Last year was a difficult year, filled with new complexities the younger me never dreamt I would face. On a positive note I achieved my 2018 resolution of being proactive in decision making (new job for one). But in 2019 personal difficulties are set to continue for the foreseeable future. Perhaps at some point I will go into details, but for now I wanted to write a quieted address to bring in the New Year. I certainly don’t feel any excitement for its opening. Just a sense of deep dread, with the faint voice of reason trying to cheer me on in the background.

I do believe that suffering makes us stronger; it shapes who we are and forces us to change for the better. But in the moment it can be tremendously difficult to appreciate or understand that. I have a sense that this is true. I might even say I know it to be true. But it feels prickly and uncomfortable and so far away right now, and if I’m honest somewhat pathetic in the objective knowledge that other people around the world are surely going through far more difficult situations. Sadly no amount of rational thinking will provide solace when one is preoccupied with the storm.

In searching for a bit of background on the topic of suffering and strength, I stumbled upon a phrase called ‘The Dark Night of the Soul’. It originates from a poem by a Spanish mystic St. John of the Cross and reflects a spiritual crisis on the journey towards union with God. In a secular and more modern context, this phrase refers to an existential crisis where there is a collapse of perceived meaning and purpose in life.

As Eckhart Tolle eloquently puts it:

ECKHART: The “dark night of the soul” is a term that goes back a long time. Yes, I have also experienced it. It is a term used to describe what one could call a collapse of a perceived meaning in life…an eruption into your life of a deep sense of meaninglessness. The inner state in some cases is very close to what is conventionally called depression. Nothing makes sense anymore, there’s no purpose to anything. Sometimes it’s triggered by some external event, some disaster perhaps, on an external level. The death of someone close to you could trigger it, especially premature death, for example if your child dies. Or you had built up your life, and given it meaning – and the meaning that you had given your life, your activities, your achievements, where you are going, what is considered important, and the meaning that you had given your life for some reason collapses.

It can happen if something happens that you can’t explain away anymore, some disaster which seems to invalidate the meaning that your life had before. Really what has collapsed then is the whole conceptual framework for your life, the meaning that your mind had given it. So that results in a dark place.

This rang true for me with the situation unfolding this year. The best way I have been able to articulate it so far is something akin to an illusion being shattered, leading to a cataclysmic disruption in my life. The direction and destination I have been heading toward suddenly seem wrong and I find myself in an emotionally devastating situation. I do not even have the luxury of being able to question and realign my existing life values; instead all I can do is stare blankly at the broken pieces of them as they lay on the floor. Sometimes new ideas and experiences cannot be unseen, and it feels like my present value system has been annihilated.

Apparently the individual should emerge from the other side like a caterpillar from a cocoon, metamorphosed and enlightened to a life free of conceptual realities, obtaining an innate sense of purpose and connectedness. The death of the ego and identity, and the birth of a ‘true self’ through an awakening process. I’m not so sure about that yet and it all sounds rather mystical, but I can very acutely identify with the sense of aimlessness acknowledged, so perhaps some future ‘awakening’ is the natural next step.

The search for a new mental model, a new understanding, or perhaps just an acceptance will be the goal for 2019.

To those for whom the new year is not a happy state of affairs, peace.