“Your soul has been assailed by cowardice,
which often weighs so heavily on a man —
distracting him from honorable trials —
as phantoms frighten beasts when shadows fall.”
-Dante’s Inferno
A priest once told me, “God requires of us a level of responsibility that we do not want.” This was in response to my grappling with the weight of free will, suffering from autoimmune disorders, and temptation. I realized that he was right – and that the great Agnostic plight of the 21st century is driven by a psychological difficulty with responsibility. Older folks mock younger generations for it, but it is a real psychological obstacle that must be addressed. God, indeed, requires of us a level of responsibility that we simply do not want — for a plethora of cultural reasons, which I will not get into here. We struggle to comprehend suffering, evil, and even our own satisfaction in life due to an unwillingness to soberly juggle our responsibilities amid the uncertainty of suffering.
First off, sobriety is not just a total abstinence from a drug or a behavior. It is being truly whole, it is righting yourself with God. True sobriety is hard. After all, I am writing three essays to try to understand it. Addicts are abnormally hardened souls, and often do not realize they are addicted until they try to stop a certain behavior they have relied on for years. That is when the sinister nature of their addiction peeks its ghastly head above the muddy waters, and its power over them is glimpsed. This deep brokenness must be addressed if the addict ever wants to be whole, healthy, and sane.
It is important to note that sobriety is technically the opposite of being drunk or high: of indulging to the point that you are incapacitated, acting irrationally, and coping with stress. It may seem normal, but it is actually deeply disordered and causing long-term damage. For many of us, sobriety probably does necessitate abstinence from many things we turn to in order to cope with stress. In using unhealthy coping mechanisms — alcohol, pornography, weed — we incapacitate ourselves from receiving spiritual consolations and genuine growth, since we keep numbing ourselves with substances. These behaviors inhibit us and keep us complacent. Thus, we fail to change. As we delay the inevitable (of dealing with our suffering) we become increasingly irritable and depressed, symptoms of addiction. A substance like alcohol can technically be moderated by someone who is healthy and can control themselves, but other substances (even weed) often inhibit users with just one dose. I speak from experience. But even food, sex, or entertainment can inhibit us if these things manifest as an addiction, which prey on our fears and insecurities.
Regardless, the hard reality is (even with the morality of drugs set aside) that most of us are using these substances to cope with stress and the uncertainties of life. And this is what I am discouraging. We are delaying the inevitable. A train is hurdling toward us no matter what we do. This train is our pain. We are simultaneously running from and adding to its speed and ferocity by numbing it. Consequently, our addiction will require more and more extreme means of numbing as we run. The longer we run, the more pain we are in store for when we want to stop.
This fear of suffering we are running from is actually the fear of the uncertainty of suffering. Suffering is, despite what many claim, never constant. It comes and goes, with plenty of opportunity for peace and action in between. But many of us cannot handle the mere uncertainty of it, so we adopt a mindset that surrenders our power over to fear, instead of responsibly accepting the challenges of life each day. This mindset and its coping mechanisms cause further anxiety, despair, and self-doubt. It causes many to rely on substances — drugs, porn, entertainment — anything to help us zone out and forget the seemingly unbearable weight of responsibility that stalks us at every corner. Like a real wound, if it’s not treated it doesn’t simply go away. By refusing to daily confront our discomfort, we turn small issues into monsters. Our pain will eventually demand to be expressed. This is how addiction escalates into the destructive force we have all seen. Numbing our insecurities, our fear, and our wounds, only thrusts us deeper into the void. This is where evil, or the desire to hurt others, comes from: a denial of our own pain. What humans are capable of when they continually silence their consciences and their suffering is virtually endless.
This false mindset of a certainty of suffering is untrue and deeply toxic to our souls. In the false mindset of a certainty of suffering, there is a sort of sick solace where we indulge in self-destruction under the excuse that we will “always suffer.” But it is not true, we are not destined to suffer. This fear robs us of our sacred and human freedom. Many of us would rather take comfort in making ourselves suffer all the time than toil constructively with the uncertainty of suffering. The reality is that there is a strong likelihood of satisfaction and happiness when we toil constructively with our responsibilities. In this truth dwells the fullness of human freedom.
So, what exactly is certain in this life? What can we put our stake in?
Well, death.
With the promises of Christ, Christians are asked to embrace the subconscious fear of death, not suffering. We are asked to forget our fear of the uncertainty of suffering and reflect on the certainty of death. Death is the ultimate subconscious fear, the all-important, ticking time-bomb that we are foolishly capable of forgetting about in the modern era. We will do anything to mitigate suffering and not think about death — but this is the inverse of the Christian responsibility. The reality of death was once the very initiator of the urgency of our responsibility to live well. By granting us the Hope of eternal life, Christ made the miserable mystery of death able to be comprehended, and even aspired toward if we live properly. Heaven, the Beatific Vision, Eternal Life… The Christian Hope.
Yet death is still (naturally) emotionally horrific and painful. It is man’s greatest reminder that life is an extremely serious journey, and that we must get to work to right our souls and to love others TODAY. Christ asks us to daily look beyond our suffering and into the once-bleak eyes of our mortality. The image of him upon the cross forces us to come to terms with not only our death, but our darkness. Why are we so broken, why are people so evil? The answer is not that complex. We do not want the responsibility that comes with life. The responsibility of daily self-assessment, of bearing the uncertainties of life… just to die in the end. We would rather numb it all and lead ourselves and the world into chaos and fear.
So, we can either live in a miserable (but comfortable) certainty of suffering, or accept the uncertainty of suffering and embrace the certainty of death. It is in embracing the certainty of death that we find peace and hope. Death without hope is indeed dreadful. But Christ came to offer hope of something beyond the terrifying force of death. If we embrace the hope of the promises of Christ, the certainty of death is now the certainty of eternity, of love, of fulfillment (aka faith). Christ enters the world to kill death: it no longer holds its cursed dread above the heads of men. We can now, finally and truly, accept the uncertainty of suffering, with no excuse to destructively cope with the illusion of the meaninglessness of life.
By soberly bearing the cross of death and the uncertainty of suffering, we attain peace and serenity to clear-headedly navigate our anxieties. It is our greatest responsibility to reflect daily and soberly on the fragility and seriousness of life.
As we grow in hope and love for others, an even deeper boldness begins to grow: bravery. We finally begin to take on a sacrificial nature that not only helps us take responsibility for our own lives, but now the lives of those around us. The Christian Hope shows us the dignity and sacredness in other people. This creates agape, or divine love: the duty and desire to serve and protect others – even unto death.
The next essay will discuss childhood and cynicism, and then a third essay will address the dangerous, often malevolent potential of addiction when undealt with.
Subscribe below to stay tuned for more.
Pax.
The Art of Hope 