Sinking
into the River of Existential Despair
SYNOPSIS:
Everyday disappointments and failures can lead to
psychological despair.
But much deeper than these psychological-emotional dynamics
lies our Existential Malaise experienced as existential despair.
Nevertheless, this deep causeless hopelessness
can be replaced by ultimate, uncaused hope.
OUTLINE:
I. EXISTENTIAL DESPAIR DIFFERS FROM ITS PSYCHOLOGICAL TWIN IN 5 WAYS.
II. TRYING TO SWIM AGAINST
THE CURRENT OF DESPAIR.
III. DIVING THRU DESPAIR
TO EXISTENTIAL FREEDOM.
CHART:
|
PSYCHOLOGICAL DESPAIR
|
EXISTENTIAL DESPAIR
|
1. Hopelessness of a
definite situation;
impossibility of a specific task. |
1. Total hopelessness;
all efforts futile. |
2. Understandable cause or
source
in the objective world. |
2. No objective cause;
existentially disclosed from
within. |
3. We eventually accept the
loss or
defeat; reconstruction possible. |
3. Permanent hopelessness;
no reconstruction possible. |
4. Independent, separate,
isolatable difficulties. |
4. Pervasive, comprehensive
hopelessness. |
5. We can accept the
inevitable
and focus on other values. |
5. We cannot overcome it,
only conceal it or embrace it. |
Sinking into the River of Existential Despair
by James Leonard Park
We are all floating down the River of Despair,
drifting towards death.
Some of us live in elaborate house-boats;
some of us bob along in smaller motorboats and rowboats;
others are lying on rafts;
and still others are in the water clinging to driftwood.
We all proceed with approximately the same speed toward the same
destiny.
But some of us are enjoying the trip more than others.
Some of us feel the wetness of despair against our own skins;
while others are protected from the river by secure life-games.
If we live in house-boats, we can ignore the river:
We live as if we were on dry land.
The waves on the river represent our small
disillusionments.
These little disappointments remind us
—if we live in
close contact with the hopeless current—
of the ceaseless flow of existential despair.
But if our protective illusions and projects remain intact,
we ride over the little waves without noticing the river.
Psychological despair arises from many
situations in human life:
Whenever we dare to dream, such hopes can be dashed;
wherever we aspire, we can be thwarted.
If we trusted love to fulfill us, its collapse might bring
despair.
If we expected our children to make our lives wonderful,
we can feel very disappointed if they go 'wrong'.
If we put our faith in money and possessions,
we might be cast into despair if we lose everything.
I. EXISTENTIAL DESPAIR DIFFERS FROM ITS PSYCHOLOGICAL TWIN IN 5 WAYS.
1. Psychological despair arises from definite
life-situations.
Whenever we wish for something specific, we can be disappointed.
But existential despair is the comprehensive loss of hope for existence.
2. When psychological despair strikes, we
already understand it.
We know why our dreams will never come true.
We can easily see the cause, reason, or source of our hopelessness.
But our existential despair has no specific cause.
Existential hopelessness arises within us, not from the outside
world.
3. Most hopeless situations (except death)
eventually pass.
After a time we become reconciled to the loss, however great.
We learn to live on, perhaps transforming tragedy into triumph.
But if our basic problem is existential despair, it does not
pass.
4. Hopeless situations can be separated from
one another.
Each difficulty or problem can be met by itself.
But existential despair is not limited to one dimension of life.
It pervades every corner of our being.
5. We handle psychological despair by
accepting the situation
and re-forming our lives around other values and purposes.
But existential despair leaves no area of life untouched.
We cannot climb into another boat and proceed as before.
II. TRYING TO SWIM AGAINST THE CURRENT OF DESPAIR.
Generally, we can cope with psychological
despair.
When one dream fails, threatening to throw us into existential despair,
we pull back from the edge, stabilizing our boat.
If we engage ourselves once again in happy, successful activities,
we can ride over the waves on the River of Despair.
When a little existential despair leaks into the
boat,
we look around for an easy explanation of why we feel bad.
We divert our attention from our Existential Malaise
—without
completely noticing what we are doing,
since to bail too fast means we acknowledge a serious leak.
Our usual way of dwelling on the River of
Existential Despair
denies the underlying reality, the undercurrent of despair.
Walking the deck of our boat, we might occasionally feel off-balance,
but we have not yet toppled into fathomless despair.
By concentration on interesting, practical, even successful projects,
we might ignore the despairing current beneath our
feet.
The more we notice our despair, the deeper we
become.
We can empathize with others in the same boat.
We no longer attempt to cheer the other passengers with optimistic
small-talk.
Openly admitting the reality of our common Existential Predicament
makes us deeper, more sensitive persons of spirit.
Often it is difficult to distinguish the waves
from the river.
For instance, the death of a close friend might cause us to feel
hopeless
both because we could do nothing to prevent the death
and because it opens up the total hopelessness of our own doom.
Such a tragedy is good reason for depression and despair,
but if it throws us into the River of Existential Despair,
perhaps the cold water merely awakens us to our true Predicament.
If we want to obscure the comprehensive
despair of our lives,
we can divide our time into many small tasks.
If we lose ourselves among the daily chores on board,
we can ignore the overall meaninglessness and hopelessness of life.
