Fortitude
noun
courage in pain or adversity.
"she endured her illness with great fortitude"
I was initially going to write an article about how market conditions both on and off the blockchain are affecting creators of all mediums. It might be trending, but it’s not what I want to talk about today. Instead, I’m going to touch on how uncertainty and adversity leads to positive outcomes for those that can learn to overcome them. This is essentially a rude “push through” reminder.
I kept some of the original article below, and re-wrote the rest where I cover the need for pushing through things that are not just financial catastrophes. Face max pain, bump up your mental fortitude, win great prizes.
Max Pain
You will not find any esoteric googoo-gaga toxic positivity here. I don’t think forcing yourself to live/laugh/love is helpful at all, when you wake up one morning to find that all of your money is gone, because some rich dickhead living in the Bahamas decided to use your money for something else. This is not fine.
How we deal with difficult things really depends on the context and weight of the things in question. There are business related woes, relationship stressors, health problems; pick your poison. Sometimes you just step on a lego and it ruins your day. Other times you wake up to your house on fire. Big spectrum, great variety.
When unsurmountable stress presents itself, it generally leads to one of two outcomes:
You are paralyzed, and things get worse. Eventually something gives, and you end up at 2., but with less options.
You figure out a solution based on what options you have, and your life changes for the better if you can execute it. If you can’t, you might end up back at 1., or even back at the drawing board with 2.
Generally if the problem is drastically bad, it will begin to affect other aspects of your life. Example: Dickwad McFutures Exchangeass stole all of your savings, and you are unable to afford your mortgage. The financial stress leaks into being unable to feed your pet dodo bird. The dodo’s suffering leads to your relationship built on the shared love of this beautiful specimen falling apart. You end up going out to party to escape the stress, and end up catching a disease. Now you’re sick, alone, broke, and your dodo bird will die from negligence. Goddamnit Sam.
OK this is a wildly insane way of painting the picture, because dodos are actually extinct, but the rest of it is literally happening to people right now. And many folks are finding themselves having to make some very difficult decisions: they are in a solution finding phase. And once they get past the maximum pain of the situation, the stress is not over just yet; many folks have to start over with their ambitions, goals, finances, etc. Most folks just end up in deeper debt, as the goalposts move further out drastically.
It sucks. Money is problematic. We all just want to buy time to do the things we want to do; money is not the end-goal, it’s the bridge to the things we really want and need.
The Only way is through
I want to skim a few examples of how leveling up in one facet of your life can positively impact other facets. As always, something-something suspension is the example. Suspension is very much about pushing through from beginning to end.
Step 1: Push the needle through the skin (physical)
Step 2: Push the rope through some holes and tie it off safely (more physical)
Step 3: Push yourself mentally through some pain and self-doubt (mental)
Step 4: Push yourself through the fear of facing truth, and subsequent catharsis (mostly emotional)
Step 5: Push yourself through a period of reflection following the experience (psychological in entirety)
Step 6: Push through the bullshit in your life with what you learned (body and mind)
It doesn’t need to be suspension; it can be extreme or non-extreme sports. Chances are you like the rush, but you’re probably not an adrenaline junkie - go for a run, clear your mind, go a little further into clarity every day. Or you know, go get stuck with needles and hooks and blast off like a DMT trip, effectively cramming 3 weeks of cardio into a couple hours of your day.
Either way - just push through. Learn to embrace the fear and discomfort, and put your resoluteness to work. If you’re capable of realizing things are painful, you are not at the limit yet; you’d be passed out if you were.
Fun fact: When overwhelmed with rapid adrenaline release, the body essentially shuts down for a brief moment. This is called fainting. It’s like your body hits a reset switch, and you come back like you never left. And guess what, this is still not your limit. Sometimes you just need to stop everything, take a breath, and reconsider your capacity.
Just push through pal. You can do it, we believe in you.
Misery Loves Company
We build entire communities around suffering and joy. Not to be gloomy doomy about it, but even joy is built on overcoming suffering - the best art, for example, is a result of artists overcoming their problems. Besides, if you didn’t have pain, you wouldn’t have a reference for pleasure, right?
Especially in art driven communities, folks get together over a few overarching topics: appreciation, well-being, and technique. There are more than these, but I’m not about to get on an academic tangent here. Most of the art appreciation comes from a shared quest of beauty (subjective, I know). The well-being comes from a shared need to feel good, and make others feel good (unless we’re dealing with nihilists, and even they are hypocrites because they feel good telling others nothing matters). And lastly, the pursual and development of better techniques, is a massively important contributor to a creative’s self-worth.
If you grow together, you bear pain better as a group, and you adopt more functional coping mechanisms. If you are increasingly mentally prepared to deal with problems, you are increasingly better at each cycle of pain you encounter. Shit, you might even be so good at it, you can see cycles coming and avoid them altogether. (Teach us your ways).
So if you’re leveling up your fortitude, the entire party benefits. And if the entire party benefits, well that benefits you too. This is the kind of cycle you want to be in.
What has leveled up your mental strength?
What do you do to ease your stress levels?
Share with the class, and drop a comment!
I’m kicking off my new podcast, “Transmissions from the Void” on Wednesday, December 7th. I’m going to start with a mix of both free, and paid subscription access recordings.
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If one believes the desperate assumption that someone, or some force is tending the light at the end of the tunnel(and one has to these days), Pain can be a prerequisite for learning and assimilating if you don't get caught in a recursive loop of avoidance resurgence. It does seem that when one faces the music suffering can be alleviated (within reason, i mean im not exactly sure what <a href="[https://youtu.be/0B_vZCLDs-M]">[zombies of Nairobi]</a> have to learn but.... You know).
One thing I've found usefull when faced with shitty circumstances is to make a list of everything you could possibly do, and start doing everything on that list no matter how much you think it won't work. It keeps your mind busy and acknowledges that if you didn't see it comming, you won't know what will actually get you out. At the very least it keeps you calm which is the precursor to making any good decision.