Ask Somebody: A Dead End Is Still A Road

Full disclosure I’ve been thinking about this and finally got off my ass this morning because I decided to indifferent-read Ask Polly and it MADE ME SO DAMN MAD that I decided I needed to bust out this praxis immediately. If you want to ask literally any question you need advice on (truly does not have to be existential! I know some stuff about food, hair, uh, books? Very little about child-rearing or marriage but hey, maybe that’s some wacky advice you want.) Ask anonymous anythings HERE! The real question is when will I run out of sunglasses pictures. Come on sunshine.

So what’s up?

What do you do when the fire goes out? When you haven't seen the sun in days, and the pills aren't working? Where do you pick up the joie de vivre you dropped along the way?

- A

Hey A,

I don’t have to go into why I love The Boss so much, but I have loved “I’m On Fire” for a long time and generally think the covers are pretty great. I have a vivid memory of hanging off an order picker in a warehouse discussing its merits with a warehouse pal on a forklift who dismissed Bruce, because the original creeped him out. Which is I guess a pretty common opinion. But not me. When I listen to the song it’s the bridge that always sort of gets me. The six inch valley in the middle of my skull which I often conflate with the middle of my soul. I like that one better.

I say this because this song sort of maybe makes me think of my own version of the missing, the empty part, or the hard cold part that is the only thing it seems you can feel.

For years and to this day, when I am deep in the struggle, I return to an image I’ve conjured in therapy. That there’s a deep cave within me that’s supposed to represent how I’m supposed to live over a pool of water. In the pool of water is a small piece of land where a fire or a light is supposed to burn. When I’m struggling, it’s like all I can do to keep the tiniest bit of light or coal going. I can feel it batter and I can feel it ache and shudder. It’s still there though.

I’m sorry the fire seems to have gone out, but I would wonder if that’s true. I can’t say I know much about joie de vivre, although what a great phrase! Well done, you. I’m not sure if I appreciate or try and live a life where joy is present if I am consistently holding myself to a standard of being exuberant in this life. Besides, that seems strange. Not all of life is meant to be exuberant. I’m guessing its winter where you are, and this one has been pretty awful. So why are you supposed to be exuberant when it’s grey and shitty? That doesn’t seem like something that you should use all your energy to light up your own coal. If maybe you are considering that your fire has not gone completely out.

But, perhaps maybe you ARE someone who joie de vivre is important, and if so, I appreciate you! So I guess I’ll ask - did you drop it? Is this an issue of searching around to find it?

I’m going to now give you the main thought I’ve been chewing on as I consider your letter which is: you should try and outrun your problems.

Of course you cannot outrun your problems. God knows I have tried. And honestly? I will probably keep trying! I love being on the run! I will always continue to dream of how I can be moving through the world, with all of what I don’t know. Maybe your JDV hasn’t been dropped here at all and the top-off is somewhere else, and maybe a lot of self-actualization isn’t going to get you back to bon vivant.

Yes, this is extremely impractical advice. I don’t really know if you have, say, children, or a mortgage, or a great job. I think there are probably ways to accomplish the running in small doses: do things and be in places you do not spend time in. And expect very little, by the way. The key to outrunning your problems is understanding that you will not magically be a different person, you will not magically find a new life, you will still be YOU. But that new things tease back out the parts of you long dormant from the absolute utter grind of living, and the seasons you have to endure, pretty much no matter what. (Before you say, BUT EQUATORIAL PLACES - dude, there are other terrible, oppressive natural phenomena there.)

Read some genre fiction. Or if you read genre fiction, read a weird essay (Eileen Myles has been doing it for me lately)(Also I should probably shout out Bruce Springsteen’s memoir which, go fuck yourself, is amazing and got me through 2020). Go to a bar you’ve never been. Walk through a park over and over, or down a weird railroad grade. Get out of your house. Seriously, get out. Or clean your entire damn house. Throw shit away. Outrun what bogs you down (also - life hack - this will help you prepare for being ON THE ROAD). What is the definition of insanity? Well, I keep parroting the one about “doing the same thing and expecting different results.”

I want to note none of this should involve anything about optimizing or actualizing. You are not a fucking machine. I want you to be healthy, and I want you to be fed and hydrated, but good God, there is nothing more guaranteed to suck actual JOY out of your life by trying to very hard to make sure you run like a goddamn widget you need to consistently calibrate. (Probably why I got so annoyed at the thing I just read because it is desperately seeking clicks on this wave of “Did you know Alcohol is Poison and Quitting is a Thing?”. That’s an essay for another day.)

I will gently say, though: please, if you can, go to the doctor. Check on those meds. A few years back I was in such a shitty place I was probably going to see Dr. Frank (the best) every couple of weeks, in full on panic attack or sobbing, and he adjusted and adjusted and adjusted (also medical acupuncture - it’s a gamechanger.) Because of this I managed to level out enough to realize I really needed to skip town. When the opportunity to move, easily, came, I jumped on it. I just left. I think maybe I tried to explain to some people who loved me that this town had tried to kill me and my heart and been stomped on a little too much and I was so fucking mad and hated it but, you know.

I came back, though. Things do change. I still take those meds. I think about changing them. Sometimes the cave is still dark, and the light is still out. But go check on that. That’s not about optimization. That’s about being alive.

Whether you dropped it or it’s still there, somewhere, needing a little nudge, maybe just get a move on, even if its a little. But don’t make it a hunt. Don’t pretend there’s a set of actions and it just comes back. Go looking for something else. Ride a train to the end of the line. Seek going somewhere with extremely low stakes. If you can borrow a car, try taking a drive. I love driving on a long empty road, very fast, and crying. At some point the space will be ready for your fire to start up again. We’re two calendar months of more sun than less. If anything, the seasons can’t help trying something new.

And if you need something to listen to as you make your moves, big or small, Nebraska and Darkness on the Edge of Town, well. Staring out at the Badlands on the hood of my car listening to Reason To Believe fueled that cave fire over a long Minneapolis winter, probably. Give your own song a shot soon.