I feel Lost
What to do when things seem confusing or hopeless.
I feel lost.
I truly and utterly feel lost. I know I am going down a path as I pursue a master’s degree in mental health counseling and have a job in mental health, but I still feel lost.
It feels like my sense of direction is off course, a sense of overwhelm. I know it’s the anxiety talking, as we live in an anxiety-inducing neoliberal capitalist hellscape. But I still feel this sense of being lost.
The genocide in Gaza seems to be ramping up even as public opinion of Israel worsens, the United States is becoming more politically and economically unstable, and more people seem to be struggling. It’s hard not to be hopeless right now and give in to despair.
Comrades have given me revolutionary optimism and praxis as the main antidotes. Still, initiating praxis in a rural area is challenging while juggling work, grad school, and a personal life. But this isn’t meant to be a pity party, as the fight for a better future can never stop and must never end, even with the defeat of capitalism.
Nevertheless, I see why many leftists become chronically online. It is easier and more convenient to escape into a digital landscape than to face a harsh reality. Comrades of the past had no choice but to face adversity; there was no YouTube or Netflix to divert their attention.
Unfortunately, I felt this sense of loss since the pandemic. My original purpose of becoming a fitness influencer was shattered as my mental health declined. My petty bourgeois aspirations fell to the wayside, but I never wanted to stop helping people. This is why I went back to school to become a therapist and got into Marxism to begin with. But what I am missing is an anchor.
What I mean by an anchor is a purpose that drives me even during the most bleak adversities. It is something that can ground you and last even when everything falters. For many, that is religion. I tried turning back to God, even as a previously staunch atheist, but I found that the certainty of God did not quell my fire for change. I did not want to accept a God’s will who would allow children to starve or suffer. If a God or Gods were truly on my side, they would push my convictions to change the world around me for the better.
I am well aware of attempts to do what I just mentioned via liberation theology, a mixture of Christianity and Marxism. But I see religion as a potent weapon that can be used to justify great good, just as it can be used to justify great evil; even Hitler considered himself a good Christian for what he was doing!
However, I think moral conviction is lacking in many leftist spaces, particularly communist ones. We talk to one another on a high theoretical level, but how many of us speak to working-class people and relate to their struggles? How many of us show up for other people when they struggle? How many of us struggle to fight against the machine of capitalism and imperialism?
Many of us fight to be right. Yes, the method and tool is dialectical materialism, but why did you become a communist? I became one because I struggled so much in my life that I didn’t want to see anyone else go through that pain. I didn’t do it because of a logical deduction of capitalism’s flaws. I went down this path because of my pain, compassion, and empathy for my fellow human beings. Many could argue that Jesus taught similar lessons, but when I see people who call themselves Christians defending Israel for what it’s doing, I question the lesson. Do people really learn lessons, or do they take away the lessons they want to learn?
Even within communist circles, we have the same set of books from the same people, but a vast array of interpretations and sectarian beliefs. Some folks think Trotsky did nothing wrong, some folks think Mao did nothing wrong, some folks think Stalin did nothing wrong, etc., while others disagree with those folks. Which interpretation or beliefs are correct is constantly up for debate. Meanwhile, we live in a world where the capitalists have won.
They have shattered the labor movement and bombarded us with massive amounts of propaganda since we can remember. Killed many leaders. And spent trillions to sabotage the very idea of socialism.
What can we do? Should we give up? Should we give in to the Bourgeoisie and benefit from their system where we can? Should we fight harder? Should we get more involved?
I know Lenin gives us a potential blueprint, but the circumstances have changed up to a point. While it was undoubtedly hard for the Bolsheviks to have their revolution in Tsarist Russia, they were not in the heart of a Western empire with the most well-funded military apparatus in the world.
The feeling of defeat benefits the capitalist, but it’s understandable. How do we anchor ourselves as leftists?
At all costs, the belief in the revolution cannot be purely rational; it has to be an in-part irrational belief in a better future. While Marxism is a science, what drives that science might be something non-scientific. I am still grappling with these contradictions myself.
What do you think?
I turn to this quote when I feel in need of hope:
"We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art: the art of words." - Ursula K. Le Guin
You are not alone. There are many of us, more perhaps than we allow ourselves to believe. We doubt, we fear, but we are always stronger together. Thank you for your brave words.
I think your last point is on to something. Marx and Engels did not develop their theory through a logical conclusion, like you said, they developed their theory because of the failures of the Revolutions of 1848, because they witnessed themselves the brutality of the Industrial Revolution and the conditions of the workers whose blood fuelled it. The Scientific Method itself was derived from people figuring things out by themselves out of a desire to learn and understand the world around them.
I think at its core, Marxism, Socialism, Communism, etc is fuelled by the anchor that is the human, emotional reaction to capitalism’s excesses. Theory simply provides the framework to analyse those excesses.
And as for anchors to follow, for me it has been my community. The comrades and loved ones around me who I know, regardless of what happens and how things are, will be there, and myself for them in turn. Obviously finding or building that is easier said than done in a rural area, so I don’t if that helps at all, but I think it’s good to remind yourself that there are others fighting the same fight as you. That you aren’t alone and that, while the world around you is small and the struggle might seem impossible from where you are, there’s a massive world of opportunity and every one of us is fighting in it in one way or another.
I’m not sure if that helps at all, I hope it does. Solidarity.