The more things change…
I know how you feel.
The disappointment, crushed expectations and haunting foreboding of what may come. It rips the very fabric of your essence. It makes you question all you once found sacrosanct to an alarming level of nihilism.
It hurts, I know.
The whole experience seems to defy the Kubler-Ross Five Stages of Grief. You’re slammed with denial and anger, for sure, but somehow, you’re buried into the morass of depression. Acceptance? Acceptance suggests intellectual, emotional and moral submission, which is just not how true believers are wired. Better to be miserable than provide credence to the unthinkable.
Yep, I’ve been there.
Compounding the torment is the inescapable knowledge that amidst your agony, there are those celebrating in full-throated satisfaction the very sequence of events that left you emotionally bereft. While the best of them, as few as they are, are gracious, the vast majority seem to be making confetti out of the ashes of your loss. Their happiness is inversely proportional to your pain. And you’re right, the worst of them are delighting in your misery.
If you’re fair, you have to confess that there were times, in your more malevolent moments, you felt the same way when roles were reversed. I’ll admit it: I was once so drunk on unrestrained pride that I was convinced that this victory was THE victory – EVERYTHING would be different.
Well, some things did change, but not everything. The truth is, as the French say, “the more things change, the more they remain the same.”
As much as we assign patterns and narratives to human experience, it is more chaotic than we acknowledge. We create heroes and villains, assign motives and virtues, position them in opposition, and project growth (or decay) as a result of conflict. I’ve found that the narrative never delivers on expectations. Good things happen, bad things happen, and life, at least for the fortunate, goes on. The unfortunate truth, I’ve observed, is that human beings have terrible memories and are limited in what they learn. For all the cumulative knowledge and progress of our times, we fall back on the habit of weaving elementary and incomplete narratives to explain the chaos.
Ergo, the more things change, the more they remain the same.
The despair you’re feeling, valid and justified as it is, is the product of a story you are telling yourself about a past you can’t change and a future you can’t predict. The only thing we can do is live in the present and do our best in the things we can control by recalling and applying the accumulated experiences of our lifetimes (i.e. wisely.)
I guess what I’m trying to say is there will be other seasons and other World Series games. One bad inning and one crushing loss shouldn’t compel you to love any less your team or baseball.
Wait! Did you think I was referring to the election? I told you last month: I’m done with politics! I was trying to be a gracious Red Sox fan consoling Yankee fans in the aftermath of a heartbreaking loss and the possible departure of a star player.
But I suppose it applies.