The normalcy of lack.

 I am always asking myself questions about my life and whether I am happy or at least content with where it is. It is something I know we all do, at varying degrees and frequency, but we do it. I am in my early thirties, probably the healthiest I have been in my entire adult life, I love who I am, that I get to access and create the things I enjoy regularly and I love the people in my life. So, for the most part, I have been arriving at an emphatic “YES!” to the above question.

I am also unequivocally human and from time to time, during those long periods of assessing my position, what I see, is what is missing. All that I have always desired and also all that I have lost or no longer have. Lately though, I have been thinking about how important it is that I continue to teach myself to not catastrophize every experience of lack. I am not referring to material objects, although the principle applies to those too. Lack is completely normal and even in the age of manifestation and humanity’s discovery of the power of our thoughts and the universe’s response to these, lack happens. Though it might be true that I am deserving of abundance and the pleasure of having my desires fulfilled, at times, I will lack. It is not a one-time event, but something I will experience throughout my life. This is why I need to learn to live in harmony with that experience.

Naturally, this no small matter to navigate. Even with practising discernment as I consume social media and the lives of my peers, there are moments of vulnerability, where I will become painfully aware of what I do not have. But I need not catastrophize those moments either. They are normal and I would even argue necessary. In the process of trying to do this, I have adopted a way of life that I think has helped me fare better than I otherwise would. I have been steadily indulging all my interests over the last year and it’s done me a world of good. I have attended countless jazz shows, gone to the theatre regularly, read and written more, been on plenty long facetime videocalls with friends and gone on sweet dates with my people. I have also done a whole lot of nothing, alone and with loved ones. Abundance is the opposite of lack.

I suppose the lesson here has been that my life had been lacking something critical for a while, vitality. The dictionary defines vitality as “the power of giving continuance of life, present in all living things.” The more time I spent doing mostly the things I need to do to survive, going to work and performing my duties and paying my bills, the less vitality I had. And while I am grateful for being able to have and do these things, they do not a fulfilling life make. A life like that for me is attainable only through filling my days up with more of the things I love. What this seems to do for me, is to compress the magnitude and weight of lack in my life. It does not pretend that it does not exist nor negate my feelings about it. It simply makes it marginal within the bigger and exuberant experience that is my whole life.

It would be dishonest to conclude this piece without addressing the key thought that led me to this writing all this down. There is what looks to me like a mass hysteria over the attainment of romantic partnership especially online. While romantic partnership is a wonderful pursuit and has for many, changed their lives for the better, I think there is an exaggeration of its necessity in making life joyful and even worthy. For most of us, there are plenty of examples right within our periphery, that show us that it is no magic salve for our suffering nor a failproof shortcut to a fulfilling life. A fulfilling life will require more of us than the presence and commitment of another to attain. It will require self and everything that we need to keep that self in its most authentic state.

What we need is seldom entirely in the hands of another person, even the ones we love the most. We can acknowledge our desire to have another bear witness to our lives in that particular way, without making that the imperative for living a life we enjoy deeply. American author, educator, theorist and social critic bell hooks said: “Knowing how to be solitary is central to the art of loving. When we can be alone, we can be with others without using them as a means of escape.” I am a proponent of this statement and know all to well the disaster that can unfold from burying one’s autonomy to create their own joy, under the power of another to provide it.

The reality is that world will remain an overwhelming place but we can still live well in it, despite all that we lack. Sometimes I drive passed a park in a leafy Johannesburg suburb on weekends and see young children playing on the seesaw. I am often amused by the glee on the faces of both the children. The one high up is delighted by the view from the top while the one on the ground is teeming with excitement for their imminent take off. But their thrill is not only in the final destination but also in the fleeting moments when they are both just suspended in the air, making their way to their position. I suppose the lesson from these children is that pleasure and fulfilment are not confined to attainment, they are also in pursuit, in waiting and in indifference.