Doldrums

I am having a little trouble bringing my usual smarmy self to the enterprise this morning. So I will fill in the spaces where my mordant wit would have been with stuff that might be more useful to you.

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The first thing is a movie review. The movie: The Half Of It. Let’s see … it’s a coming of age movie that doesn’t make you want to puke and an interesting re-working of Cyrano de Bergerac done in small-town teenage style. It is thoughtful, never condescending, and sweet without a hint of saccharine-ness.

Okay, enough. Here’s a trailer. If it looks like your kind of movie, watch it on Netflix. Rotten Tomatoes gave it 97%. And they know everything.

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Everyone has problems. Mine are truly no more severe nor interesting than anyone else’s (even if they might seem so to me). When these issues come along one at a time I can usually deal with them, even some pretty big ones. It is when they come in bunches that the water starts to come in over the side of the boat, and there is nothing for it then but furious bailing. I reach for a bucket and if I can find a big enough one I stay afloat.

That’s what I learned to pray for a few years ago, neither for relief nor for release but for a big enough bucket to see me through. And here I am and here you are. Works okay.

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From The New Yorker

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I used to blame God when the world turned sour for me. In fact, I can recall a particular one-sided shouting match as I loudly listed the ways that I thought God had let me down. I had taken it really personally and wanted to make that clear.

I don’t do that any more. I know much less about God’s nature now than I did then, but I am pretty sure that my problems are of little concern to the Master of the Universe, who is now off the hook as far as I’m concerned.

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The concept of “fairness” has been a hard one for me to shake. If your ears are open at all you will occasionally hear a child on the playground say to another “That’s not fair!” I was one of those kids, believing that a guiding principle of the Universe was fairness. In our games we would be fair with one another. My parents would treat me fairly, and my portion of our family’s resources would be exactly the same as my brother’s or sister’s.

If I followed certain moral admonitions, I just knew that my life would be a necessarily happy one, because it was only fair that this should happen. When my first marriage was coming apart, I recall thinking that it was unfair to the extreme. Hadn’t I done my best? (Probably not) Wasn’t I therefore entitled to the fruits of my labors? (Certainly not) Unfair, thought my inner child, unfair!

Finally the message got through to me. I had been trying to impose my personal standards upon the Universe at large, and it wisely ignored me and went rolling implacably along. The only “fairness” that existed was what I or somebody else inserted there. It was me nailing my theses upon the door of some ancient cathedral on a cold morning. Theses that said “I basically disagree with the way things are, and you know why … because they are unfair, that’s why.”

Some of us never learn. That woodpeckery knocking sound that you hear out there in the distance is that of my head repeatedly banging into reality.

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From The New Yorker

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Finally, about the title of today’s post. Doldrums can have different meanings, although if you read them through they are certainly related.

• a spell of listlessness or despondency
• a state or period of inactivity, stagnation, or slump
• a part of the ocean near the equator abounding in calms, squalls, and light shifting winds

The “Doldrums” is a popular nautical term that refers to the belt around the Earth near the equator where sailing ships sometimes get stuck on windless waters.

National Ocean Service

The Doldrums holds a distinct place in maritime history, having developed a reputation as a potentially deadly zone which could strand sailing ships for weeks on end, causing them to run out of food and drinking water.

National Ocean Service

So, I’m only temporarily becalmed and before you know it I’ll be back to full-bore irritating once again. Anything else would be totally unfair.

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