Ask Harmonopoly: Abandoning Hope, Resisting Despair

Maybe hope isn't the thing that gets you through a time like this.

Hi friends! I started an advice column because only God can judge me. Do you have a question for me? Ask it here!

Dear Harmonopoly:

How do I find hope in this fucking nightmare taking over the world? Between trump being a blathering idiot and the overwhelming amount of ignored injustices happening in our country, and also worldwide, and the current horror that is covid-19, I feel completely devastated and powerless.

My dear friend. I feel this question in my bones. And I’m going to respond to you with a question of my own:

What if hope isn’t actually what you need right now?

Before I explain myself, let me tell you a quick story:

At the beginning of February, I started quietly looking into a move to Chicago. I was getting ready to take a big gamble on myself as a writer and a storyteller for the first time in my life, moving to a big city with an actual satire writing community and opportunities to make a name for myself outside of Ohio. 

And why not? I have been grinding for years towards my dream of being a writer and performer, and this was the biggest year of my career to date. I was successfully running one of Columbus’s best storytelling shows, and hosting another great show at my favorite bookstore, and had even been named as one of six inaugural managing editors at one of my favorite humor websites. Most excitingly, I had FINALLY been cast on RISK! after four years of auditioning for the podcast. A national show, RISK! would put me in front of hundreds, if not thousands of people for the first time. It felt to me like the universe was pushing me in the right direction: bet on yourself, Harmony, because your dreams are finally coming true!

I wasn’t sure if I was ready to leave Columbus, but things kept happening to push me towards the big move. I agonized over my decision, spent hours weighing the pros and cons and egging myself on to make the jump. How could I not, with everything lining up so well? Surely, living my dreams and moving to a big city was the future the universe wanted for me! 

On March 15th, one week before the big show, my performance at RISK was cancelled due to the shelter-in-place order in our state. All of my other gigs followed shortly. My storytelling show was put on hiatus. The Chicago campus for my hoped-for summer writing program closed indefinitely. All of it was gone in the blink of an eye.

On March 26th, my building manager emailed me and offered to let me stay in my apartment at the current rate if I could sign a year-long lease.

Reader, I signed that lease. I signed my bright future away, all my hopes and dreams, just to make sure I didn’t have to move during a pandemic. Now I am here for at least another year, alone with my cat and my thoughts and a rapidly dwindling supply of toilet paper.

So much for hope! 

The reason I challenge your quest for hope is not because I don’t think you should have it. I just don’t think it’s what will sustain you right now. Hope depends on an idea of the future, an ideal circumstance we can envision and arrive at...somehow.

Unfortunately, we have no idea what in the wide world of fuck our future is going to look like. We have worst case scenarios, we have best case scenarios, we have rumors and panic riding shotgun with earnest scholarship and intelligent discourse and nobody fucking knows what any of it means yet! We could be sheltering in place for thirty more days, or twelve more months. Trump might win the election, but he also might lose. We are in completely uncharted waters. All we know is that we’re starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel. Is it our first gasping breath of sunlight after months in the dark, or is it a fucking train coming to finish us off once and for all? 

Who knows!!!!

We’re not getting away from this mess anytime soon. The future can help us someday, but it can’t help us right now. Instead of dreaming about what the world will be like when all of this is over, we need to accept that we’ll be walking side-by-side with these monsters for a while, and find a way to thrive anyway. 

Just for now, I think it’s time to stop worrying about hope. Let the future take care of itself. Instead, we should learn to resist despair. To quote one of the great poets of my youth:

To resist despair cuz you can’t change everything

To resist despair in this world is

What it is what it is what it is to be free

Hope is passive. Resisting despair is an ACTION. It is not reliant on a future vision, or a deus ex machina deliverance from current circumstances. It is plunging headlong into now, and looking the black dog of despair right in the face, and saying “Not today!” To resist despair is to accept that things are fucked and commit, ferociously, to unfucking them. First for you, and then for everyone else.

Once we have some idea of what the future will look like, yes, let’s try hope. In the meantime, I encourage you to resist despair with every goddamn fiber of your goddamn being. But how do you do that?

STEP 1: ACCEPT THAT THINGS ARE FUCKED

There is a reason that everyone is acting so weird right now: we are all experiencing collective grief due to the world changing in ways that are both unfair and incomprehensible. In addition to that, most people are experiencing individual grief over the things they have lost in the last month/year/4 years/etc. God knows I am. 

So, actually, it makes a lot of sense that you are mourning and feeling hopeless right now. It would be weirder if you weren’t! The way through grief isn’t to ignore it or suppress it. You have to accept it, and let yourself process it. This is something your brain and body has to do in order to return to a more functional state. 

In other words, anyone who is telling you to suck it up and deal right now is being a dick, and I am giving you formal permission to ignore them. You are free to express sadness, disbelief, and anger about what is happening in the world right now without worrying about if you’re suffering “enough” for it to be justified. When you feel angry or sad, don’t tell yourself to cut it out. Say “I am ANGRY and SAD because the world is BULLSHIT RIGHT NOW!” as loudly and as much as you need to, and if anyone gives you any trouble about it, you tell them to bite your ass.  If you need to spend a day in your PJs eating ice cream and watching 30 Rock because you’re too sad to deal with anything else, then that is what you do. That being said:

2. TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF DESPITE HOW FUCKED THINGS ARE

To be clear: you are entitled to as many ice cream and PJs days as you need. But if you have like three or four of those in a row and you realize your stomach hurts, your knees feel like shit because you haven’t moved them in days, and you have a sink full of dirty bowls and no energy to deal with that...well, you aren’t going to feel better. It’s important to strike a balance between the realities of grief (limited cognitive functions, physical exhaustion, wanting to sob all day or punch a fucking wall) and the stuff you need to do in order to be OK once you’re on the other side of it. So let’s talk baseline functionality. There are really only three things you should try to do every day:

1. Spend about ten to twenty minutes a day on personal hygiene and tidying your living space. Break that up however you need to; ten minutes in the morning and ten minutes at night is great! Five minute bursts throughout the day? Fuck yeah! Nobody’s looking for perfection here. Focus on simple things that make your space sanitary and comfortable. For me that is dishes, garbage, and a shower.  If you have the energy to do more, awesome, but don’t go overboard. This is not the time to spend three hours trying to deep-clean your apartment until you get overwhelmed and go back to bed for the day. (Not that I know anything about THAT). As a former depression mess hoarder, Unfuck your Habitat has been an invaluable resource for me.

