Standing on the intimate continuum of hope and hopelessness

February 01, 2017 11:19 AM

When the guitarist from my favorite band decided to part ways with the group after twenty years, he published a letter of gratitude to his fans around the world. Walla eloquently stated:

I plan to continue making music, producing records and erring on the side of benevolence and beauty whenever possible. Darkness may find me, but I shall never choose it.

Chris’s words sent a shiver down my spine. Not only because I was sad to see him go, but because he reminded me that each of us stands on the intimate continuum of hope and hopelessness. And when our lower selves start whipping us away into the windy darkness, we must fight back.

Otherwise, if we allow ourselves to go down that hole, we just know the mental neighborhood we’ll end up in will be horrible. One where we become the worst, most apathetic and cynical versions of ourselves.

The solution is to do a little reframing work up front. To stand in witness to ourselves and nip the darkness in the bud.

To do so, we have to become scientists of our own experience. To take out the clipboard and comment to ourselves, ah, interesting, the human appears to be bitter and hopeless towards his work today. Noted.

That’s enough preliminary dissociation to stay grounded, stop being so precious about our feelings, take the piss out of our egos and steer clear of that bad neighborhood.

It’s a simple but effective exercise in entering the witness consciousness.

Sound dopey? It certainly is.

But most people would take dopey over depressed any day of the week.

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What do you say to yourself to keep the darkness at bay?

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Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

Author. Speaker. Strategist. Inventor. Filmmaker. Publisher. Songwriter.

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