In the middle of my baby’s tantrum this morning, I thought to myself - maybe this is all pointless.
Earlier in the morning my husband was telling me about the latest book he read - a World War II non-fiction about the siege of Stalingrad - and my mind drifted to the war in Ukraine.
I felt like a crazy person trying to reconcile this picture: my baby whining about the plentiful food on his plate while my husband droned on about the mistakes of the Nazi army.
If war was just history we could at least say that we’ve grown as humanity. But we haven’t - because war is still going on right now. So it all feels very pointless.
For a moment I let my mind drift into the terrifying scenario where all the effort I put into my baby - could be for nothing. That he could just get sent into war and die. I couldn’t stay in that scenario for very long, it was too nihilistic for a Friday. But then if you really think about it, we are all not guaranteed tomorrow. War or no war.
Yesterday my friend told me that her therapist encouraged her to “think about actions having no consequences”. When she told me this my entire body seized up in a violent protest. Nonononono. That’s absolutely wrong! How could anyone think such a thing. Of course actions have consequences? What sort of BS is this?
But then the thought stuck in my head. And more I thought about it, the truer it became. What if believing we have control over the consequences of our actions is what’s making us all crazy?
Sure, if you eat ice cream three meals a day, you might eventually see some consequences on your hips. The big arc of how your storyline though, you don’t know how it will unfold. You don’t know for certain whether your actions will lead to a certain result. You just be doing you in that moment and you hope and pray for the best. Will sending weapons to Ukraine stop the war? Who can say. Will putting my baby in time out doom him to hate me forever? The hell if I know.
I need to let go of trying to know.