On Knowing

Wordsworth said it well:  “Suffering is permanent, obscure and dark. And shares the nature of infinity.”

It seems, ofttimes, that even amidst the greatest joy and gladness there is an element of suffering in each and every day that passes. But where does this suffering stem from?

In case you're unaware, in addition to the wild ride that's been my life as shared here, I also struggle with a near-debilitating quest for knowledge. Whether it's knowledge of how the universe works, the formula for the latest cancer-treating drug, the best spot to find morels, or the probability that a given intervention will work to better meet students' needs, I crave the knowing of things. If I ever won the lottery, after buying back the farm, paying off my current student debt, and starting a trust fund to ensure Snugglet is cared for in all things, I'd use the remaining funds to spend the rest of my life attending university. I discover just how many things one can learn in a lifetime. It would be my paradise.

Sometimes the people in my life find my thirst to KNOW ALL THE THINGS endearing. Other times they find it bizarre. Once a dear friend confided he found it downright disturbing. Those who are new to my world tend to think I'm just intelligent. And sure, those are all part of it. But what no one has yet noted, is that my desperation to KNOW, to learn, to always be in motion is largely grounded in depression, fear, and anxiety.

I'm sure it comes as no surprise that I suffer these ills. Hell, you may be thinking to yourself "of course! Wouldn't anyone who'd been raped by his father; abandoned by his mother; watched his sister slip beneath the waves of schizophrenia; lost the love of his life to her sexual awakening; fathered a trangendered, self-harming, hyper-intelligent and utterly amazing child with autism; and 'earned' an ACES score of 7 find themselves depressed?" Sure. Maybe. Also, maybe not. I know several who've been through worse and find themselves most-often happy. Yet I am not. And that's okay. And it sucks.

So I start to wonder about these struggles. What can I do to alleviate this pain? Perhaps more importantly, where do they come from, for me? What are the antecedents to a particularly nasty bout of depression or a spin up of anxiety? And can I use that information to at least reduce the likelihood of future suffering? The answer surprised me when I first sought to unpack this puzzle, but it seems worth sharing.

It turns out that every instance of acute depression I've battled in the last three years has fundamentally come down to a lack of knowledge. It's the unknown that terrifies me, that leaves me in a state of panic or so depressed that I can't even muster the will to shift in my seat at work because my leg is falling asleep. The questions that haunt me are a multitudinous as they should be innocuous:

"What will be the impact of making this choice on others?"
"She seems nice, but I'm not blown away, should I end this relationship? Or should I stay because I'm missing something? Will I miss out big time if I end this? Will I miss out big time if I don't?"
"She seems absolutely amazing, but there's this one thing... should I bail because I'm pretty sure that one thing is a nonstarter? Or should I stick around in the hopes I'm wrong?"
"This teacher is really not making any gains and isn't effective, should I submit a recommendation to not renew his contract? Or should I keep him on for another year and provide as much support as I can?"
"How can I maximize the learning of my students? I've got teachers A and B both advocating for very different strategies, how do I choose which to take?"
"Is it more damaging to eat this ice cream and feel better for 20 minutes or to stew in my sadness for that 20 minutes?"
"Is The Socialist being reasonable asking for 75% of my take-home pay in spousal maintenance?"
"Is Snugglet better off with the pain of going to preschool because of the gains yielded? Or is she better off staying home with The Socialist during the day and missing out on socialization because socializing with kids her age is agony for her?"
"Should I order the smoked pu erh or the rooibos chai?"

It's not so much the questions themselves that haunt me, but the belief that, were I to live a thousand lives, have the opportunity to make every choice in every permutation and combination, I would discover there IS an empirically 'best' choice. Clearly I cannot actually live my life Groundhogs Day-style and test out all possible options. But I want to. I yearn to. I need to.

And so I strive to learn as much as possible about every possible aspect of this world of ours in the hopes that maybe, possibly, hopefully, perhaps... I can know just a little bit more of how to live my best life, to yield the best outcomes and find the most fulfillment.

I hang my hat daily on the truth that we each choose the kind of person we are. We can fumble through life unintentionally and end up evolving into whomever we become. We can also sit back, think deeply and with intentionality about each and every choice we make and thus become who we strive to be. That's amazing. It's incredible. It's so empowering! Until I realize that I don't have sufficient knowledge to really make all the choices I need to make in alignment with the future and the self that I want. I do my damnedest. But that lack of knowing is perhaps the most painful truth of my life.

This is turning into one of my most rambling posts, despite being the most poetic in my own head... I'll wrap soon, but first I'll share my conclusion - at least for now.

For me. For Smye, at age HOWEVEROLDIAM, knowledge is power, knowledge is self-sufficiency, knowledge is the ultimate currency, and knowledge is peace. Ignorance, however, is the stuff nightmares are made of. Ignorance is never bliss but is, in fact, the source of all internal anguish and suffering. And the more I learn, the more I come to know, the more I realize just how ignorant I am, and then I find myself spiralling deeper and deeper into depression and higher and higher into anxiety.

And then I reach out. I connect with a member of my chosen family and they remind me that, at the end of the day, that's all okay. It's okay not to know, it's okay to fuck up, and it's okay to know that everything really and truly is okay. All of this pain, all of this anguish is real. It has in impact. And it'l also all in my head. And that's okay.