I talked to a friend recently, for the first time in almost two years.
It was nice to catch up, because they more or less dropped off the face of the Earth, in about May of 2023.
When I say that, I mean it seemed like they just abandoned all "the things we do" in modern life. No more social media posts; no more blog posts; no more updates on their web site; no new items for sale in their online collectibles shop.
I asked if something had happened; if they were OK.
Strangely, I related to the answer:
"I just got too tired to CARE, anymore..."
Sadly, I understand exactly how that feeling arises.
You keep working, and trying, and adjusting, and reinventing, and working... and no matter what you do, the only "reward" you get is diminishing returns while navigating a world in which everybody seems to be out of alignment with what you consider right and good.
The mental health profession have a term: "Empathy Fatigue." It came about after the world got about 6-8 months into the Covid circus.
Whereas it might not be exactly what applies here, it's definitely something parallel. For a lot of people, their life experience increasingly feels like perpetually paddling upstream against a strong current.
Even when you paddle as fast as you can, you barely make progress and if you relax even slightly, just for a short while, you can immediately see how you're slipping backwards.
Human beings rely substantially on getting some kind of "reward" as motivation for doing what they do. The reward might be quite intangible, but it's there. If that reward is no more than simply "avoiding destitution" it eventually wears us down... to a point of posing the question "Why do I even bother?"
Not everyone is capable of sustaining themselves on a mental state where the reward is little more than "well, at least I'm not DEAD." Particularly if they are in a situation that seems to have no natural ending, short of... death.
In this particular instance, "not caring anymore" manifested as quitting work, selling all his stuff, moving out of his Dallas apartment he was already close to getting evicted from and living in his minivan in a somewhat remote part of the New Mexico high desert.
It's easy to judge and say that someone "can't hack it" in life, but is that really a fair conclusion? Or should we be asking whether we have actually created a world; a reality; that is not fit for human consumption? Or at least not in a healthy way?
In truth, this person simply came to terms with the reality that oftentimes we can't create a better world, and people will always be shitty, and we're invariably faced with a long series of non-choices that in no way support our own sense of the right way to be. And we have virtually no control over any of it.
JT made a few friends near Taos, New Mexico and one of them invited him to park his van on a corner of his 70 acres of land and gave him permission to run an extension cord to an outlet by an electric fence and pick up deadwood mesquite, juniper and cedar for woodcarving.
It's a life a million miles removed from what was, a couple of years earlier.
I don't know if JT is ever going to move back towards mainstream society... but I'm inclined to think not. At 52, he makes exactly enough from his wood carving art to not starve and to pay for the Starlink box on the roof of his van... his only significant connection to the outside world.
I envy him, in some ways... having never really felt like I am part of being in this world. The handful of people I relate deeply to are scattered around the world, thousands of miles away.
I will likely never meet most of them.
Much like JT, I am approaching that point of extreme tiredness. Only approaching, though. I still hold the faint hope that something I am involved with will actually go right, rather than turn into a losing boondoggle.
For a while yet, that will have to be enough...
Thanks for stopping by, and have a great remainder of your week!
How about you? Have you ever felt the inclination to completely "drop out?" Do you sometimes find it difficult to CARE about the things of life? Leave a comment if you feel so inclined — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!
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Created at 2025.03.10 21:56 PST
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