A Basket of Fruit in a World Full of Hammers

What follows is not the logical, chronological progression of an essay or article. It’s the uncensored, chaotic nature of thought struggling with uncertainty to find answers. It’s a flood of words from my mind; a mind not wanting to be strong and courageous against the hammers of life as this blog recommends. I even wanted to close the blog, kill it because it demands energy I don’t have.

It began in November last year. Emotional and mental exhaustion filtered into me. I felt underappreciated, underchallenged, and bored. I doubted my abilities, talents, and accomplishments. I didn’t sleep well, and felt things just weren’t going right.

Depression set in. I felt straitjacketed by hammers, permitting only shallow breathing.

Depression set in. I felt straitjacketed by hammers, permitting only shallow breathing. December was a drag, and by January, I was impatient, intolerant, and angry. With my “Januaworry” budget in a mess, I wanted to yell at clients who pay late, who postpone work, or who don’t progress, or can’t continue with their projects, and I bemoaned the loss of challenges I had during now completed projects.

An unrelated, language-protocol-breaking email sent me overboard into dark waters. I phoned them. I yelled at them; I fought and scolded, explaining rights. I hung up on them, satisfactorily thumb-thumping the end-call button. It felt good! Then the adrenaline dissipated, and it didn’t feel so good anymore.

Is this burnout? Maybe, maybe not.

I’m a citizen of a community of 8.3 billion probably of whom three-quarters or more must be very tired of living on the edges of sanity as power-hungry leaders use others as floor rags to clean up the spills of erratic stupidity, greed, and the cancerous decline of the rule of law. Maybe or maybe not, my daily reading of macro views on global politics, economics, and society contributed to the state of my mind. On a regional level, I read that a Rohingya refugee walks 8 km per day to photocopy his handwritten newsletter to spread hope and news amongst his exiled compatriots. On a micro level, I read individual letters coming out of the war zones of Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan, and Israel.

God knows, the suffering of these individuals is a gazillion times worse than mine. So, why am I going on about — compared to their miserable lives — my petty little upsets? Must I stop grumbling because others are far worse off than I am?

No. I will wrestle with this.

It can’t be burnout if I care about how individuals and communities are xenophobically denigrated or exiled or evicted from their homes or places of birth simply because they are of different races, genders, or beliefs. It can’t be burnout if I’m here blogging for a blog I wanted to kill. It can’t be burnout if I, as a dopamine junkie, still maintain a 3/4-day per week exercise routine and score almost full marks in my biannual medical examination.

What is it then?

Why, here almost at the end of February, while my budget is reviving and more challenging work seems imminent, am I still exhausted and dissatisfied? I feel like a stranger to myself. Finding no freedom to be me, to rest, to be still; only to live grudgingly, murmuring to myself.

I know if this continues, I will stagnate and hate myself for its consequences. I’m on a path I should not be. What did I do right when I was feeling right? What proof do I have of this? By what standards do I measure myself? What’s hidden inside? What should I do to bring home my real self? Why am I shrinking? Why all the questions?

I am me, hammered by the hammers of life and still writing.

Who am I?

I am me, hammered by the hammers of life and still writing; me, knowing that regardless of gender, race, wealth, and physical or cognitive divergences we all have potential that can become actual; me, knowing that resistance enables my rising; me, knowing that it’s not training in the classroom that makes one strong but the frequent fights in the streets of life for our social, economic, and psychological needs to be met.

“Yes,” you say, “But do your experiences and knowledge based thereon make you who you are?” Maybe. Maybe not. Am I a basket of fruit, or am I the basket, or am I the fruit?

There is too much going on inside me to be an empty basket. And of what value is an empty basket anyway, as it’s contrived to carry things. If I’m the fruit, I at least provide wholesome sustenance and my seeds can reproduce. Am I then a basket of fruit? Is this it? Will understanding this get me out of the doldrums of despair?

Maybe, maybe not.

But I think that whatever goes on around and in me; whatever causes me to unravel ought not to penetrate my identity. Succumbing to the hammers, as I did, though I did not know it then, served a healthy purpose. I can now identify them. Next time I will see them coming and I can dodge them. And if I can’t dodge or duck, I, my me, will not again allow them to break me. Maybe I will succeed, maybe not. But I know that I am wiser with a wisdom that no classroom could teach. I learned something while being dragged through these months of exhaustion and self-doubt: the hammer can break what I do, but it cannot break what I am — unless I permit it.

The hammers will return. They always do.

The hammers will return. They always do. They don't care that I’m tired, or that my budget is busted, or that the world outside my window is burning, breaking my heart. They will do what they do and keep swinging.

If I am a basket of fruit in a world full of hammers, some fruit will bruise. But the seeds remain. And seeds are stubborn, ungovernable things that can grow in inhospitable ground, push through the hardest soil toward the light — despite everything, Despite the Hammers!

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