The Suffering of the Everyday Banalities of Life
r/Pessimism, u/forestofdoom2022
I believe many people seriously underestimate, downplay, and delegitimize the compounded suffering brought about by what is casually brushed aside as the “everyday banalities of life.” When one is acutely depressed, or even has mild to moderate depression, all these perpetual obligations, duties, aggravations, and minor frustrations that are categorized as normal, unchangeable facts inherent to the existence of a human organism required to participate in some social arrangement (industrialized or otherwise) become even more irritating, inducing in these already disenchanted, easily overburdened individuals a more pronounced feeling of ennui. The stressfulness and unfulfillment of work in a low-ranking position in the hierarchical, utterly undemocratic corporate structure is one example I could pluck from the ginormous sack of exasperations, the amount of time consumed by sitting in our little gasoline fueled or lithium-ion battery powered metal boxes on wheels is another.
Then there’s all the medical appointments that must be scheduled, oftentimes going from one specialist to the next with referral after referral; I’m constantly making phone calls to dermatologists, radiologists, urologists, colorectal specialists, allergists, vascular specialists, pain management doctors, and physical therapists to name a few in my health dysfunction journey. […]
The same repetitive, perfunctory routines are recycled anew upon awakening from the sublime absence of consciousness of non-REM sleep. Just mustering the motivation to peel oneself from bed should be grounds for receiving a gold medal from the International Olympic Committee. Reluctantly exerting oneself to once again strip naked, take a shower, dress, make coffee or drink some other caffeinated beverage, and “face the day” can be an exhausting endeavor without any genuine reward. The great Romanian catastrophist Emil Cioran expressed this experience when he wrote, “To get up in the morning, wash and then wait for some unforeseen variety of dread or depression.” What happens when even eating becomes stale, a ritual with as little pleasure as evacuating one’s bowels in a malodorous, unclean public restroom? It’s hard not to feel like the titular character (played by Jim Carrey) in the 1998 classic “The Truman Show” in his artificially constructed, pre-scripted world, stuck in that giant, state-of-the-art set encasing his hometown of Seahaven and gradually discerning that something is not right. And with the rise of reality television, TikTok influencers, omnipresent cameras, and mass surveillance, it would not be wrong to call it one of the most prophetic films of the late 20th century.
My generation laments the astronomical price of houses and the unaffordability of the much-ballyhooed “American Dream,” but I find myself ruminating on all the additional responsibilities associated with home ownership. Now there is even more space to vacuum, sweep, and clean with Clorox disinfectant wipes, more phone calls to be made to plumbers, gutter cleaners, and lawn mowing services. And don’t forget property taxes! What would I do? Wander around alone like Jack Nicholson in his mansion I assume, perhaps with a smaller dog adopted from a shelter to keep me company. What a fatiguing vexation this all can be. An unremitting tiredness of life, a rational opposition to the vapid drudgery of labor and these daily impositions, should be enough to qualify for physician assisted suicide. As the author of the Book of Ecclesiastes states, “I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and, behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit.”