Existential Dread for Expectant Cadavers
You know that sudden, heavy dread that makes you question literally everything when you take your first step out of bed? Turns out, it’s fundamentally rooted in a perspective shift, or so says my armchair research. You see, I'm experiencing full-on existential crises at least once every month. Very not fun. So I do like any other red blooded human with network access does and consult the interwebz.
For the first four decades of life, our brains are basically hoarders. From domestic indoor landfills to expertly engineered data centers, our brains accumulate a lot of shit. Most of which is unnecessary. We're inherently hyper-focused on acquisition: degrees, careers, relationships, assets, and maybe a really solid collection of lucha libre masks. But by the time we hit our late 40s, that drive to acquire plateaus. Like our psychological architecture shifts from "what can I acquire?" to "wait, what does any of this mean?!" Then "Oh fuck," and you force yourself to sleep.
This crisis-of-sorts seems to hit when your old metrics for success no longer compute with your new reality. It’s essentially a data processing error — a massive misalignment between your outdated goals and your current operating system. For example, I desire Extreme Warfare Revenge, but I've been a Mac user for 20 years and I refuse to run Windows via Parallels.
My research yielded the usual cacophony of misinformation, clickbait, half truths, and porn. You know, internet stuff. Regardless, I was able to extrapolate some tidbits and takeaways that have me thinking about my plight in a different light.
What if I were to take the dread I feel upon consciousness in the AM, and dissect it like the lightly defrosted catdavers they had us rip to shit with scalpels in high school. Nobody learned anything. Even with the once mortal scientific donations sprawled out on the lab tables, we were all still more interested in having our less exhibited parts touched.
When an existential crisis hits me, it usually feels like a massive, overwhelming wave of doom. Like a doom tsunami. When this happens, rather than thank the Gods for finally extinguishing my Earthly existence, my immediate goal should instead be to break my complex mess of fear into smaller, more manageable data points. Recently, visualizing stop signs has been helpful at controlling the acceleration of the doom wave when I feel myself start to drown.
Then I need to assess my situation and identify the trigger. Is it a physical realization (e.g., my back has been hurting forever, so it must be cancer)? A temporal realization (e.g, counting the exact number of summers left until you hit your peak life expectancy)? Or a professional or legacy concern (neither exist in my life, so yes to both)? Once I'm able to determine the trigger and the associated emotion, I can better isolate the variable causing the friction so I can tackle it with logic rather than raw emotion.
I never identified as a creative sort, probably because I always sucked at art basics (I'll find you in Hell, Bartick!). But that never prevented me from doing creative things. It's just that most of the creative stuff I've done has been for my eyes only or for someone of importance to my life at that time. They didn't deserve it. None of them. 😐 Despite this, it appears that creation is a potential antidote to my midlife malaise.
Existential dread absolutely thrives in a vacuum. When you're passively consuming garbage on-demand — whether that's doomscrolling, binge-watching, or just staring at the ceiling ruminating — your brain has way too much idle processing power to chew on the concept of your own mortality. The Devil's plaything and all that.
The most effective countermeasure I'm finding? Recklessly spending money Making stuff. When I sit down to learn something new, edit photos, link mismatched sounds together and calling it a tune, assembling anything, or even writing this blog, I'm generating tangible proof of my continued growth and existence. Because there is a tangible something created from my hand phalanges, I'm forcing the universe to accommodate for something I've made. I suppose the idea is to shift your cognitive focus from the relentless passing of time to the active utilization of it. We're not just aging; we're adding points to our skill trees. My skill tree is more of a bush, but you get the point.
So far, doable-ish, right? Well here's where I really fail. When it comes to maintaining my meat suit, I could care less. Although I wouldn't ignore a brake squeal, a leak in the roof, or a malfunctioning HVAC unit, I could give a shit about the condition of my body. For the most part, it looks fine. Not overweight, not underweight. Preferable height according to trends (which are wtf?). Still have the hair and teeth. Nice skin. Inside, who fucking knows.
I should apply that same troubleshooting logic to my physical form. Our bodies and brains need more deliberate maintenance now as we age (duh), so we need to optimize for efficiency. If your sleep is getting worse (like mine), troubleshoot the environmental variables and your bedtime routine. If your energy is low, analyze your inputs (diet) and outputs (exercise). My diet is essentially a daily meal of palatable items fit for a 5 year old. What I should be doing is treating my physical decline as a management project requiring logistical planning and critical thought, rather than a personal failing to keel over.
Time and mortality are assholes. So is fortune. Hate those guys. But it's necessary that we accept them, I guess. Like you accept family, because somewhere in your lineage, the dumbest motherfucker in your family procreated with an immediate, equally simple relative and six generations later here you are, in disbelief. There's no way this could be your bloodline. You're relatively well assembled, and on the correct side of history! But there they are. You are blood-related to these future displaced early humans. So you're forced to go through life looking though your fingers, as your hands clasp your face in embarrassment at every family funeral.
Or we can just call it accepting unchangeable variables.
In any complex equation, there are constants you cannot alter. Time passing and mortality are fixed variables. Spending intellectual (and by proxy, physical) energy trying to "solve" them is a terribly inefficient use of resources. Or so I tell myself while doing the opposite.
Whenever I feel the dread creeping in, I need to remember to consciously pivot my focus back to the variables I actually control. I control the rigor I apply to my daily work. I control how I structure my daily workflow. I control the quality of my free time. And, perhaps most importantly, I control what flavor of ice cream I'll eat while dealing with it all. Everything's coming up butterscotch swirl.
Grab your spoon and hang the fuck in there.