As many sensitive and gifted individuals know, it can be painful to maintain awareness of the external world.
Hopelessness and depression must constantly be pushed aside.
There is good reason for this.
It is hard to hold to positive beliefs about human nature in the face of millions whose attitudes and actions initiate death by war; death by pollution; death by misguided commercial interest; and even death by indifference.
A sense of hopelessness, whether momentary or prolonged, must be part of each of our lives.
This hopelessness is not a sign of pathology, of clinical depression, though some of those commercial interests might want us to believe otherwise.
Rather, it is an appropriate response to a profound recognition of a huge and daunting task.
The task is huge because it is like trying to move 1,000 tons of earth with a single shovel.
It is daunting because others' resistance makes it dangerous, as if doing that earth-shifting while under fire.
Hopelessness is one of the challenges of being gifted.
Such despair is not a simple emotion, but one composed of strands of other, less cerebral responses.
Anger and fear are prominent among them.
Disgust, rejection and loss of compassion swim there, too.
All, in their way, adding up to a condemnation of ourselves, our powerlessness and perceived worthlessness.
But we cannot feel hopeless unless we also have hope.
We would simply be neutral and disinterested, passive and ignorantly accepting.
We cannot reject the way things are unless we also have a sense of how things could be.
We cannot feel powerless unless we can see how greater power could be put to use.
So how can we make use of that nascent hope? What to do? Make like the sun.
Do your daily round as blazingly effectively as you can.
Focus on your own process, second by second, molecule by interacting molecule.
Hold to your recognition of yourself as a love-motivated optimist.
Motivate yourself with a bit of wisdom from the past: "One must learn by doing the thing; for though you think you know it, you have no certainty until you try.
" as Sophocles said.
But don't expect to be recognized for it.
Remember that the sun is indifferent as to where its light shines and what effect its heat gives rise to.
You must be the same.
Trust your underlying intent and, no matter what task you are engaged in, your intent will communicate itself.
Just as self-contempt manifests around us as contempt for truth, law and human life, your self-love will ultimately surround us with kindness, justice, health and beauty.
That is where you will experience your reward.
So please Shed your light indiscriminately.
Goethe wrote: "If each of us swept in front of our own steps, the whole world would be clean.
" This seems a trifle simplistic for there are lots of places with dirty steps for which nobody takes individual responsibility.
It's a good place to start, though, and if we did all sweep in front of our own steps it would certainly reveal where the grubby ones are.
And it would be the sun that made it clear.
Hopelessness and depression must constantly be pushed aside.
There is good reason for this.
It is hard to hold to positive beliefs about human nature in the face of millions whose attitudes and actions initiate death by war; death by pollution; death by misguided commercial interest; and even death by indifference.
A sense of hopelessness, whether momentary or prolonged, must be part of each of our lives.
This hopelessness is not a sign of pathology, of clinical depression, though some of those commercial interests might want us to believe otherwise.
Rather, it is an appropriate response to a profound recognition of a huge and daunting task.
The task is huge because it is like trying to move 1,000 tons of earth with a single shovel.
It is daunting because others' resistance makes it dangerous, as if doing that earth-shifting while under fire.
Hopelessness is one of the challenges of being gifted.
Such despair is not a simple emotion, but one composed of strands of other, less cerebral responses.
Anger and fear are prominent among them.
Disgust, rejection and loss of compassion swim there, too.
All, in their way, adding up to a condemnation of ourselves, our powerlessness and perceived worthlessness.
But we cannot feel hopeless unless we also have hope.
We would simply be neutral and disinterested, passive and ignorantly accepting.
We cannot reject the way things are unless we also have a sense of how things could be.
We cannot feel powerless unless we can see how greater power could be put to use.
So how can we make use of that nascent hope? What to do? Make like the sun.
Do your daily round as blazingly effectively as you can.
Focus on your own process, second by second, molecule by interacting molecule.
Hold to your recognition of yourself as a love-motivated optimist.
Motivate yourself with a bit of wisdom from the past: "One must learn by doing the thing; for though you think you know it, you have no certainty until you try.
" as Sophocles said.
But don't expect to be recognized for it.
Remember that the sun is indifferent as to where its light shines and what effect its heat gives rise to.
You must be the same.
Trust your underlying intent and, no matter what task you are engaged in, your intent will communicate itself.
Just as self-contempt manifests around us as contempt for truth, law and human life, your self-love will ultimately surround us with kindness, justice, health and beauty.
That is where you will experience your reward.
So please Shed your light indiscriminately.
Goethe wrote: "If each of us swept in front of our own steps, the whole world would be clean.
" This seems a trifle simplistic for there are lots of places with dirty steps for which nobody takes individual responsibility.
It's a good place to start, though, and if we did all sweep in front of our own steps it would certainly reveal where the grubby ones are.
And it would be the sun that made it clear.