I’ve been reading Acedia & Me by Kathleen Norris, which is very good. Acedia is a sort of listlessness and despair. It was originally one of the “eight bad thoughts” but never made it onto the list of “seven deadly sins.” One of the points that she makes that I need to ponder is that we as a society have bought into the idea that in order to make good art, it ought to come out of some kind of melancholy. We talk about tortured artists, and I have heard people say that the best art comes from some kind of depression. It’s part of a much larger problem that I will talk about when I write about the book, but I will just say now that it is certainly an enlightening read. I know that I buy into that idea at least a little bit. Maybe even more than a little bit. I tend to think that the things I write here are better when I am melancholy. It’s hard work to be down all the time. It’s not healthy, and sometimes I feel as if I have to create drama in order to create better art or to be more interesting, as if that makes sense at all.
Lately I haven’t felt very creative or interesting. I see people around me who are “light and bright and sparkling,” and I don’t feel anything but flat. I have met some new people lately, and I felt as if I made a horrible first impression. Why should anyone be attracted to someone as blah as I am feeling? I have been so busy that I barely have time for my friends. I have been sick twice this school year, so I’m feeling pretty run down as it is. And taking two graduate level classes on top of working is, honestly, a little bit too much. We did fun things this weekend: a cooking class, The Great Pumpkin Party, The Duchess. But I still don’t feel like myself. I felt a bit as if I was watching everyone else have fun from the outside. I took the weekend off from homework, and it was the right thing to do. But it wasn’t enough.
Last week, Emily asked why it is that people write online. I don’t want this to turn into blogging about blogging, but I write because I think the discipline of crafting something is important. Not that I always take the time to craft something, but when I do, it feels good. One paragraph leading into another until I have said what it is that I wanted to say. Pushing the “post” button makes me feel as if I have accomplished something, and that’s why I have continued. When Emily was at my house on Saturday, we talked briefly about a conversation that was an offshoot of that one, a conversation in which I had offered some advice but then said, “Of course, you probably shouldn’t take my advice since I only have about 12 readers.” I like all 12 of you a whole lot, and I am thankful and humbled that you care about what I have to say. At the same time, I struggle a lot with wanting to be liked. So it’s hard not to feel as if it would be nice to be liked and understood by lots of people. I don’t see that happening any time soon, so it’s not something I worry about a whole lot. I don’t have the time or the energy (especially right now) to do anything about it. At the same time, it seems a symptom of a larger problem – my flatness, my inability to commit to my friends, my escapism and despair. Perhaps you could call it acedia. Whatever it is, I am not sure that I would hang around me, either.
I think, though, that worrying so much about approval is not being faithful to the writing itself. Mike keeps trying to tell me this, but I can be a little hardheaded about this sort of thing. I might never write a great novel, or even a mediocre novel. But I still learn through what I write, even if it’s just throwing it up on the internet and seeing if anything comes out of it. Writing things in a funny way has taught me to laugh at myself. Taking the time to think through my indignation sometimes gives me more compassion. And writing through melancholy has shown me that I want more than hollow introspection for myself. Even if I don’t write for connection, I worry that stopping would leave me even more disconnected than I already feel. I don’t have time for my friends as it is. At least this way they know if I saw a funny yard sign while I was out. (Today I saw a sign that said “Tina Fey 2008.” LOVE.)
I don’t know what I have to offer the world, especially the internet world. I am not a mom, and I don’t make crafts. I’m not into decorating my house, and I don’t even own a hot glue gun. (God help Mike if I did – I would undoubtedly hurt both myself and our house.) I’m not into fashion or art or photography. I don’t really like to shop. I’m a reader, and that’s not exactly the most dynamic hobby that there is. But as part of my battle against my own acedia, I am trying to reclaim a bit of who I am rather than trying to be something I am not. Kathleen Norris would say that choosing faith and life are the keys to fighting acedia. Engagement, then, is the key to fighting my listlessness. This is also at the heart of what Mike keeps trying to tell me when he tells me he wants me to keep writing. Sometimes I think that keeping my body healthy is enough – exercising, eating vegetables, taking vitamins – when it’s my soul that needs the cure. My soul feels a little battered this fall. Work has been hard. Things have happened at church that have left me in tears and needing a little time to recover. I haven’t figured out how to carve out time for my soul. I haven’t made time for my friends or read very many books or talked to my mom very much on the phone. The book I am reading, the conversations I am having, and the weekend I just had are good steps in that direction. Those small graces aren’t melancholy at all. The key is processing them in ways that I haven’t necessarily done before.
If acedia is a “bad thought,” then I suppose the key to overcoming it is “good thoughts.” Melissa tells me this a lot – it’s about believing truth rather than believing lies. I have never been very good at fighting lies with facts. Those lists of who God says that I am never seem to make a dent in the wrong things that I believe. Facts don’t really do it for me, because there’s a difference between facts and knowledge, much like the difference between facts and truth. I don’t know that I know what it looks like to be more engaged at this point, what it means to embrace truth and pursue good. But like Sara Zarr said, it’s so helpful to know that some of the ways that I have felt for years are real and have a name and that people have been writing about them for centuries.
(I still have more about the actual book, believe it or not, but I have to finish it first.)
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Hi Kari! I have been a silent reader of your blog for quite awhile now. I don’t even remember how I got here- maybe I searched for a book or something. Anyways, please, please keep on writing. There are so many times that I have been going through something in my life, and then you would write about it, and I would be so encouraged! I also don’t feel like I have big talents or interests, although I also love to read. It’s just encouraging to hear that other people feel the same way, but can still “muddle their way through”
I also love the sign count, even though I’m Canadian it makes me laugh!
