There’s an old Charlie Rose interview with the late author and political commentator William F. Buckley that is utterly honest and immensely sad.
Buckley is in his later years and ailing from diabetes, hearing loss, and other medical indignities. Rose asks Buckley, “Do you wish you were twenty?”
“No, absolutely not,” an emphatic Buckley replies, adding, “If I had a pill that would reduce my age by 25 years I wouldn’t take it.”
“Why not?” Rose asks.
“I’m tired of life,” Buckley says with a penetrating gaze and sad, half smile.
“Are you really?” Rose asks.
“I’m utterly prepared to stop living on,” Buckley says and then stares off a bit. There’s a long pause, and Buckley adds, “There are no enticements to me that justify the weariness, the repetition…” and he ends with, “What am I hanging on for?”
What am I hanging on for?
No doubt, in this broken world of sorrow, pain, division, loss, and regret, many people ask this painful question.
What am I hanging on for?
A perfect graveyard of buried hopes
During my 26-year career in law enforcement, I dealt with the aftermath of many people who became tired of life.
People who were no longer hanging on. People who were defeated by life’s slings and arrows.
People who had given up.
We did our best to help.
We looked them in the eyes. We talked to them and listened. We treated them with basic human dignity and compassion.
We picked them up.
Took them to warm shelters. Provided food and resources and referrals. Sometimes we used our own money to pay for food, transportation, and small items to make their lives easier.
Some of these lost souls got better. They transitioned to housing and jobs. Others couldn’t shake their addictions and afflictions and demons.
The many suicides I investigated challenged my optimistic view of life.
I quickly learned that life can be hard and brutal. Some people lack the support of family and friends. Accidents happen. Jobs are lost. Addiction and depression strike even the most resilient among us.
“My life is a perfect graveyard of buried hopes.”—L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables
There are prison inmates who will tell you that we are all just one bad day away from succumbing to life’s wounds and making irreparable mistakes.
And when that happens, it’s easy for people to ask, “What am I hanging on for?”
Keep busy with survival
There are other people whose lives have not descended into a pit of despair, but who reach a point of functional emptiness.They manage to keep their jobs and repeat the daily rhythms of life, but perhaps like William F. Buckley, they have lost their zest for life.
As a young police officer, I sometimes responded to the homes of wealthy people in the community. People who had enviable houses, expensive cars, important jobs, and all the outward trappings of success.
But none of those things were enough.
They struggled with infidelity, substance abuse, unhappiness, and a hole inside them that could never be filled. I learned that wealth was no armor against the challenges and repetition of everyday life.
There’s a scene in Anton Chekhov’s short story “The Lady With the Dog,” in which the protagonist, Dimitri Dmitritch Gurov, confides to a friend one evening after dinner, “If only you knew what a fascinating woman I made the acquaintance of in Yalta.”
But the friend isn’t listening to Gurov, and replies, “You were right this evening: the sturgeon was a bit too strong!”
Chekhov writes:
“These words, so ordinary, for some reason moved Gurov to indignation, and struck him as degrading and unclean. What savage manners, what people! What senseless nights, what uninteresting, uneventful days! The rage for card-playing, the gluttony, the drunkenness, the continual talk always about the same thing. Useless pursuits and conversations always about the same things absorb the better part of one’s time, the better part of one’s strength, and in the end there is left a life groveling and curtailed, worthless and trivial, and there is no escaping or getting away from it—just as though one were in a madhouse or a prison.”
Gurov’s observations remind me of modern life.
Living in Las Vegas, I often witness “savage manners,” and “The rage for card-playing, the gluttony, the drunkenness, the continual talk always about the same thing.”
Not to mention our addiction to blinking screens, social media, and the belief that the key to better living can be found in these superficial amusements.
I suppose it’s our highly developed brains that get us into trouble.
Despite roofs over our heads, employment, and the ability to meet most of our basic needs and even some entertainment, we ruminate and sometimes despair.
“Does anything in nature despair except man? An animal with a foot caught in a trap does not seem to despair. It is too busy trying to survive. It is all closed in, to a kind of still, intense waiting. Is this a key? Keep busy with survival. Imitate the trees. Learn to lose in order to recover, and remember that nothing stays the same for long, not even pain, psychic pain. Sit it out. Let it all pass. Let it go.” —May Sarton, Journal of a Solitude
But here’s the thing about despair, it’s a lie.
It’s not the endgame unless we give in. The forces of negativity and emptiness will forever whisper in our ears, hoping to destroy our spirits, hopes, dreams, and aspirations.
There are always breadcrumbs of hope and clues to life’s shining rewards if only we slow down and pay attention.
Not long after I photographed the young Italian couple immersed, depressingly, in their smartphones, I encountered something beautiful. A young bride and groom, near the Leaning Tower of Pisa, taking wedding photos.
They were lost in each other’s eyes, smiling and laughing. It reminded me that when the weariness of life nibbles at our souls, love is always the antidote.
Love for our spouses. Love for our children. Our friends, family, animal companions, hobbies, and passions.
Love is the antidote.
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining
In 1825, 28-year-old Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was faced with the tragic death of his young wife, Mary, who died of a miscarriage.
They were traveling in Europe and Longfellow was preparing to teach literature at Harvard. Longfellow, in his grief, swore to dedicate his life to “goodness and purity like hers.”
Longfellow’s second wife, Frances Appleton, died in 1861 after sustaining deadly burns when her dress caught fire. And yet, despite these losses, Longfellow continued to write. He must have known that those we love and lose would want us to continue with our work and passions.
In 1841, after the loss of his first wife, Longfellow wrote “The Rainy Day.”
The day is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
The vine still clings to the mouldering wall,
But at every gust the dead leaves fall,
And the day is dark and dreary.My life is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
My thoughts still cling to the mouldering Past,
But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast,
And the days are dark and dreary.Be still, sad heart! and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary.
Despite the weariness, loss, and repetition of life, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s spirit still leaned toward hope and optimism.
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining.
None of us, sooner or later, will be immune to the weariness and repetition of life. Some will endure greater losses and hardships than others.
The trick is to hang in there.
As Chekhov wrote in “The Lady With the Dog:”
“Sitting beside a young woman who in the dawn seemed so lovely, soothed and spellbound in these magical surroundings—the sea, mountains, clouds, the open sky—Gurov thought how in reality everything is beautiful in this world when one reflects: everything except what we think or do ourselves when we forget our human dignity and the higher aims of our existence.”
Indeed, everything is beautiful in this world when one reflects. We often have more to be thankful for than to mourn. Gratitude is more powerful than despair.
The higher aim of our existence, the antidote to weariness and repetition, is love.
Before you go
I’m John P. Weiss. I write elegant stories and essays about life. If you enjoyed this piece, check out my free weekend newsletter, The Saturday Letters.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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Photo credit: John P. Weiss
