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Combating hopelessness

friendofdorothy said:
Bump. I'm feeling a tad hopeless again.

At the beginning of lockdown I decided to block out news, not think about global issues, not spend any energy on anything I have no control over. I decided to concentrate my energy and time on my little corner of the world - organising my peers and local lgbtq+ community.

I've managed a lot in the last 2 years -
  • activism - starting a campaign for rights for older lgbtq+ people in care - speaking in public, meeting with the council, connecting with others in the same fight
  • community volunteering - organising self help and social events for my older lgbtq+ community
  • moving home a year ago (after 30 years in the same area) finding a new home, beginning a new garden, decorating and arranging things, etc

I've moved house and area but my social life, volunteering and activism is still centred on Lambeth where I used to live. I'm committed to meetings and attending events that I think I 'should' go to - rather than what I want to do. I've been a bit half-hearted in transferring all my life and energy to this new borough. My diary is too full. I seem to have left no time for art, sewing, exercise, going out locally etc.

I seem to have over committed and don't know how to extricate myself from the work I've created for myself.

I'm feeling really overwhelmed at the moment and I'm uncertain as what to do. What is the point? I'm worried I'm becoming depressed. I don't expect answers here, but I do want to let off stream and sort my head out. Sorry I'm just bumbling.
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I get in these sort of corners, not through activism etc but other things. It’s normally means that I am about to make changes, internal or external. This is the thing with negativity, whether it’s mood or life circumstances, they are trying to tell me something. That’s how I see it. I like how the Buddhists approach it: everything, even joy, is shot through with pain - that’s what enables it to be joy. Can’t have one without the other. Best wishes to you.
 
friendofdorothy said:
I've moved house and area but my social life, volunteering and activism is still centred on Lambeth where I used to live. I'm committed to meetings and attending events that I think I 'should' go to - rather than what I want to do. I've been a bit half-hearted in transferring all my life and energy to this new borough. My diary is too full. I seem to have left no time for art, sewing, exercise, going out locally etc.

I seem to have over committed and don't know how to extricate myself from the work I've created for myself.
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a couple of more detailed thoughts -

communities don't start and end at borough boundaries, particularly so in london (although some things with grant funding attached may have strings attached about people using a service needing to live or work in the borough) and some boroughs don't have enough critical mass of some communities to do viable things - i've never really got the hang of croydon, so i don't know if there are lgbtq+ things in croydon, or whether the community there would tend to gravitate to somewhere that's bigger, like lambeth.

volunteering / voluntary organisations are very variable. there's some where you get asked / expected to do more and more until you burn out. there's some where you're still seen as a newcomer and treated with suspicion after 20 + years.

i have tended to concentrate on one or two things - there are people (and i'm not suggesting you're one) who get involved with all sorts of groups / societies etc, and manage to do a small and often fairly ineffective amount at each of them, there's something to be said for not spreading yourself too thinly.

i'm at a bit of a loose end in that respect having got turfed out a year or two back from one thing i was heavily involved with for 20+ years (i'm still not entirely sure why, but the internal politics always were a bit beyond me and more so after i stopped living near it) and with being a bit unsettled in terms of maybe moving house, i'm reluctant to get too involved in anything else. my other thing is a couple of half days round an annual special event with no other commitment on either side.

People do drift in and out of voluntary things, and some organisations have regular flounces. drifting out, or stepping back at a sensible time is probably better, though. you know the things you're involved in, i don't - are any of them the sort where there are other people eager to get more involved? are they the one/s you would be happier to step back from?
 
Puddy_Tat said:
People do drift in and out of voluntary things, and some organisations have regular flounces. drifting out, or stepping back at a sensible time is probably better, though. you know the things you're involved in, i don't - are any of them the sort where there are other people eager to get more involved? are they the one/s you would be happier to step back from?
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With my community group its difficult to motivate people to do much. They say hey why dont we do this or that meaning they want someone else to organise it for them. I've done so much now its sort of all become mine - I've built it up with loads of regular outings and events from a mailing list of about 30 to 120 over the last 6 years or so. I said in the summer that I wanted to do fewer events - Its entirely my own fault that I organise so many - there are still 11 in person events this month and 4 online zooms. I don't go to all of them - but I do most.

With the activism it's mostly me and one other doing the pushing to get things done. We've had some success.
 
