That Shitty But Necessary Part Where Everything Shatters and Nothing Makes Sense
A romp through wandering, decomposing, and the dark space between stories
Here's a question for you. What might someone do when their whole understanding of the world splinters into jagged shards and starts to pile into rubble, utterly destroyed, at their feet?
What about when that broken worldview contained absolutely everything they thought they knew... including how they work and serve the world, how they view themselves and others, and the stories they told themselves to navigate life?
What might someone do then?
(this is the bit where we would pause, if we still lived in a world that paused at all)
What did you come up with?
Here's what I've seen.
First, that person might lie down for a while because they suddenly feel very, very, very, very, very dizzy
or they might pace around and around, possibly rubbing their temples and muttering
or they might scream (I recommend doing so on a blustery hilltop)
or they might throw something (something that might make a satisfying thud or crack?)
or they might consider reviving a long-gone drinking habit just to numb the spectacular pain of rupture, loss and confusion
But eventually, whether they do any of the above or not
that person will get up
And they will brush off the jagged slithers of their former worldview
(careful! sharp!)
And they will
Wander.
And while wandering they will (we don’t know when, but we know it happens) find clues, glimmers, and flames in the dark.
They will find others.
They will find fragments of another story.
Now: these fragments. They are enigmatic, unknowable things. Our wanderer won’t know what’s an important fragment of another story and what’s just trash. Not yet. They may not even realise the pieces they hold are clues, or that a different story is even available.
But our person will pick them up anyway
peer at them
poke them
shake them (is there a rattle?)
sniff them?
lick them?
… and they will hold the pieces up to their ear, with a weary arm, and listen.
Our person in the story is me (“we know, Siobhán, the person in the story is always you”) from a few years ago.
There are many of us.
Awakening to the horror of our entangled systemic earthly predicament. Lost, confused, utterly heartbroken and completely destabilised.
If you see one on the street, wandering, be kind. Don’t startle them. Maybe offer them a snack or even a little hug... but be prepared for them to crumple before you in a snotty, soggy heap, confused and awed by your warmth.
this wandering phase though
Anyway…the wanderer needs to wander. It's crucial.
But, unfortunately, this wandering phase... it feels like... what’s the right word...
It feels really rather terrible.
Just say it feels fucking shit because it does
It feels sofuckingbadterriblelikeshit because the wanderer is doing something that the dominant culture hates, and has therefore trained us to fear or despise: wandering around aimlessly, doing nothing much and probably being quite miserable. It’s not good optics.
The wanderer is not contributing to the economy.
The wanderer is not selling their precious moments on earth so that they can afford to feed themselves enough to stay alive and do it again the next day.
The wanderer is not buying stuff.
The wanderer is not trying to improve themselves
The wanderer is not trying to compete with others.
The wanderer is not chasing happiness or success at all costs.
The wanderer is completely and utterly lost…
…and therefore quite worthless to a socio-economic structure that rewards consumption, productivity, extraction and exploitation above all else**.
(**No, really. I mean it. Do you see this? Our current economy values making money above everything. Values making money above preserving life, above clean water, above breathable air, above healthy soil)
so our poor wanderer is now totally worthless
So the wandering feels so bad because the wanderer is now totally worthless, which compounds the pain they are already feeling as they start to make sense of their dissolution and as the grief, the loss, the bewilderment takes hold.
Fun times
The old knowledge the wanderer had has suddenly been called into integrity.
It’s dissolved.
They don’t know what’s next.
They know nothing.
And this is bad. The dominant culture has trained us to believe that not knowing is failure.
That to be unclear, slow, undirected, confused, processing, paused… means we’ve fallen behind. We’ve lost our value.
We live inside systems that worship certainty, clarity and the relentless thrust of forward motion into a future of unquestioned assumptions.
The story we’ve all absorbed (usually without knowing it) says things like:
If you don’t have a plan, you’re a bigfuckingseriousfailure
If you’re not producing or fixing or growing or improving…you’re wasting time.
If you’re wasting time then you are wasting a chance to make money (for someone who doesn’t need it, but heyhoooo)
And if you’re wasting a chance to make money then you are a waste and you are better off dead.
If you’re wandering… you’re a waste.
You’re unreliable
or
you’re a menace
or
you’re mentally ill.
They all mean the same thing anyway: you’re unprofitable.
but wait! it gets better
Sure…. the old story, the dominant story (the story that you left lying in shards, “a pile of rubble at your feet” I think I said, remember, before you went wandering?) says that you are a waste, and a failure, while you wander.
Of course the dominant story will say that… [insert eye roll emoji] …it doesn’t want you wandering and picking up pieces of a new story, silly! It wants you back where you were: compliant
numb
dazed
very very very very tired
you’re just doing a little thing like decomposing
You’re wandering from one story into another.
You’re in the space between.
It’s vast
You’re decomposing.
This is the best news. You’re decomposing!!!!!
*decomposing dance*
This space of descent, the space of dark, the space between the stories, the space of decomposition….
This is a fertile, alchemical place.
A place respected and revered in our older cosmologies.
It’s where compost turns into soil. It’s where roots take hold. It’s where special creatures live.
Of course, the dominant story doesn’t trust any of this. It doesn’t trust descent
or pause
or seasons
or mystery
or grief
the dominant story doesn’t trust trust the dark.
Instead, it whispers:
“Hurry up”
“Get it together”
“Make this make sense”
“Turn this into a lesson! A growth opportunity!”
”Maybe you can create an online business for offering high-ticket consulting for people who have experienced the shattering of their worldview, and you could run a retreat and maybe have the retreat on a boat! And how about a membership programme and…”
But don’t forget you already wandered away from that story a little bit.
It’s ok to decompose. To hurt. To pause. To wander. To be confused. To not know what the hell is happening.
We’ve been taught to turn away from all that but that, my wanderer, is your clue. It’s time to gently peek into those places.
You don’t need to know where you’re going. Keep wandering. Something will meet you in the dark.
a very tiny, wholly insufficient, open hearted thanks to Joanna Macy
If you’re wondering how I know this… why I think I’m so smart about darkness and decomposing and suchlike, and who am I to say “something will meet you in the dark” and wild-sounding promises like that…then…
Well, you’re right to be suspicious…there's a lot of nonsense on the internet after all.
But me: I write this fresh from the celebration of life held for Joanna Macy. Her ideas, her love for life, her deep trust in the dark, her insistence that pain is not pathology….all have shaped how I see all of this.
Joanna called it “the Great Turning.” She reminded us that grief and bewilderment and despair and pain are not the end… they’re part of how we remember who we are as we step into the new story. Joanna would totally love the decomposing. Thank you, Joanna. You changed my life.