Apocalyptic, But Not Really: Finding Aliveness in Dark Times

I have a bit of a propensity towards post-apocalyptic stories. I always joke that it helps give me ideas for prepping for such a scenario. Back in The Walking Dead days, my great niece and I would ride around and point out good places to scavenge or to hunker down in the event of a zombie apocalypse here in Mississippi. But truly I think what I appreciate about these stories are the tales of resilience and how, even in the worst times imaginable, there are people who find their way back to their true nature of aliveness.

I recently found my way to a ten-year old HBO series I somehow missed that has some post-apocalyptic qualities, The Leftovers. The story begins 3 years after 2% of the world’s population mysteriously disappeared in an event that was called “the departure.” There was no rhyme or reason, no commonalities of the people who disappeared. One moment they were here living their lives and then, poof, they were gone. Some people who remained didn’t experience any direct loss yet others lost several loved ones. But overall, the people who didn’t depart were left to sort through the trauma and confusion. By the 3-year mark, when we join the story, many are trying to get on with some semblance of normalcy. But what is normal after such a massive event that so deeply defies what one thinks they know about the world?

In discussing this series with others, I’ve characterized how it’s apocalyptic, but not really. And then I realized, it sort of feels like that to me living in these current times: apocalyptic, but not really. So much collective trauma: the pandemic, climate change, social upheaval, all on top of fundamental changes in our lives brought on by rapid technology advances, layered on top of personal losses that happen to us all. It’s disconcerting, looking around and seeing familiarity tinged with such an unfamiliar quality.

In The Leftovers, people try all manner of things to cope, from extreme efforts to feel something, to extreme efforts to not feel at all. Some people follow cult leaders to try to feel some sense of control over it all. There’s heightened aggression overall and the breaking down of social norms. Sound familiar?

But as we take a deep dive into several characters in the series, we’re privy to the deep well of pain and fear. It’s not until people allow space for and acknowledge their own deep grief, that they can shift out of their default stories and problematic coping strategies and begin to authentically connect with one another and truly live life more deeply. As Frances Weller says in the book The Wild Edge of Sorrow, “sorrow is a sustained note in the song of being alive.”

Interestingly, that book also came out ten years ago and is something I recently began reading after finishing up The Leftovers. Weller observes how our culture has disconnected us from our aliveness, the vitality that allows all of the myriad experiences of a living being interconnected with all other living beings. Yet despite our “amnesia and anesthesia,” our forgetting and numbness, we are still interconnected with all other things and are deeply impacted by what happens to them.

It’s curious how we can so easily be disconnected from our aliveness by denying our grief and sorrow. But our modern culture certainly tries to separate us from the reality of what it means to be truly alive. Despite the glut of messages we receive to suggest we should always be happy and have everything under control, life is actually messy, unpredictable, and mysterious. We have within us the power to allow it to be just that and to have a deeper, more authentic, and compassionate existence, knowing that the 10,000 joys and sorrows, as the Taoists say, all belong. And with it, the knowing that we all belong in a web of life with one another and when one of us is suffering so do we all.

I like thinking that if it all goes to hell in a handbasket and we find ourselves in a post-apocalyptic world, finding our way back to our true nature of aliveness and connection is possible. And if it’s possible then, surely it’s possible now in our “apocalyptic, but not really” times.