The world would lose it’s shine, first off. Just small things, like food - even food I really like - not tasting right, mostly sort of ’blah’ or just not good. I’d retreat without realizing it from activities that I love, like listening to music, reading, creating art. My body would ache, I’d maybe feel like I had the flu, and then for several days - maybe weeks or months - I’d feel terrible. As though there was no point in going on.
Obviously, I made it through those years - I’m here now, after all.
With that in mind, I’d like to believe I’d be able to tell the difference between what’s just kind of a ‘blah’ feeling and genuine depression: but here I am, questioning just what it is that’s making me view the world so cynically these days.
In some ways, I feel sort of like maybe I’ve fallen unexpectedly into a fugue, the likes of which I haven’t seen since the days when I still kept half my most used things in a backpack that weighed more than most small children, and a metal locker in a hallway with hundreds of others just like it. Though the past year has been one of mostly peace and self-exploration, I’m become so nervous about the whole world, politics, and people in general. The more I learn about the world around me, the less certain I am that it’s a world worth living in overall. Still, something won’t let me give up on it.
Excuse the analogy, but I guess it’s because I’m sort of like a domestic rat.
In the late 1950’s, a researcher named Curt Richter performed a number of experiments where he placed rats - domestic and wild - into water filled beakers under various conditions (such as having their whiskers removed, or especially cold water) and then timed how long they took to drown. The wild rats, who had little to no exposure to handling by humans, sometimes panicked and struggled so hard that they died before even being put in the water. After being put in the water, they died after a very short time: they seemed to simply give up and stop swimming, rather then getting exhausted and drowning as a result of inability to swim.
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| I don't think people would have been as OK with this if they used dogs... |
Domestic rats, which were used to humans and wouldn‘t panic as much when humans went to touch them, were periodically ‘rescued’: that is, now and then, a researcher would reach into the beaker and lift the rat out of the water for a short time and then put them back into the water.
These rats would swim for up to 80 hours before drowning.
As cruel as these rat-races-without-winners were, the message they put forth is fairly straight forward: the rats who thought someone might rescue them survived longer. The rats who felt there was a total loss of control over the situation, no way to escape and no way to get back into the world, died quickly.
In other words, the rats who died fastest were the ones without hope.
“Richter believed [the wild rats] all died from hopelessness, compounded by the loss of whiskers which destroyed "their most important means of contact with the outside world." (Richter, C.,1957).
Richter connects these sudden deaths with "voodoo death" among humans. In this, an individual who has broken a taboo is told by a witch doctor that he must die, and after experiencing great terror, sinks into despair and, in fact, often does die. Richter cites other instances of sudden death among apparently healthy people, for instance among those terrified of an operation, or among young soldiers, all of whom apparently die as a result of a belief in an approaching doom. In spite of Mitruka's suggested diagnosis, Richter himself does not draw a parallel between the psychological disintegration of these rats and a manic-depressive psychosis.”
It makes sense, to me at least - when it seems like there is absolutely no way out of a bad situation, it doesn’t really make any sense to fight it. What’s the point of living if the only thing you have to look forward to is more pain and suffering? To be sure, as a teenager I contemplated suicide more than once. Thankfully, I had a lot of people - friends, teachers, classmates - who were there for me when I was going through bad times. Unlike those putting out a ‘helping’ hand for the rats, these people genuinely cared for me and wanted to see me live and succeed - so I learned to hope.
It is that hope which, despite what I see in the world, allows me to look around at the ones I call my friends and think to myself “these are pretty awesome people,” and realize that ’awesome people’ do make up a good chunk of where I live. It’s that hope that, despite the fact I hadn’t spoken to my father in over a year and had no way of predicting how he‘d respond to hearing from me, gave me the strength to pick up the phone and call him today and wish him a happy Father’s day - and even talk about hanging out for the 4th of July.
Where there is hope, people try. They fight to survive. They work to make a better world. There is forgiveness, healing, and building for the future.
We’re not rats in jars - hopefully. Some people might choose to believe that our existence is the result of some sort of alien experiment, but I think that if there’s anyone in control of the situation, it’s the people alive today - and their offspring.
No one comes out of the womb wanting to hurt other people, or cause suffering, or fight wars. We make up our own reasons to do that as we get older, and encounter pain and intolerance, and we either learn hope, or give in and let the world drown us in fear, hatred and hopelessness.
So despite my fears, it’s hope that lets me feel that maybe one day, despite any of the bad things that happened to me as a child, that if I have kids I’ll be able to be there for them. Even if I can’t protect them from the world, I can maybe prepare them to survive in it, and work to fix it.
It’s hope that tells me that one day I can teach my children to hope as well.
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