When you're going through hell...
... keep going. - Winston Churchill
The impossible question about the Middle Passage is: How do I know when I’m on the other side?"
I say “impossible” because that’s the very first thing I asked James Hollis, who authored the concept in his book, The Middle Passage: From Misery to Meaning in Midlife, when Joe and I spoke with him last summer (you’ll hear the conversation soon).
He could not answer.
Not the way I was hoping, at least. You know, a sure sign of progress. A mile marker. A treasure map. Something!
We’ve become so conditioned in this life to be handed the answers, to even the most complex problems, that it feels wrong to not know where you’re headed and keep going anyway.
It’s freaky to think back on how, as a stoner stand-up comic in my twenties, I found my way to hundreds of tiny clubs in small towns with nothing but a paper map. Somehow missing only two shows in nearly a decade (once when I wrecked my car on the icy roads of Chicago, and the other when I was jailed for a small bag of weed in South Carolina).
These days I set the GPS on routes I’ve driven a hundred times “just in case.”
But, the Middle Passage? No GPS. No workbook. No daily calendar with inspiring quotes to flip as you go.
What I can tell you, as a man currently inside the Middle Passage is this: when it begins, everyone will have a theory on “what’s wrong” with you and how to fix it.
“It’s that weird supplement you started taking”… “You’re not getting enough restorative sleep”… “It’s called ‘burnout’, man. Book a vacation.”
So you test all that stuff, and damn if conditions don’t persist.
Even if you are fortunate enough to have friends who care, trying to explain it can feel useless because you still don’t know yourself what it is. Let alone how long it will last, or how or why things will be better on the other side of it.
All you know is, it’s real. And you’ve got to keep going.
That’s the definition of faith: trust in something that cannot be fully proven or controlled.
In S2, Ep. 2, Joe and I talk about the things we thought would be our thing when we were young. Before the pressure to “be responsible” kicked in.
How do you carry faith towards the next thing without allowing everything you’ve built to crumble down behind you?
Let’s explore…
Listen here on Apple Podcast
Listen here on Spotify
See you there,
Kevin
Just listened to Season 2, Episode 2 today. Great stuff. What you stated above…
"What I can tell you, as a man currently inside the Passage is this: when it begins, everyone will have a theory on “what’s wrong” with you and how to fix it.
“It’s that weird supplement you started taking”… “You’re not getting enough restorative sleep”… “It’s called ‘burnout’, man. Book a vacation.”
Got me thinking…
Maybe some of those same people who volunteer to ‘guide us’ through our Middle Passage, or at least people like them who volunteer to ‘guide’ others, are part of the reason people end up in the passage they’re in. Maybe when they thought they found ’their thing,’ they allowed those people to guide/sway us away from it by saying things like, “you’re such a dreamer, be realistic… or no one makes any money doing ______… or that’s so impractical… or who do you think you are thinking you can _____… or you’re not big enough/fast enough/talented enough/smart enough to…”
I definitely let people sway me, unfortunately, from doing some things I was thinking about doing. Some of them I can still pursue, some I can’t because of age and physical limitations.
Just a thought.