I'm 62, and have been through a fair amount. I lost both my parents, many years ago, and many friends, acquaintances, frenemies, enemies, coworkers, bosses, etc., along the way. In the 1990s, a fair number of folks in my immediate circle died of AIDS. That's a bad way to go. In the last 35 years or so, I have seen numerous folks die of cancer. That's not even mentioning the ones that died from overdoses, suicides, and other violent means.
I travel in eclectic circles.
Once we have some gray in our coiffures, we have generally endured a fair bit of loss.
For some folks, this pain is unbearable, and they deal with it by rejecting intimate relationships, or by becoming hard-boiled and cynical.
I have been greatly helped, along the way, by folks that have fallen by the wayside. Sometimes, by death, other times, just because we grew apart, for one reason or another.
I have also had the signal Honor to help many others. They haven't always been grateful. There's a cynical Mark Twain quote that goes: "If you take a starving dog, and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man."
Engaging with others, is difficult. It requires self-reflection, compromise, humility, and forgiveness (both of others, and of ourselves).
In my experience, it has been well worth it.
Satisfied customer. Would recommend to others.
WFM. YMMV.
> Life is cruel. Life is sad. Life is lonely. Sometimes, at home, I just feel like crying.
The point is not to make serious rational argument that we are alone or that being alone is how to live. For us to then counter-argue as if they were seriously adopting this attitude as a conscious life strategy while of a sound-and-stable mind.
So I can’t discern whether your response is tone-deaf or if you’re just doing the usual HN CV hustling, but literal CV this time.
Thanks. Much appreciated.
“Life is meaningless.” (Unrelated example to illustrate the point.) This means different things depending the context, like if the person was depressed or if they were a professional philosopher.
Figuring people out, from extremely small sample sizes, is a skill that I sometimes think that I have, but, in reality, completely lack.
I guess I'm older than the author or their bereaved colleague. I lost one parent thirty yeara ago when I was in my mid twenties, and am now losing the other to dementia. I've lost dear friends along the way. You acquire the scar tissue and you wonder why your only life is like this. But its the people in your life that pull you through, wholly or partly, in whatever state you end-up in. The work ultimately means nothing. Be there for your people.
Absolutely none of us do. I'm in my mid 30s, have been without both parents for at least the better part of a decade.
What pulled me through? Me. Not to discount what you say, just offer perspective. Several good people have crossed my path, more were worse. Nobody sticks around forever, nor their lessons. Cherish them while you can.
Sure you could be blessed by super supportive, extremely affectionate and compassionate friends all around. But IMHO even having people to keep you in a routine when you'd just want to fall apart can save you from depression.
I think a lot of people are pretty helpful without being overboard or too obvious about their empathy for other people.
We form these expectations quite young, and often clouded by love at critical points. Familial, romantic and platonic. Love makes us promises that it cannot keep. Ideals we will not live up to.
There is a type of loner sentiment that grows from integrity, and the sharpness of the pain love betrays us.
That's not the message. Even with close friends, what you experience versus the grieving person are miles apart. When a friend's parent dies, I show sympathy and provide support, but my life goes on as usual. For the griever it's the centre of everything.
They aren't your friends by default, but nothing says they can't be your friend. In fact, many of my best friends in life are/were coworkers.
To me, it's just healthy countermessaging to the "we're all a big family" message that corporations tend to send out. We're all a big family... as long as that message helps you identify with the corporation you work for, and makes you behave as if you had an actual stake in the company. As soon as you are no longer useful to the company, though, you're gone. It's a one-way relationship.
Most of the "friends" you make at work are friends of convenience. They're friends merely because you spend a lot of time together. It's a backwards relationship. In a healthy friendship, you find people you like, then you decide to spend time together. In a "work friendship", you are forced to spend time together, so you decide that you're friends.
Sometimes it works out, because you also actually like each other, but most of the friendships you make at work will stop being friendships when you no longer work together. In my opinion, it's emotionally unhealthy to confuse "work friendship" with real friendship, where people actually care for you, and when your dad dies, don't just immediately go back to normal after posting condolences on Microsoft Teams.
Just a tad over a year now, I lost my dearest friend. I work so far away that I could not even attend the funeral. I was demolished, maybe I still am; I just don't talk too much about it. There was nobody around me that would even know him; it was just me.
