Desperation

Desperation: A loss of hope and surrender to despair. Alternately, a state of hopelessness leading to rashness.

How are we desperate in our lives?

Desperation is an odd emotion - one of the oddest. Few emotions or conditions can lead to two completely different outcomes: one, a surrendering to despair (inaction); the other, leading to rashness (action).

One of my favorite quotes, the one I put in my daytimer year after year reads "Lord Naoshige said 'The way of the samurai is in desperateness. Ten men or more cannot kill such a man. Common sense will not accomplish great things. Simply become insane and desperate.'" Obviously the collector of the quote, Yamamoto Tsunetomo (himself a samurai), did not record this quote to think about collapsing into a state of despair.

In Iaido, our soke has told us "Practice with desperation". He means, of course, as if we were really contending against an opponent rather than just practicing a form, that such a thing will give an edge to every practice we perform.

Why do I focus on this on this cold Friday morning?

Because desperation will give a man energy when nothing else will.

Desperation will give a man something to do rather than nothing when he is confronted by an intolerable situation. Desperation will cause him to do something - sometimes anything - rather than continue to either accept the status quo or fall into a condition of inner pity and turmoil.

Do not construe I am arguing for rashness here. In that I go against the definition. Certainly desperation can lead to rashness; rashness seldom (if ever) works out well. Instead, I am arguing for the energy and focus that comes from desperation. It needs to be focused and sustained; indeed, there is an argument by which desperation is the tinder for the fire of the soul but not the fuel, which needs to come from goals and objectives, something that we want so badly we will take action to accomplish it.

But without that tinder - without that explosive need for action in the face of despair or hopelessness - we collapse into inaction, into wallowing, into a state where we become useless and ineffective.

Am I desperate in my life? Desperate for the things that matter? Desperate for my dreams and hopes, my goals? Desperate to become all I can be, indeed am supposed to be ("With great power and ability comes great responsibility.") Or, when confronted by situations that hinder me, stop me cold, deny me the easy path, do I simply fall back into the sense of hopelessness only those who perceive themselves powerless can really know?

One is a path to ineffectiveness, to uselessness, to the grey twilight life. The other, though far more difficult, is the road to the glorious purple-orange of the dawn of possibilities.