Madame Bovary in the mountains
I'm going through a weird phase in my life. A health condition which may or may not be serious has me thinking seriously about meaning. My ENT thinks it's nothing — I got a z-pak, some anti-histamines and some Valium. The Valium ran out so I'm taking CBD oil — it helps with the anxiety.
I live in a small country in Southern Africa — all of it 1000 meters above sea level — hence the "mountains" in the title. The world seems crazy right now. Covid-19 and the death of George Floyd have set the world alight. There is REAL suffering and turmoil. It is within this context that meaning seems the most important thing. I look at all the job losses and poverty, and I tell myself that it could be worse — which is true because I'm living a middle class life by global standards and business still is okay.
I really like Teal Swan — she speaks to me on a very primal level. She talks about the "millennial wound" being the tension between the reality of our lives and our childhood expectations, which have been dashed. This is, of course, not our fault at all. Another generation, whose name starts with "B", is to blame. In Victor Frankl's "Man's Search For Meaning", I got the sense that this tension is a good thing. The tension between what is and what could be is the prime source of meaning. I also love the idea the meaning is not necessarily something that is discovered but instead ascribed at every moment of a person's life; not unlike what Yukio Mishima constantly hints at in his works.
I'm reminded of when Meadow Soprano quoted Madame de Stael's famous line: "One must choose in life between boredom and suffering." You can either be Madame Bovary or Harriet Tubman. So I read a lot of Thomas Sowell and watch a lot of Tariq Nasheed — content that, on the surface seems to be completely antithetical but, reminds me that there is something physical and outside myself that is incredibly important. This helps me forget that I am an early millennial who hasn't achieved even 5% of what he thought he would have by now. It's an exhausting feeling knowing that you've got the world at your feet but somehow it's not working out as expected. And so every random little illness triggers my biggest anxiety — dying without achieving anything.
I console myself with the knowledge that these are thoughts that all millennials have. I tell myself that it could be worse. I thank God twice a day for my middle class life. I write code in Swift, eat my trout and chase it down with my CBD infused chamomile tea. Chamomile tea keeps me calm. It keeps me from spiralling.
I don't know the future. I truly hope I WILL live up to my potential. I also know that what I'm going through right now has meaning. Even this random little post has meaning. I now know to take it a day at a time. Without that, the burden of being the generation that WILL change the world is unbearable.