Soon enough, while drowning in despair, I realized the last time we spent time together was February 2023. I had lost a connecting flight, so I called him around 9 AM. He was out of town, in the countryside with his partner, just enjoying a day out of the city. He couldn't believe I missed the flight, joked for a bit, and gave me instructions on how to get to where he was from the airport, about a 6-hour trip.
I got there, and this place was the closest thing to heaven. I had an amazing weekend (missed the flight early Saturday), and then on Monday we all went back to the city... Because of the nature of the flight, I was going to have to wait until next Saturday to take the flight again. And so we spent that whole week together, just going out for beers and joking around just as we always did... And that was the last week we had together. I know there are a lot of atheists in this community, and that's OK, but in my head, forever, I will always thank God for that week, that so many other people did not have.
No, its not? People did a great effort of ignoring mortality and then get surprised by the most real thing of everything we know. Death happens and you can use it as a powerful tool to get wiser and realise the life is for the living, your grief and your sadness is only for you. In my eyes you are just losing time doing that instead of being happy and joyful.
I lost my father a couple years ago over the span of a day, too. I was on the receiving end of this. The sad reality is that the people I'd have expected the most from didn't even bother with a heartful message. And others revealed themselves as being the most empathetic and kind. It takes that experience to learn to spot the ones who actually deserve your friendship, I guess.
The other sad reality is that aside from the deeply selfish and unkind, we will all go through grief and have to deal with it. Being supportive of others when they do is crucial, but we don't have to feel as much pain as them to achieve that.
It might be cultural, but for many it wouldn't be helping to be left dwelling in grief alone by themselves. Pushing them to get to work and get back on their usual routine is not usually a bad thing, it depends on the people and their environment of course (e.g. I'd assuming their work isn't abusive and their coworkers are considerate)
For those who really need it, getting left alone can also be a blessing...I'd think those one will push through to get weeks off and do what they need to get over it, but it's pretty hard to generalize.
I think it’s actually a remarkable and wondrous thing that it’s possible to get along with life– even thrive- after tragedy strikes, which if you live long and full enough becomes unavoidable and in fact frequent. Toxic or fucked up relationships aside, the best service you can do for someone you left behind is live a full life with gratitude and without callousness.
All we have in the world is the living; abandoning it for the dead is its own sort of absurdity.
It's incredible how we managed to extend our life expectancy: still, it's not infinite.
I won't link, because there's a whole bunch of others, with the same name, and his original blog has gone dead, so I'm not sure where he's at, these days. My wife recently sent me some stuff he wrote, but I don't think it's on the Web, so I don't want to be a copyright abuser.
Of course, by chance, it may happen that in your profession you can fulfill your vocation, but that's merely a coincidence.
Allow me to discern the author's vocation in the situation described. The author showed himself to be the only one able to empathize in the moment of his colleague's suffering. He could have turned his sensitivity into strength and made his colleague's life better by helping her in her time of mourning. I believe that would have given much more meaning to his life than the modus operandi of his work routine. Sensitivity was his vocation, not his routine at the pharmacy.
I think this pattern happens in many parts of our life. We compartmentalize to the point where we know most of the people we interact with to a very small degree.
Sometimes you may feel sad, but don't cry because you're lonely. We need that loneliness to grow up.
I'm a bit happier now I'm more alone, but I wish life wasn't like this. Why was I made to love so much if I must eventually lose everyone I love?
I struggle to understand how everyone isn't constantly feeling overwhelmed with grief to be honest.
I've now simply decided to look pain in the eye and embrace it. It is inevitable and important in forming relationships. At least you have mostly fond memories to look back on at the end of it.
This is the worst bit for me. I've never been able to look back without extreme pain. I always wish I did or said something different. Or just that I had more time or was more appreciative in the moment.
Trying to live in the moment works better for me. I try to make the most of now and keep change to a minimum so there's not too much to worry about losing and there isn't too much to miss.
I think your approach is more healthy, I just don't seem to be able to do it. I think it's something to with ASD. I seem to get very attached to people, animals, places and times. I hate change, especially when it's preeminent and out of my control.
The thought of being unable to make deep connections seems sad and pessimistic to me. Focus on the good parts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landscape_with_the_Fall_of_Ica...
The world is full of heart break. Every second two people die somewhere. You can either stop functioning and join them or accept the world for being flawed and grow up.
We have two generations of child-adults who are completely unprepared for the world and need everything covered in emotional bubble wrap to function.
Kids born after 1980 have been coddled so much they have no emotional resilience to speak of. This article is a good example.
Things aren't getting better.