BigMoaner said:
I get in these sort of corners, not through activism etc but other things. It’s normally means that I am about to make changes, internal or external. This is the thing with negativity, whether it’s mood or life circumstances, they are trying to tell me something. That’s how I see it. I like how the Buddhists approach it: everything, even joy, is shot through with pain - that’s what enables it to be joy. Can’t have one without the other. Best wishes to you.
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Lovely sentiments. :)
 
friendofdorothy said:
I've managed a lot in the last 2 years -
  • activism - starting a campaign for rights for older lgbtq+ people in care - speaking in public, meeting with the council, connecting with others in the same fight
  • community volunteering - organising self help and social events for my older lgbtq+ community
  • moving home a year ago (after 30 years in the same area) finding a new home, beginning a new garden, decorating and arranging things, etc
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I forgot to include:
  • a year training to become a qualified tour guide
  • organising a group annual art exhibition
  • organising and /or speaking at various lgbt+ history events
 
BigMoaner said:
I get in these sort of corners, not through activism etc but other things. It’s normally means that I am about to make changes, internal or external. This is the thing with negativity, whether it’s mood or life circumstances, they are trying to tell me something. That’s how I see it. I like how the Buddhists approach it: everything, even joy, is shot through with pain - that’s what enables it to be joy. Can’t have one without the other. Best wishes to you.
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Thank you - this is helpful. I suppose my mood is telling me I'm tired and should change something.

I've somehow managed to create a whole unpaid job for myself - I realise I want fewer unpaid meetings and more fun and more creativity in my life.
 
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friendofdorothy said:
Thank you - this is helpful. I suppose my mood is telling me I'm tired and should change something.

I've somehow managed to create a whole unpaid job for myself - want fewer unpaid meetings and more fun and more creativity in my life.
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without knowing much about the organisation involved (and not wanting you to name them / go in to detail here) has it reached the point where the 'management structure' is no longer right for what organisation is now trying to do?

you can get that with small businesses that have grown but owner is still trying to run it like it's a one person show, you can get it with voluntary organisations that start small and get chaotic.

do you need more people to do more of the admin and meetings stuff and let you do the more fun and creativity stuff? any organisation needs a balance.

getting volunteers is across the board getting less easy - there's a generation of people who got early retirement on decent pensions who have been a big part of a lot of voluntary organisations for the last 20 years or more, but there's not so many people who retire early on decent pensions now.

there are some people out there who are willing to do the admin stuff that's needed for any voluntary organisation to run. i know one organisation that had a treasurer who was very good at handling all the bullshit needed to get and maintain charity status, seeking out grants and tax / council tax breaks for charities and all that sort of thing. they ended up getting pushed out because certain others thought they didn't get their overalls on and do the ground level stuff enough...
 
Puddy_Tat said:
you can get that with small businesses that have grown but owner is still trying to run it like it's a one person show, you can get it with voluntary organisations that start small and get chaotic.

do you need more people to do more of the admin and meetings stuff and let you do the more fun and creativity stuff? any organisation needs a balance.
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Yes that's us. Still small but not very tight knit. I behave like a lone activist, I don't do 'mapping' or 'scoping' meetings. I can see what needs to be done and don't ask permission to do it. I get things done, without funds or on a shoestring. Others behave more corporate, third sector, charity people. They know how to get funding and employ consultants - for their pet issues, not mine. We definitely need more balance.
Yes I need more people to do stuff. I've applied for funds to pay someone to do what I'm doing singlehandedly atm. It's a long wait to find if that's successful.

I'm suppose I'm running out of steam.
 
friendofdorothy said:
Yes I need more people to do stuff. I've applied for funds to pay someone to do what I'm doing singlehandedly atm. It's a long wait to find if that's successful.
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hope that goes well.

it's also a bit of a spiral in that small / underfunded / overstretched organisations with not enough people are often not going to have the time / energy / expertise to put good bids for grant funding together.

don't know if it would affect the grant application, or be a worthwhile short term measure, but may be worth seeking volunteers for specific roles (i realise i may be stating the bloody obvious here and / or that you've already tried) but with many organisations there's a mix of people who are very dedicated to that particular cause and people who want to do something useful (maybe on the IT or admin side) and are looking for somewhere to do it.

lambeth seem to have a volunteer 'vacancies' web page - don't know how you go about listing on there.

friendofdorothy said:
I'm suppose I'm running out of steam.
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:(
 
Puddy_Tat said:
hope that goes well.

it's also a bit of a spiral in that small / underfunded / overstretched organisations with not enough people are often not going to have the time / energy / expertise to put good bids for grant funding together.

don't know if it would affect the grant application, or be a worthwhile short term measure, but may be worth seeking volunteers for specific roles (i realise i may be stating the bloody obvious here and / or that you've already tried) but with many organisations there's a mix of people who are very dedicated to that particular cause and people who want to do something useful (maybe on the IT or admin side) and are looking for somewhere to do it.

lambeth seem to have a volunteer 'vacancies' web page - don't know how you go about listing on there.