Thanks, Anna! It’s nice to hear from you.
Hi Kari, I like Anna have also been a silent reader for some time now, I read other blogs also, mostly for the tips on how to decorate the home, how to dress, how to do this or how to do that, but in all of the tips that I am getting, I know that it is the women behind the blogs that keep me coming back time and time again. Getting to know their hearts, that is why I think that your blog is a daily read for me, just hearing your heart, knowing that I am not the only person that struggles, I look forward to your blog everyday, by the way, the sign count is great! Just keep smiling, God has already blessed you by being such a talented writer, just by writing you are able to touch so many, probably more than you will ever know!
Many thanks…..
Well said. I totally understand what you are saying. I, too, do the same thing…bad thoughts can kill you soul can’t they?
I just finished the Norris book, and already feel like I need to read it again. It’s a ton to absorb. I feel like I was highlighting every page. Speaking of not having children, one reason she is one of my favorite writers on the spiritual life is the fact that she, like me, doesn’t have kids. The parenting metaphor is used so heavily in books and discussions about God – it can be hard to hear that again and again when you are not a parent and have not experienced the best parenting in the world yourself. One of the many definitions from the book that I like as it pertains to the writing life is this one: “The temptation to acedia is an invitation to abandon involvement and leave the pangs of creativity to others.” And I feel, too, like blogging is important. It’s engagement, at the very least with yourself but also with the world “out there” (including all the silent readers you don’t know you have!).
Thanks for your kind words, Lauren.
Nan, I thought your post for today also touched on some of these same ideas.
And a general recommendation to my readers: Sara Zarr’s Story of a Girl is excellent and you should totally read it.
Silent reader alert! I started reading your blog not too long ago and its great. Since I moved to the triad area, I haven’t put myself out there and made a lot of ‘new’ friends so I always wonder – what do people think of me? And should I care what they think? I am weird because I like to read instead of do crafts or watch tv or play with other peoples’ children? (See…you are not alone!)
Being a mom or a crafty person or shopping lot doesn’t define who you are. Your opinions, thoughts and views on the world is another perspective that people (like me) like to hear because you are easily relatable. So please, keep blogging! Whether you’re up or down, funny or serious, its a great thing to say, this is what i’m thinking or feeling today.
Ok, so there’s my thoughts. Your blog is always great!
Hi Kari,
I’m not a completely silent reader, but I definitely want to encourage you. From one lazy runner to another, I admire you honesty. I have read LOTS of blogs, but I keep coming back to yours. Your words are honest, and your style completely refreshing. I even send your blog to my sister and say, “See someone else out thinks like we do!.”
Thanks, Rachel and Karen. I appreciate you taking the time to say those things.
Rachel, if you are getting to know people in the Triad area, maybe we should have coffee. Is it okay if I email you?
I read a quote in People magazine that Pink said her happiness does nothing for her, but her heartbreak is inspiring. Something like that. And you know, it’s Pink so there’s that.
I feel this way a lot. Obviously, I am a mom…but I don’t think of myself as a mommy blogger, really. I think a lot about what it is even have to say. Most of the time, not much. But like you, I have to write. For me. Even when there are only 12 readers. Or even if there are none.
Pink just put out her “divorce album,” right? I think I read that in Entertainment Weekly. (We are so classy with where we get our information.)
I’m not trying to force some kind of dichotomy between mommy bloggers and the rest of us. I just think that there is a large group of moms on the internet and I wonder if I have anything to offer to people whose interests and focus are so different than mine. (Specifically, there was something that I observed recently that made me feel as if certain groups of moms think my life has no value or meaning or interest. It kind of hurt my feelings.)
From my perch at the higher end of life ( in years if not wisdom) I wonder why it seems that so often women compete, even in the very act of trying to form solidarity. Women have needed, and continue to need to band together in order to remind the rest of the world that laws and cultural mores should not penalize us for our female-ness. At the same time we tend to decide that our own brand of how-to-live-life-as-woman, is way better than any other brands. As a stay at home mom for 20 years, I grew more than tired of the ridiculous phrase ” oh, I could never stand to just stay home all day with children”. Then when it became necessary to become the breadwinner for my large family, I grew equally as tired of hearing “I could never leave my children to go to work,just to have more toys.” No men ever said ether of these things to me, just women.
I have read Gift from the Sea about 20 million times since I first read it at 16, and Anne Lindbergh’s timeless way of talking about women and their universal need – hers, including but not limited to children- and others who may not have them. I’ve never found a book that better describes the common female in the universe. Physical mothers or not, biologically and anthropologically, we are the mother figures and that carries some universal connections. When or if we actually reproduce is just another of countless versions of being a woman.
Society has suffered for the loss of women being the backbone of compassionate service to community, in part because of our competition with each other for a value measured in dollars and recognition. If we could be kind and generous to each other in our choices, wouldn’t our families (in any version) communities and we as a sex, all win a tremendous benefit?
And, Kari, your blog is wonderfully written and I have never found it to be self absorbed or indulgent.
Email away…it would be great to meet someone new!
For whatever reason, I didn’t get around to reading this until today.
But I find that your best audience, Kari, is you. You’re writing what you want to write about. You’re sharing your passions. It is a reflection of yourself—perfect or imperfect—and those of us who enjoy seeing that reflection gain from it.
It’ll never be perfect, and it’ll never be exactly what we [or maybe even you!] expect, but it’ll usually be what you need and often be very good. I think that’s enough.