2. Move your body every day, if you can. You don’t have to become a Peloton Person, but exercise makes endorphins and helps you sleep, so it will aid your body in processing anxiety and depression if you can make it work. Aim for low impact, good music, and something you’ll genuinely enjoy doing for ten to twenty minutes or so. If you’re looking for an inclusive, body-positive resource for indoor activities, I strongly recommend Joyn. There are also lots of fun hip-hop cardio dance videos on YouTube. You’re already secretly dancing to Lizzo in your bedroom, why not perfect your technique?

3. Put food into your body that tastes good and makes you feel good. My go-to in this time of woe is the Vegan Stoner Cookbook. I want to eat plants right now, but I also have no attention span and I want everything to taste like pizza, so pretty much every recipe in here is my speed. Or just order a pizza. That’s like three dinners if you pace yourself. Not a bad investment!

And that’s it! Those three things are really all you have to do to maintain in a time of crisis. Add and subtract other duties as you want/need to, but remember our guiding principle: we’re resisting despair, not embracing it. If you miss a day or two of doing this stuff, don’t beat yourself up. Just do it tomorrow. These aren’t things you’re doing to punish yourself, these are things you’re doing to take care of yourself and give all the stuff that’s making you feel bad right now the finger. 

Seriously, do it! Flip off your sadness while you’re waiting for your pizza bread to cool! It’s actually kind of freeing.

3. START UNFUCKING THINGS

OK, so we’ve had some days to cry in bed, we’ve figured out a way to keep ourselves clean and fed and relatively active, but we’re still at loose ends and full of that goddamned nervous energy that makes you feel like you’re constantly on the edge of a panic attack. It’s time to turn that energy outwards! 

Now, before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s consider our locus of control. I am sorry to be the one to tell you this, but you actually can’t fix any of the top-level bullshit that is ruining everyone’s lives right now. There is a reason you feel powerless: it’s because you kind of are, and the world keeps reminding you of that in the rudest ways possible. But listen, we’re all in the same boat here. If we could collectively will a vaccine into existence or banish Trump to the cornfield, we’d have done that already. But because we live in a country where money is more important than people and the government does not care if we die, there’s just not much any of us can do about our current circumstances. I agree, it sucks. I’m sorry.

However, there is some good news: while you cannot affect massive, radical change on the national level, you can still do plenty of kind things for the people in your life. We can build community in the face of terror. It’s more important now than it ever has been. Small kindnesses, graces, and glimpses of the good in humanity are what sustain people when everything else looks this bleak.

Accepting that you can’t fix everything lets you focus on what you can actually do. And you may be surprised by how much you can do once you get started.

If it all feels like too much, start small. Is there someone else having a tough time that you can text and check in on? Do you have a friend who needs to know how to make a no-sew mask, or can you make a mask for them? Do you have some supplies someone else could use? Are you lucky enough to be employed right now, and can you cover a bill for someone that is not? It may feel too small potatoes to make a difference, but think about it: if you can do something nice for one or two people a day, by the end of the month you’ll have helped almost 30 people at a terrible time, and that is actually a pretty solid track record for one person! 

Also, don’t discount what you’re already doing to help others. Sheltering-in-place isn’t like a chill snow day. We’re all voluntarily isolating ourselves as much as we can for the common good, and experiencing the mental and physical effects of that. Every day you stay home (if you can), every time you wear a mask in public (if you're privileged enough to be able to do so safely), every time you keep your social distance, you’re protecting the lives of vulnerable people. One of the few pieces of good news out there is that social distancing is working, and it works because of people like you. You may feel powerless, but being able to save someone else’s life is a pretty powerful thing! You should feel good about it!

(And if you aren’t sheltering-in-place as much as you're able and maintaining social distance in public? IT’S TIME TO FUCKING START. I will bring a super-soaker to the grocery store next week, I swear to Christ.)

Once you’re more mentally and physically stable––let’s say at least a week past your last crying-in-bed day?––you can widen your scope a little more to your community. Mobilize! Contribute to mutual aid! There will be lots out there to help with, when you’re ready to do it. But again, we’re resisting despair here, so don’t feel guilty if you can’t do it all right away. Small, consistent kindnesses add up to much more than a day of intense volunteering and a week of burnt-out exhaustion. You are also a person that deserves kindness, so give it to yourself too. Maybe you can’t fix everything, or even most things, but you can do something. Don’t let sadness and ambiguity tell you that you’re powerless. Let the people you’re able to help right now tell you that you’re enough.

And if you must seek hope right now, small consistent kindnesses are the best way to find it. Maybe the only way, for now.

Reader, that is the best advice I can give you at this strange moment. I wish I could promise it will all be OK, but I think we both know I can’t do that. What I can promise you is that you are not alone. You’re virtually, and perhaps actually, surrounded by people who are going through the same thing as you. And if we can all just agree to resist despair together, when the time comes once more for hope, we might be ready for it. 

Let me know how you’re doing down the line. I’ll be thinking of you.

- Harmony