:(
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Thanks. Yes I know and I've tried but there is only so much I can do to support volunteers. Now it's up to the rest of my 'team' .
 
Orang Utan said:
Just have ADHD. It limits your ability to imagine any kind of future, so the despair is somewhat muted
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Well as I don't think it's catching so that's not very helpful advice.

I found being negative and pessimistic stopped me being able to see into the future for most of my life. It's only in more recent years as I'm getting older that imagening my own future seems possible. I suppose planning for the future and planning for various possible contingencies without really believing in that future has helped.
 
friendofdorothy said:
Well as I don't think it's catching so that's not very helpful advice.

I found being negative and pessimistic stopped me being able to see into the future for most of my life. It's only in more recent years as I'm getting older that imagening my own future seems possible. I suppose planning for the future and planning for various possible contingencies without really believing in that future has helped.
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that's not advice, I was just using humour to cope with the despair
 
i've practiced zen Buddhism for decades. what I like about certain strands of it - especially Tanabe Hajime's thought - via some Heidegger - is it's strange relationship with dispair, with misery. That's a roundabout way to say I need to go with it. half my life dispair and misery for me was something to fight - and it made me ill. The unwinnable war. A compulsive horrible energy of trying to 'fix it', nearly every waking hour. But Zen says travel the opposite way. Go with it. I am going to go bald, I am going to die, I am likely to be living near the breadline all my life, my willy will eventually stop working, I am divorced, my kids will come from a broken home. Zen says go with it - those miseries are part of absoloute reality. It's often a terrifying, disorientating path, not for everyone, but Zen Buddhism is my life force. And when Heidegger says 'Simply being there', he doesn't mean just the fetish for the present moment that is popular these days, he means what are you when you are 'simply being there', when all self-compulsion has ceased, when all need to 'improve' has ceased - what is left, what happens then with the giving up all of all conceptial knowledge? Dispair and misery is such a weird one these days because everything about our culture says it should be resisted. This is one of capitalisms anti-humanisms, that if a person feels bad or sad or mad that it's something instantly wrong that must be fixed. does it? you know it's okay to feel bad, we all say, but do we mean it. but it's truly okay to feel bad/sad/mad now and then. what if it's allowed as part of ones life? what if misery and sadness is integrated fully? that doesn't just mean blind acceptance it's about chosing ones battles. I am divorced. waht can i do about it. nothing. sorry, rambling.

parklife.
 
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BigMoaner said:
i've practiced zen Buddhism for decades. what I like about certain strands of it - especially Tanabe Hajime's thought - via some Heidegger - is it's strange relationship with dispair, with misery. That's a roundabout way to say I need to go with it. half my life dispair and misery for me was something to fight - and it made me ill. The unwinnable war. A compulsive horrible energy of trying to 'fix it', nearly every waking hour. But Zen says travel the opposite way. Go with it. I am going to go bald, I am going to die, I am likely to be living near the breadline all my life, my willy will eventually stop working, I am divorced, my kids will come from a broken home. Zen says go with it - those miseries are part of absoloute reality. It's often a terrifying, disorientating path, not for everyone, but Zen Buddhism is my life force. And when Heidegger says 'Simply being there', he doesn't mean just the fetish for the present moment that is popular these days, he means what are you when you are 'simply being there', when all self-compulsion has ceased, when all need to 'improve' has ceased - what is left, what happens then with the giving up all of all conceptial knowledge? Dispair and misery is such a weird one these days because everything about our culture says it should be resisted. This is one of capitalisms anti-humanisms, that if a person feels bad or sad or mad that it's something instantly wrong that must be fixed. does it? you know it's okay to feel bad, we all say, but do we mean it. but it's truly okay to feel bad/sad/mad now and then. what if it's allowed as part of ones life? what if misery and sadness is integrated fully? that doesn't just mean blind acceptance it's about chosing ones battles. I am divorced. waht can i do about it. nothing. sorry, rambling.

parklife.
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A lot to think about there. Like the ' fetish for the present moment' phrase - perfectly describes the adoption of "mindfulness' in vogue with employers, or use by advertising to sell crap.

