This is going to be a weird post, but I have some deep feelings right now. Episode 11 has been out for some time now, and as I do, I listen to the podcast a few times, after I post it as it allows me to think on what I said, or rather, what I said I believe.
This idea of nothingness, as I have better thought (since the podcast); this idea of intrinsic value still lingers… Then, I ran across an interview with Nick Cave.
In that interview they talked about the view of the world after experiencing a devastation. Seriously, take the time to watch it, it’s worth it. This, of course, sent me on a rabbit hole of videos. And in one of the comments, a quote from his book, Faith, Hope, and Carnage:
Nick Cave on the death in 2015 of his teenage son Arthur:
"Arthur’s death literally changed everything for me. Absolutely everything. It made me a religious person. I am not talking about being a traditional Christian. I am not even talking about a belief in God, necessarily. It made me a religious person in the sense that I felt, on a profound level, a deep inclusion in the human predicament, and an understanding of our vulnerability and the sense that, as individuals, we are, each of us, imperilled. Each life is precarious, and some of us understand it and some don’t. I became a person after my son died.
The world seemed to vibrate with a peculiar, spiritual energy. I was genuinely surprised by how susceptible I became to a kind of magical thinking. How readily I dispensed with that wholly rational part of my mind and how comforting it was to do so. Now, that may well be a strategy for survival and, as such, a part of the ordinary mechanics of grief, but it is something that persists to this day. Perhaps it is a kind of delusion, I don’t know, but if it is, it is a necessary and benevolent one.
Things happen in your life, terrible things, great obliterating events, where the need for spiritual consolation can be immense, and your sense of what is rational is less coherent and can suddenly find itself on very shaky ground. I think of late I’ve grown increasingly impatient with my own skepticism; it feels obtuse and counter-productive, something that’s simply standing in the way of a better-lived life. I love this world — with all its joys and its vast goodness, its civility and complete and utter lack of it, its brilliance and its absurdity. I love it all, and the people in it, all of them. I feel nothing but deep gratitude to be a part of this whole cosmic mess.
I don’t know how to exactly say this, and please don’t misunderstand it, but since Arthur died I have been able to step beyond the full force of the grief and experience a kind of joy that is entirely new to me. It was as if grief enlarged my heart in some way. I have experienced periods of happiness more than I have ever felt before, even though it was the most devastating thing ever to happen to me.
This is Arthur’s gift to me, one of the many. It is his munificence that’s made me a different person. I say all this with huge caution and a million caveats, but I also say it because there are those who think there is no way back from the catastrophic event. That they will never laugh again. But there is, and they will."
Seriously one of the best things I’ve read in a long time. This sentence just might fund my spiritual existence for years to come:
I think of late I’ve grown increasingly impatient with my own skepticism; it feels obtuse and counter-productive, something that’s simply standing in the way of a better-lived life.
Here’s to finding that ability to see the good and joyful in the world. May it not cost you that much. But, it will cost you.