Just because you're sad, it doesn't mean you're deep
and just because you're happy, it doesn't mean you're shallow
When your life has crumbled to pieces, one reasonable reframe is to view yourself as a tragic character in a sad story. You resign to your ill fate and accept that yours is not a story of joy or triumph. You become an emotional antihero. The melancholy artist who isn’t happy per se but knows the depths of humanity and is therefore enlightened.
Your life sucks and it’s kinda cool. Anyone who is happy is kidding themselves. They’re fake or delusional. You, on the other hand, get it. You might not be happy but you’re wise!
What good is wisdom though, if it doesn’t lead to a better life?
Sometimes we romanticize our suffering so much that it becomes our defining feature as if we were Kurt Cobain. You have been through a lot but you are not doomed to be a hipster depressive for the rest of your life.
There is a cynicism and nihilism that is infesting modern minds and you are an ideal target. You could easily fall into a philosophy that says people are evil, no one is trustworthy, your life is essentially over and there is no point to any of this whatsoever. Many who have suffered less than you have come to this same conclusion long before you so why not embrace it yourself?
Because it’s a deadend.
There are other ideas that have helped people recover from the worst that human existence could throw at them. These ideas could help you too but they might threaten your attempt at being dejected and cool. The greatest minds in history have contemplated the “goodlife” and it would be wise to join the conversation. There are the great religious thinkers: Buddha, Confucious, Jesus of Nazareth and the like. If religion isn’t your thing there are the great philosophers: Aristotle, Socrates, and the Stoics. If that’s too ancient there are great novelists: Dostoyevsky, Herman Hesse, Kafka. If these are over your head you can find teachers who can help you decipher it. Your life may depend on it. Wonderful, beautiful ideas have been passed down through writing from Homer to Rowling, that can show us what is possible in this life, even when we are bruised and beaten.
These books are not works that will just point you to the brighter side of life. These books take you through hell and back, through death and resurrection, so that you can see how to live even when all is seemingly lost. They speak to a truth that is so deep that it can only be discovered through symbols and miraculously precise language.
Reading Dostoyevsky, Shakespeare and the Bible may never be cool but there is a roadmap to your suffering within and it would be foolish to look away just so that you can remain poetically dejected and depressed.
I have bad news about your cynicism. Many believe that that being a cynic signals intelligence; “I’m awakened, you’re ignorant. I get it, you don’t.” This study showed that cynical people actually have lower intelligence. Gurwinder Boghal uses this data to argue that cynicism shields a person from betrayal and disappointment without having to think too hard about the nuances of a situation. Cynicism is a substitute for intelligent thinking. Cynical nihilism is not a good look and it does not signal what you think it does, so you might as well join our side where there is zest for life on every corner and a positive but realistic view on human nature and its (and therefore your) eventually destiny.