Seeking and Finding Antidotes to Dread
I am grumpy. I am irritable. I have little patience for finger-pointing and blaming by others. I just want to get on with things. I am wallowing in a very defeatist mind-set. And don’t get me started on, well, . . . most anything.
If I am honest with myself, I am feeling deep dread. The world seems so out of balance. Basic human kindness is a rare commodity. I cannot ignore the unavoidable truth that, as a species, we don’t seem able to stop hurting one another.
In spite of inspired teachings of wise men and women, in spite of laws and rules, and commandments, in spite of role models of how things could be, so many of us revert to causing pain and suffering. And many others just watch as this unfolds. It is when I get into these states of dread that look for an antidote.
Reliable Antidotes to Dread
Isolation is a fertile breeding ground for dread. The most reliable antidote to eradicate this crabgrass is to connect with others. In the presence of others, most of the time, the dread is replaced with reassurance that: a) I am not the only one in the world that feels this way, b) if they can manage, so can I, and c) through sharing this, I can help others.
This is human-to-human connection. It is wonderfully reliable, as long as you have folks around you who are loving, caring, and supportive. If these qualities are not present, the human-to-human connection can be poisonous.
Short-term and Long-term Antidotes to Dread
The short-term antidote for dread is distraction. We are surrounded by resources for distracting ourselves: texting, social media, TV, shopping. It is the default strategy for so many of us.
But a long-term antidote requires that we transform our “reality”; literally how we see and experience things. If I can do that, I can dissolve the illusion that what I dread is inevitable. Sometimes what we need is an outside source to inspire new ways of looking at things.
The Artists Have Left Instructions on Managing Dread
Art is the most helpful antidote of all. Out of nothing, artists create beauty, offer challenge to perception, and demand that we pay attention. They require that we set aside our inner dialogue and incorporate a different point of view.
I feel so lucky that I have been surrounded by the arts all my life. I grew up with poetry, books, music, theater and trips to museums. This bounty serves me now as I enter into my elderhood. I have a plethora of resources to restore my hope.
Art Gives Me Hope
Art gives me hope. It is evidence that out of struggle, pain, and suffering, as well as joy and ecstasy, something greater than self emerges. Art is a trail marker that has been placed by others who have been down this path; evidence that it has been traversed, and can be traversed again.
Whether it is looking at a painting or sculpture, sitting in the audience of a play or movie, or listening to music, I become a participant in the experience. There isn’t room for dread when I am in the process of creation.
The World is too Much with Us
Wordsworth popped into my mind with this line from his sonnet of the same name. I knew of the sonnet, but not of the circumstances that caused Wordsworth to write it. Interestingly, he was experiencing vast social change as the Industrial Revolution began to re-shape society and nature. Actually, not all that different from what we are experiencing now with the emergence of Artificial Intelligence and the impacts of climate change.
The sonnet is brief:
The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;—
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not. Great God! I’d rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.
The sonnet speaks to a sense of loss and frustration with change. Frustration with the inability to stop change from happening and loss of things that I would prefer stayed unchanged. These are two experiences I am having and I know I am not alone in this. We are, indeed, out of tune.
Poets of a Different Age
Wordsworth wrote this is 1804. Leonard Cohen wrote some equally powerful lyrics in 1994, in his song, “Anthem”. In the intervening near 200-year gap, vast changes happened to humankind; some amazingly beneficial (cure for polio, internet) and some amazingly destructive (Holocaust, Tulsa Race Massacre).
But both Wordsworth and Cohen address the same theme through their art: how to manage the distress of being out of balance.
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Anthem
The birds they sang
At the break of day
Start again
I heard them say
Don’t dwell on what has passed away
Or what is yet to be
Ah, the wars they will be fought again
The holy dove, she will be caught again
Bought and sold, and bought again
The dove is never free
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in
We asked for signs
The signs were sent
The birth betrayed
The marriage spent
Yeah, and the widowhood
Of every government
Signs for all to see
I can’t run no more
With that lawless crowd
While the killers in high places
Say their prayers out loud
But they’ve summoned, they’ve summoned up
A thundercloud
They’re going to hear from me
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in
You can add up the parts
But you won’t have the sum
You can strike up the march
There is no drum
Every heart, every heart
To love will come
But like a refugee
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in
That’s how the light gets in
That’s how the light gets in
Source: Musixmatch
What Is the Take-home Message?
I am blessed to have artists as friends: musicians, writers, poets, actors, singers, quilters, knitters, painters, and print makers. They stand in a lineage that can trace its origins to pre-history. For each and every one of them, I am grateful.
The message is this. While there can be no argument that pain and suffering seem to be part of the human experience, there has always been art. Art is all around. It is the antidote that calms the angry waters, brings tears to our eyes, inspires us to do better, be better, and try harder.
