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When you think of the horrors of the world it’s so easy to blame a single group of people or a government or whatever. I think what is underlying beneath that is this desire that we want someone to blame. Not only if we can fix the situation, we can reach some sort of utopia or Nirvana.
I think what is more terrifying that lives underneath this assumption, often times unconscious, is this feeling that the world is complicated. Reality is complicated there is too much nuance. There really is no single entity or no one to blame. Which short circuits are desire for blame.
What do you do when you have no one to blame? Long ago I lost a friend, a close friend to a car accident. Of course my reasoning for a long time, was to blame everyone else for her death. You have an enemy, you hate the enemy. The grief is pure in a way, because the narrative makes sense.
Over time though, hate and blame thaws. And you’re left with the feeling that there is no one to blame. At this point it’s easy to start to fall into nihilism, or at least some garden variety of it. A sense of meaninglessness about all of the atrocities or terrible things that take place.
I think my first reaction is it’s OK to feel those feelings, doesn’t make it true either and that’s also OK. I sort of like to think of them like decanters for wine. You pour them in you let them sit for a while maybe oxidated a little bit. And then you take a sip and if you don’t like it you can throw it out if you do good for you, Friend. I don’t think I really have a point.
During Covid, or as Covid was ending, I got together with a bunch of former colleagues at the sports page in Mountain View. It was the first time we all met up after our project got canceled. It was great. I had a burger that I ordered late because I didn’t know they had a kitchen
The other day I visited my friend, who just had a daughter. She was about six weeks old. When I first met her she waved at me, and she sort of looked like his mom which I thought was hilarious. 6 replies
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