Not Buddhist but I've come to terms with acceptance in recent years. Accepting mostly myself, ageing, my grief, anxiety, sadness. And the shit state of the world that I can do little about. And forgiveness. It's difficult though.

I still have some fight in me and I don't want t to give over to despair again, it's just too painful but yes we've got to pick our battles.
 
friendofdorothy said:
A lot to think about there. Like the ' fetish for the present moment' phrase - perfectly describes the adoption of "mindfulness' in vogue with employers, or use by advertising to sell crap.

Not Buddhist but I've come to terms with acceptance in recent years. Accepting mostly myself, ageing, my grief, anxiety, sadness. And the shit state of the world that I can do little about. And forgiveness. It's difficult though.

I still have some fight in me and I don't want t to give over to despair again, it's just too painful but yes we've got to pick our battles.
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this is link is good - only ten mins. “”Be happy” is the new form of rule.” A reading from the allusive mysterious philosopher Byung Chul Han. First few mins are a bit stodgy and complex but stick with it - there’s few writing as profoundly as him on anxiety and happiness in neoliberal society.

 
"The neoliberal dispositif of happiness rarifies happiness. Happiness is not just a colleciton of positive feelings that promises enhanced performance. It cannot be captured by the logic of optimisation.

What characterises happiness is the fact that it is not at one's disposal. Inherent in it is a certain negativity. True happiness is only possible as fractured. What stops happiness becoming rarified is precisely pain, and pain gives happiness endurance, pain bares happiness. Painful happiness is not an oxymoron. Any intensity is painful. Passion binds pain and happiness together. Deep happiness contains a moment of suffering. Pain and happiness, as Nietzsche says, are two siblings and twins who either grow up together, or remain small together.

Where pain is supressed, happiness is attenuated, becoming a dull contentment. Those who are unreceptive to pain close themselves off from deep happiness. "The one who is open to pain" Nietzche describes as follows: on him, "The plathora of kinds of suffering falls down like an infinite blizzard on such a human being. Just as the strongest lightning flashes of pain discharge on him.....only in this condition, always open to pain from all sides and down to the deepest level, can he be open to the subtlest and highest forms of happiness."

Byung Chul Han

He's swimming upstream against the Be Happy, neoliberal performance subject. This is kind of what i mean by acceptance. It's resisting the compulsion of being perfect, without suffering, without pain. There's big relief found in that direction. He's got a background in buddhism too, and i can see it very much in his writing.
 
it's a restorative and important to me, when i truly think it through, (despite how seemingly obvious) to me that "happiness is not at ones disposal, it cannot be captured by the logic of optimisation."

i.e. happiness is it's not really something I can achieve. It comes through the back door. and trying to achieve it all the time is actually the tension which makes me even more unhappy. life is just something to throw oneself into. there's no other way round it. do what i have to do, and the rest really is not up to me including what emotions and feelings happen to arrive or pass in that process.
 
friendofdorothy said:
I've moved house and area but my social life, volunteering and activism is still centred on Lambeth where I used to live. I'm committed to meetings and attending events that I think I 'should' go to - rather than what I want to do. I

I? I'm worried I'm becoming depressed.
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I can understand this.

I've been feeling the same.

More so recently as local community stuff seems full of , to me, a lot of personal disagreements and unpleasantness. Some of which I can't deal with because it's stressful and not that rational. Which has led me to dropping out of one meeting I go to. Which I feel guilty about.

( To add I find this on urban to)

I find dealing with Lambeth council over the years depressing. At best Council/ Labour party here regard one as just being difficult. A problem.

I have been feeling depressed recently without wanting to be. And trying not to allow myself to wallow in it.

Various things. But some I think connected with local volunteering.

Always done a bit in my years in Lambeth. But feel I have little to show for it.

I think you've done a lot but maybe it's time for you to start doing things you really like. Rather than what you feel you should do.

For example I'm a Platelet donor. I feel when I do it I'm appreciated. It's straight forward once a month thing I do. Thinking on it it's something I actually like doing. Rather than feeling obliged to do it. Something I should do.
 
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