet the numbing continues, as does the anhedonia…. the inability to feel joy.
Recently I had to be mildly athetized to get something removed from my arm. I’m always amazed at how effective anesthesia is in masking pain. Eventually, the anesthetic began to wear off and the pain was waiting. It wasn’t terrible and, surprisingly quickly, the skin healed and the pain became a memory. Perhaps we just have to wait…
After all, it’s been two full years since the beginning of this catastrophe, since we began anaesthetizing ourselves. Perhaps, if we maintain our patience, the numbness will wear away and life will reemerge with the vibrancy we all personally long for and miss.
Another more action-oriented approach to our lack of motivation is described in a recent New York Times guest essay [“You’ve Done Self Care. You’ve Languished. Now Try This.” February 13, 2022] by Brad Stulberg. He proposes that we approach our lethargy and blah-ness by using Behavioral Activation. This theory purports that if you just start a behavior, it will, in itself, activate the motivation to continue. According to Stolberg, you might not want to start, you might rather sit on the couch watching “Breaking Bad” reruns, but if you want your life back, you might need to give yourself a gentle, but very firm, nudge.
I used to (pre-pandemic) get a kick out of writing children’s stories. They’re full of fun and joy and life…all the things I’m not feeling much of right about now. But, hey, what did I have to lose by testing out this theory. I noticed a little leather camel on my bookshelf which reminded me that, again pre-pandemic, I had just begun imagining a story about a little nomad girl who wanted to join her brothers on the long journey down the Silk Road. So, she decked herself out in boys’ clothing, and with her pet camel, joined the trek. I could visualize a long line of nomads atop their camels setting off on the months-long, perilous journey with the little girl and her pet camel bringing up the rear. Remembering this story, visualizing the image, stirred a desire to bring this little girl and her camel to life. I started by ordering a book on nomadic life from Amazon. I love shopping online so this part was easy! Hopefully I’ll nudge myself to actually begin to write. Feel free to yell at me if I don’t!
I suppose getting going is similar to starting your car after it’s been sitting idle for months. You gently put your foot down, careful to not be impatient and flood the engine which will get you nothing but stalled car, and turn the key. Perhaps you do this every day for a week, just turn the engine on to warm up the car. Maybe you get the urge to drive into Town. And you find yourself enjoying the drive! Maybe it takes a few days, weeks, etc. before you actually look forward to driving…that’s OK. No rush.
We’re all healing from a very long period of fear, isolation and disconnection. We all have lost so much. But, it’s spring, COVID appears to be under control, the leaves will soon turn green, the flowers will bloom, the air will get warmer and we, too, will emerge, rebirthed, after this very, very, very long winter.