Considering a popular notion of Despair:
That it
is born out of an unwillingness,
an
unwillingness to be a self without,
a
self coping with a loss, (or coping with a negative gain).
So: Despair comes from an unwillingness of becoming,
becoming
the person who is specifically and inevitably without.
Example: Mourning a loss, (either by death or distraction).
The
person who has lost someone significant despairs at being,
he
or she despairs at being the person who is now inexorably without.
Despair
is the unwillingness to accept the altered state of absence.
Despair is ‘amartia 1], and is hauntingly similar to Boredom, the
deadliest of all inadequacies:
People with experience maintain
that proceeding from a basic principle is supposed to be very reasonable; I yield to them and proceed from the basic
principle that all people are
boring. Or is there anyone who would be boring enough to contradict me in this regard?...Boredom is the root of all
evil.
This
can be traced back to the very beginning of the world. The gods were bored; therefore they created human beings.
Adam was bored because he was alone; therefore Eve was created. Since that moment, boredom entered the
world and grew in quantity in exact proportion
to the growth of population. Adam was bored alone; then Adam and Eve were bored together; then Adam and Eve
and Cain and Abel were bored en famille.
After that, the population of the world
increased and the nations were bored en
masse. –SØren Kierkegaard
We get into all kinds of trouble
when we think that we are bored, and this will without the slightest doubt lead
to despair*.
*Written for one person in
particular.
