Pain and Despair

I've been re-reading the latest Chronicles of Thomas Covenant in anticipation of the final Covenant book ever. The title is The Last Dark and there's a very good chance that the bad guy will win and the world will end. There's also a very good chance that this could be a happy-ish sort of ending. One of the major themes in all the Covenant books is that you can be beaten without ever shaming yourself. The bad guy, Lord Foul the Despiser is a Devil-like figure trapped on the Earth at the moment of creation by the Creator. He cannot escape unless someone messes up and helps him destroy the Earth.

It's more complicated than that but I find the books very inspirational. Foul's weapon of choice is Despite which is defined as contemptuous defiance or disregard in my dictionary. He helps people feel despair so that they will do anything to end that feeling. The good guys have found several effective defenses against despair but one of the most important is to accept that you have limits. Lord Foul might send his armies to destroy things that you love but you never give up, hope for a miracle and never feel despair because the guy who beat you was bigger and stronger. Another effective defense against despair is to find value in the things you serve and not your specific ability to serve them.

For the longest time, I had problems fighting off the urge to die. People kept asking things of me that were too far beyond what I could accomplish. I fell short and felt judged by the things I failed to do. Surviving chronic pain is a classic example of a fight that I cannot win. That doesn't make it an unworthy fight. I had to accept long ago that I have limits and that I do reasonably well when judged within those limits. Also, it's not just about the pain. I write my journals both public and private that I enjoy  I enjoy spending time with my beloved Melissa

The pain is fearsome but I have endured it before. That means I can endure it again. Maybe I couldn't if I were doing so for me but we joke that there's no choice. I won't list choices here but they exist and the best one available is trudging along one step at a time doing what my doctors tell me to do. Trying to exceed myself usually leads to bad things happening. I can be carried on by the exalted feeling of creating fiction for far longer than my actual endurance allows. Exceeding my real endurance is bad yet I've done it so many times that I don't know what my real endurance is. All I know is that there is very little of it.

In the books, Lord Foul always tricks his victims almost all the way to their doom. Then he has to stop because of the necessity of choice. I cannot be forced to despair in real life. Things can get very bad. Pain can seem like the most powerful force in my life, sooner or later there will be a new financial crisis but I will have more to lose now and my loved ones can sicken and die. My past didn't prepare me for a life where I had to sit by and watch things happen. When they do happen, I have a bad habit of declaring that it's all my fault. Of course, that's the way to despair. It can't all be my fault because I'm just one person. I am fairly resourceful but still just one person and my resourcefulness is marred by pain.

People have a mistaken belief in the glorious last stand. There's a tradition of saving the last bullet for yourself but that's despair. Don't give up and let yourself be taken but also don't do your opponent's work for them. In the battlefield metaphor, there must be some bullets left somewhere. After all, you wouldn't have a problem if everyone had run out. Don't let yourself be blinded to the choices you have left. I'm in terrible pain and my meds seem to be failing me. I can't use meditation the way I have for a decade and more because my furniture is still so heavily damaged. I need to get the house fixed in order to get the furniture replaced. Then again, I might not have to do it that way. That's the way I've been looking at it because it would be most efficient that way. I could be picking out a new comfy chair today and then making some poor guy carry it for me when the repairs start. That's how it's supposed to work but we've been trying to take a shortcut.

I think that's what needs to happen. This choice isn't working as well as I'd hoped so it's time for the next one. If that one doesn't work, then there will be the option of the next step in my pain treatment. I'm scared of the next step because there's outpatient surgery involved and I hate hospitals. I've held this point in my fighting withdrawal long enough. Something needs to give and I believe that something is a trip to a place selling furniture. There's always an option out there somewhere. We'll just see which one is best to take.