The origin of hopelessness (part 1)

Colored by obscurity, descended into chaos

Hello everyone! I hope your holidays were filled with love.

At the turn of the year, I took about a week and a half long break from Substack . . . I’m excited to kick off 2025 with today’s post, the first in a two (maybe three) part series!

Since I came home from surgery in October, this newsletter has nearly doubled in subscribers (93) and tripled in followers (199). It may not sound like a lot, but considering I’ve been writing for nearly six years with practically no audience, the past three months were monumental. To be read and appreciated by even a single person is an incredible pleasure. I cannot thank you all enough for your support (and a special thanks to all my paid subscribers!). While it’s been about as slow a start as any endeavor gets, I feel a sense of potential entering this new year.

Enjoy today’s post, and stay tuned for more!

The condition of our waking experience is in many ways dictated by a blend of subtle minutiae: lights, tasks, colors, glances, ideas, outfits, facial structures, architecture . . .

Though we may not, for example, be able to articulate a reason, open & blue sunny skies inculcate our reality with a hope seemingly squashed by dreary gray clouds. Or, better yet, while we might, on any given day, wake up perfectly content, we will, after being exposed to a media outlet that emphatically touts the worst of the worst—some figure has contracted a terminal illness—or even by absorbing information through conversation—like speaking on the phone with a news-obsessed Debbie Downer—quickly come to feel we’ve developed a sickness of the soul.

These minutiae, whose true nature isn’t always so glaring, imbue or drain our outlook.

In some cases, of course, they’re not so subtle: the negative or positive reaction of a loved one, an opportunity lost or won, a death or a birth. Better yet, with even a little prodding, we might very easily articulate what we do or don’t like about a low UV index or how our attention to media headlines granted anxiety a place in our hearts that morning.

But in general, without due effort, a hefty chunk of our waking experience is subject to coloration by the most obscure of forces. Even when we are able to acknowledge what it is that’s got us so down or up, this awareness is quick to subside.

In rushing through life, as so many do, detail blurs, and whatever impetus lies beneath our actions becomes indistinguishable.

Most only ever fully awaken to what propels them when obliged by a sudden cry from within . . . A panic attack, an intense depression, a burning anxiety, maybe even some sort of epiphany. While our subconscious has a way of signaling the need for change, we only ever heed its call if absolutely necessary (necessity is, after all, the mother of invention).

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Though an oversimplification, it is roughly the work of spiritualism to cultivate a steady outlook regardless of circumstances . . . To transcend the burdensome confines and follies of physical reality. Nevertheless, it is an uncommon individual—even amongst the most religious—whose emotional ebbs and flows are disjoint from the “external” world.