Gordon over at RuneSoup says that optimism is a spell. Which is true, but also difficult.
After all, real optimism is a spell, but forced optimism (This is fine!) is inauthentic and potentially unhealthy. I’ve been struggling with this in line with my own health diagnosis. Keeping a positive attitude is better for my immune system, for my outcomes, for my life… but I gotta be honest, having cancer really sucks. And ignoring the fact that it sucks in order to “stay positive” is honestly draining and exhausting.
While my situation is my own, I think during this year especially this is broadly applicable to lots of people. I’ve joked that the one benefit of having cancer in 2020 is that you certainly don’t suffer alone because everything sucks for everyone. Har har.
We all know that optimism is good. Optimistic people have both better psychological health and better life outcomes (it’s like magic!). But there’s a point where it just feels… false. At the same time, I am walking a poison path right now, which means that my physical systems are under constant strain. If I get emotionally down, depressed, or if I overindulge in news or pointless online debate I immediately and literally feel sicker — weaker, more nauseous, more tired. Maybe it’s just me, but I’m betting that lots of other people have the same response… it’s just that they are healthier to begin with so it might not be so immediate or obvious of a connection. For me it’s very direct right now.
I’ve been struggling with this, regularly digging into it with my awesome Jungian Depth Psychologist to try to find a path forward for myself. I don’t always process my own emotions very well (my response is to try to control, plan, and fix things rather than the more passive approach of just feeling and processing — surprising no one who knows anything about me) and dealing with that has become more pressing for me this year.
Yesterday, in discussion with the Jungian, I had a revelation. I’d set myself some therapy homework (sorry, proactive and practical to the end) to figure out what the probiotics are for a healthy emotional biome. Like your gut biome, but instead of digesting food it’s for digesting emotions. This is something I’ve considered before, but not in this context.
Because the shit that’s happening is going to continue to happen regardless of how we feel about it. Apocalypse gonna’ apocalypse, and cancer gonna’ cancer.
Which brings us to joy.
See, optimism is future focused. It’s about hope for what the future will be. And in times of great upheaval and change, it’s hard to see past that chaos, which makes it hard to be optimistic. And when things are personally tough, challenging, even terrible, looking past that is even more difficult. It was only recently that I began to be able to really imagine a point where I’m a cancer survivor rather than a cancer patient. And we’re looking at only 6-9 months of treatment and a very positive prognosis — kind of a next best case scenario (best case is not to get cancer in the first place, which is what I recommend).
But joy is present focused. Joy is right now. You aren’t joyistic for the future, you aren’t joyedful in the past. If you want to feel joy, you have to feel it now. Yes, even in the middle of this mess. Which is why it’s so deeply subversive.
Outside my office window, which I’m facing right now, I have a view of trees and they are just getting their fall colors. I can see them change day by day. It’s not a private island, but it makes me happy daily that I have this view. Maybe I won’t always (there’s always a risk that the lot across the street will get sold off and a giant hideous McMansion will get erected -avert!) but for now these lovely trees are bringing me joy. And I’m going to take that joy and feel it for everything it’s worth.
Feeling joy is not only good in the present moment, it also makes optimism easier. And you can’t really fake joy if you keep it based on something good in the moment. I can feel pretty terrible about… waves hands in the general direction of the world… and still feel real joy at sharing a meal with my family or seeing the change in seasons or appreciating a job well done. I can acknowledge that what I’m going through is not the most fun, but still feel joy today that I’m really going to be OK tomorrow (or, you know, early next year, but roll with my metaphor). And that attitude helps me to look past current challenges in order to feel more optimistic in general.
You can even feel joy along with anger and sadness. Bad things can happen — TO YOU and THOSE YOU LOVE — and you can still find joy in stars and flowers and love. Things can be terrible and funny, painful but clarifying, poignant and elating.
There are a whole lot of forces out there — organized, nefarious, archonic, harmful — who wants us to feel despair and fear and to strip all the joy from our lives. They want to replace that joy with drudgery, media distraction, isolation, terror, cancel culture, shiny objects that bring us only sorrow, social control, dour judgement, and rage. But they can’t if we don’t let them. Because joy is something we can feel regardless of how terrible things are. Joy, like love, is a gift that doesn’t cost and has no restrictions or limits and can’t be bought, sold, captured, or stolen from us. It’s a seed we can plant and nurture, even in the rockiest soil.
Being joyful is a big ol’ FUCK YOU to the control architects and oligarchs and war mongers and the stupid unsustainable systems they have created. It’s a fuck you to cancer and illness and pain. It’s not “appropriate.” It’s not “allowed.” It’s not “correct”… which is why we should be feeling as much of it as we possibly can.
