Suffering from Existential Ennui…
…with brief bursts of bonsai emotion
I saw the term “existential ennui” this week, and it felt like it fit. I looked up the definition to be certain. Yes, I’m experiencing a sense of dissatisfaction and even emptiness tied to a lack of clear purpose.
Don’t worry (not that you would). I have brief bursts of focused emotion. However, daily news swiftly pulls me back into existential crisis mode. (And, no, I won’t stop watching the news. I have a journalism degree and long for the Fourth Estate to be valued again.) Besides, avoidance of bad news has never been my modus operandi.
My existential ennui has been a slow, multi-year build. The biggest reason, likely, is that I unintentionally slipped into something that resembles retirement at the start of the pandemic. Until 2020, I worked as a public relations consultant. When the work dried up, I liked the free time. I can’t afford to pull Social Security, yet. So, I’ve found ways to make a meager income through sporadic work; however, nothing tied to a passion or life calling.
I’m uncertain if I identified a true calling during the gainful employment of my youth. I identified skills at which I excelled. I enjoyed using my skills on behalf of my employers and believed in those organizational mission statements. I may even have been on the brink of a clear vocational call when Sman was born.
Parenthood is a calling when it’s chosen. I’m uncertain what it morphs into when a hybrid variety takes over. I know what it felt like at his birth: a short-circuiting jolt. That’s a historical fact, not a complaint. His life force altered mine.
I recall the image of a roller coaster appearing in my mind hours after his birth. It was accompanied by six words I heard as if spoken aloud: “It’s gonna be a wild ride.” The message felt otherworldly. Divine. Prophetic.
The past 35 years have, at times, been quite a ride, and my time on the roller coaster isn’t done.
My days have purpose. I’m the parent of an adult child with special needs. He needs help with meals, colostomy care, urological care, transportation, shopping, time management, money management, and more. Bundled together, it’s called caregiving.
Caregiving serves a purpose. I’ve never been convinced it’s my ultimate purpose. I can do those things. Those things aren’t who I am.
Thus, my existential ennui.
I feel the need to assure that I’m not depressed, and that I have fulfilling volunteer work. I’m surrounded by the results of creative projects borne of hobbies–quilts, stacks of Shutterfly albums, crafty home décor, and floral gardening. Mark and I still sing together. I also have numerous piles and files of unpublished written pieces, including a substantial work-in-progress: a completed manuscript about our marriage and how my relationship with Mark changed my understanding of faith and love.
My ennui isn’t purely boredom. It’s a lack of a sense of purpose that reflects my identity, or how I see myself as part of the world. At least the tiny piece of the world I inhabit.
A bishop who lived in the 16th century is credited with first saying, “Bloom where you are planted.” I’m confident that the Bishop of Geneva, Saint Francis de Sales, didn’t spend time wondering how people planted in the desert felt about growing there. Or people dropped onto the side of a rocky cliff. Or into a murky swamp. Or in the crevice of paver stones.
I feel like I’ve been plopped inside a shallow bonsai pot with my limbs and roots periodically pruned or restricted with wire. I’m not to outgrow my allotment of soil.
I shared my bonsai thoughts with a friend recently. Her response, “But bonsai are beautiful.”
Yes, but is beauty a bonsai’s sole purpose? Can a bonsai ever be more than a fascinating miniature version of what it might have been?
Bonsai continue to grow. They continue to bloom. In the care of a meticulous bonsai master artist, they become mirrors or living canvases that reflect the beauty of nature. Their lives hold meaning in the eyes of those to whom they bear witness.
Perhaps the existential purpose of a bonsai is growth itself. To keep pushing its roots down and its branches out despite inevitable pruning and shaping.
I’m tired tonight. I’ll contemplate this more tomorrow. Maybe I’ll even look for fertilizer.