We can "live one day at a time", focusing on what we can achieve today,
leaving in obscurity our haunting awareness of ultimate hopelessness.
III.
DIVING THRU DESPAIR TO EXISTENTIAL FREEDOM.
However, existential despair is not the last
word.
We can dive thru the River of Existential Despair to Existential
Freedom.
Once we have completely confronted and accepted our existential
despair,
giving up our attempts to deny the river or rise out of the water,
then we might be prepared for the ultimate risk,
the spiritual surrender that will permit release from
despair.
We must acknowledge our despair because only total
hopelessness
will enable us to give up our self-sufficiency.
As long as we cling to our own powers and resources,
we will not be able to surrender totally and completely.
Half-hearted or somewhat-reserved 'surrender' prevents
liberation.
Only when we become convinced (probably thru protracted struggle)
that our own powers are useless against our Existential Dilemma
will we be ready to say "I give up!"
We must descend into the River of Existential
Despair,
deeper and deeper until there is no possibility of return to the
surface.
Then we might break thru the bottom of the river into Existential
Freedom.
Clearly, we would not take such a risky plunge into despair
unless we had tried all the other means of coping with the river
first.
We can only dive into despair when there is nothing worth
preserving.
We might see bubbles coming from others who have found the escape hatch
at the bottom of the river, but their accounts will not be
sufficient.
The push of existential despair is stronger than our hope for
release.
This existential dive is not just a mental
change.
We take nothing with us into the water.
We abandon the purposes and goals we used to pursue on the surface.
If and when we emerge below the bottom of
despair, into Existential Freedom,
all of the activities we had created to gain status and honor
now seem useless and meaningless.
If we were trying to enjoy ourselves and be comfortable,
such goals are easy to abandon when we come into Existential
Freedom.
If we have been working to make significant contributions to society,
that striving also disappears when we completely surrender
ourselves.
And if personal relationships were central to our lives,
those relationships now also take their place behind Existential
Freedom.
Just as our existential despair was not a
specific loss,
so Existential Freedom is not hope for anything in particular.
It is not a mental state or an emotional high.
Just as we once were lost in total hopelessness,
now we are possessed by a surprising hope.
Neither state-of-being can be intellectually grasped.
We can only be in despair or be in Existential Freedom.
We find ourselves riding on a strange hope.
We can still suffer disappointments and failures.
Existential Freedom does not make us super-human creatures.
When our goals and plans collapse, we are disappointed and depressed,
but ordinary troubles no longer open downward into existential despair.
Because our pervasive despair
has been replaced by pervasive
hope,
the little splashes of life do not threaten us with limitless despair.
While we remain supported in Existential Freedom,
we cannot sink into ultimate despair.
We might be defeated in the short run; our plans might all go awry;
but this cannot threaten our fundamental hope, because this hope
is not based on ourselves, on our capacities to accomplish
anything.
As long as we continue in the existential posture
of surrender, receptivity, & responsiveness,
we will continue to be free of existential despair, buoyed up by hope.
Questions for Discussion
1. In your own life, what specific hopes have been
dashed?
2. How did you re-construct your life after each
specific loss?
3. Do life's ordinary disappointments
sometimes open downward into existential despair?
4. If you have suffered both kinds of despair, can
you tell them apart?
5. Have you sometimes tried to cope with your
existential despair
as if it
were
caused by ordinary disappointments and failures?
6. On the River of Despair, what kind of boat do you
have?
7. What kinds of storms have thrown you into the
water?
8. After one boat sinks, have you usually found
another one?
9. Is it best to remain oblivious to the River of
Existential Despair?
10. Should you help others to understand and
acknowledge
the
undercurrent of existential despair?
11. Do optimistic religions deny the River of
Existential Despair?
12. Have you tried to dive below the bottom of
despair?
13. Have you experienced yourself buoyed up by
Existential Freedom?
Created March 28, 2004; revised
several times, including: 7-13-2008; 3-5-2011
AUTHOR:
James Park is an independent existential
philosopher.
His deepest passion and purpose-in-life
is to probe into our Existential Predicament
and to find the way out.
Much more about him will be discovered on his website:
An Existential Philosopher's Museum:
http://www.tc.umn.edu/~parkx032/
Further Reading on Existential Despair
and Existential Freedom
James Park Opening
to Grace: Transcending Our Spiritual Malaise
(Minneapolis, MN: www.existentialbooks.com, 2007—2nd edition)
The above cyber-sermon was adapted from Chapter 7 of this small book,
"Sinking into the River of Despair" p. 36-41.
James Park Our
Existential Predicament: Loneliness, Depression, Anxiety, & Death
(Minneapolis, MN: www.existentialbooks.com, 2006—5th edition)
Chapter 10 "Existential
Despair: Floating Down the River of Despair
" p. 253-266.
This link gives you the first four pages of the chapter.
Write
to the author
of
"Sinking into the River of Existential Despair"
James
Park welcomes
your questions and comments at:
PARKx032@TC.UMN.EDU
Go to the index page for Free
Cyber-Sermons
.
Go to the UNITARIAN
UNIVERSALISM
page.
Go to other
cyber-sermons by James Park,
organized into 10 subject-areas.
Go
to the Existential
Spirituality index page.
Go to the opening page for this
website:
An
Existential Philosopher's Museum.