This is a shitty realization – but it seems like something we have to learn over… and over… and over.
I’m not generally cynical; I’m fairly optimistic about the world and even people. I tend to think the march of humanity has been halting, but steady, progress. People will point to the wars of the 20th century, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, income inequality, and a host of other things, to say we haven’t really moved forward at all. Of course, people saying that generally ignore the fact that they’re doing so from the security of their home to an Op Ed page or some blog on the internet. (The irony being completely lost). Life in the Dark Ages, was, by comparison, pretty fucking dark. We no longer have slavery. Or polio in most of the western world. And a host of other forms of early death are gone. So, I tend to see the glass as half-full…
Right up until I believe something so fully in my heart, take it as a fundamental, and get bitch-slapped by an alternative I didn’t think existed.
The hardest part about this is that period when you look around and nothing quite looks the same. Reality is actually different. I had this feeling a long while back after an ex-girlfriend cheated on me. The fact that there’s another guy isn’t really all that big a deal, honestly. In the aftermath, you come to grips with the fact that you’re not the guy for that gal. The ego thing is for kids.
But the harder part is that you no longer can trust your own judgment, that semi-essential tool for getting us through this planet, the thing that helped our ancestors win the survival race over other stronger, faster, more capable predators. It’s a naked feeling. “Fuck, I don’t know what I know.“
In those moments, the feeling of being alone is so palpable, it transcends emotion and becomes physical.
So, what do you do once you’ve re-recognized the limits of your own judgment? Go back to basics, I suppose. Go back to those things that are indisputable. Whether that is close friends who are always there, a habit like running or working out, where there is an undeniable certainty to the physical work – 225 pounds is still 225 pounds, no matter what else has happened – or even pets (dogs are so fucking reliable that I’m certain that’s why they are man’s best friend). We have to ground ourselves in something that is outside of our own judgment, that exists independently of it, and slowly begin to expand our scope back outside of that certainty, to the thinner ice, and eventually to the thinnest: other people, and other situations similar to where we got burned previously.
As one gets older, though, it becomes increasingly more inviting to simply stay on terra firma. Fuck that thin ice… who needs it anyway? It’s still too early to say with certainty, but I feel more disinclined to try that ice then I ever have in the past…