For me, it starts in the gut: it registers that I’m feeling anxious or even nauseous since reading that news article.

For someone else, it starts in the head: noticing there is an endless loop of some distressing event playing in their mind.

For yet another, it is felt in the heart: a weight on the chest, an oppressive pressure.

However despair inhabits our bodies, there is one common denominator: we don’t easily think or talk about it. Which makes sense, because despair thrives in isolation. If it’s not isolated, it’s not really despair.

Despair means, quite literally, to be without hope. When in despair, we are overwhelmed by a situation or feeling; we see no prospect of relief, and going on seems impossible; and we find ourselves unable and unmotivated to take action. Despair leads to estrangement from others, because our total focus becomes our own mental anguish. (Check out the film A Man Named Otto, or its Swedish predecessor, A Man Called Ove,for a vivid illustration of this.)

Last Sunday night, the Fireweed Hub sponsored another Wide Spot dinner and discussion. No surprise, since our topic was despair, that the group was smaller than usual. Politics and political shenanigans were definitely under discussion, and it was a sobering conversation. No punches pulled.

But once we started talking, it was clear that however merited our fears might be—about impending war, widespread innocent suffering, or economic chaos—despair is ultimately a very selective mental frame. Despair is a window that only lets in certain realities.

We can choose to open that metaphorical window and take in the scope of human history, realizing that cultural collapse has happened before. We can open that window to geologic time, and take comfort in the earth’s resilience. We can open to the cosmos and recognize that we are essential to the whole buzzing energetic reality. We can open that window to our spiritual beliefs and understand ourselves as part of a lighter, braver whole. 

And we can even turn that window into a microscope to better attend to the beauty and compassion of our immediate world. 

Me, I like multiple windows. I like to see the immensity of the dancing, relational cosmos AND the beauty of the small world AND the horror of the present chaos and greed. All at the same time. Nothing left out.

When we despair, we leave out goodness. We leave out cosmic relationality. We leave out integrity. We leave out courage, and kindness, and beauty, and steadfastness.

If we ignore despair, we leave out a very important response to current realities. 

Here may be the most important thing learned during the Wide Spot dinner: despair, that most destructive human emotional state, is not despair when it is witnessed. We can offer each other the gift of listening, and in that listening, we shatter the mirrors that reflect back only our own pain and fear.

Despair shared is not doubled despair. It is instead validated sorrow, shared grief, and a source of courage and human connection.