It doesn’t take long to find, if you survey even a small number of magazines or newspapers, articles on a general social fatigue and malaise. Some identify such greyness as particular to this time of getting through and emerging from the pandemic. You might be able to identify. Are you emotionally, mentally, spiritually or otherwise bored with your days? One article that I read described lifestyle fatigue as a feeling of being “off or down, lacking energy, lacking motivation”. Apparently some of these feelings can stem from being emotionally exhausted. The same article spoke of the negative influence of social media on emotional states and included tips starting with, “It’s okay to feel this way”.
The second article that I came across had to do with boredom, specifically a kind of cultural boredom or malaise where entertainment and the arts do not seem to engage in the same way that they did previously. In this malaise a person has the sense that there is little that is truly innovative culturally. This article posited that some of this is due to the lure of marketing. The financial incentive means that it is easier and safer to just keep putting out sequels and prequels. Add to this the impact of the internet which fragments cultural expression so that it becomes more difficult for anything innovative to reach beyond a sub-cultural existence.
Are you feeling a malaise? Is it cultural or lifestyle fatigue? These feelings can begin to infect many rituals and gatherings. It might be argued that many people feel something similar in regards to participation in religious and spiritual community. Some are clearly asking, “Another service? Why do I go to this anyway?”
Over and over again in the Hebrew Bible and in Christian scripture, the question is asked, “Is there a word? Is there a new word?”
This is a question asked from the emotional landscape of cultural malaise and lifestyle fatigue (and some more severe circumstances). Is this all that there is?
What if there is a new word? Consider for a moment how astounding it is that Lamentations declares that God’s love is new every morning and in the same breath declares that God’s faithfulness is great. Newness and stability. Stability not in circumstance and the events of life. Lamentations itself was written in the context of the utter and horrifying devastation of a city and nation. Stability not in the circumstances of life, but rather in the ongoing newness and hope of God’s love for all.
In another of those poetic books, the book of Ecclesiastes, there is a well known cry, “Meaningless, everything is meaningless.” Another cry from malaise over mortality. The word translated from the Hebrew can indeed mean “meaningless”, but it does not necessarily convey only negative sensibility. It implies meaninglessness as the transitory nature of vapor, of mist. That is how quick a life is, here and then gone.
But vapor and mist can be beautiful. They can catch the light. They can reflect, and they can somehow carry our fears and hopes.
Much of cultural malaise and lifestyle fatigue are around the sense of monotony combined with an awareness of mortality. We can feel weighed down under a grey gloom. Or, we can, by grace and hope, come to life in admitting our mortality. Just a mist, but that’s kind of what makes it so beautiful.
Through Substack I met Krysta Gibson who writes “Living with Grace and Ease”. Krysta is a former Catholic nun who aims to help readers to embrace a wider humanity and spirituality. She recently asked if I would be willing to join in a conversation with her. I was pleased to do so.
What an amazing conversation, Todd and Krysta, thank you for your honesty (btw, I love the crystals, too 🤫)