55 years old. Unmarried, unemployed, and depressed: consulting Thoreau about my future

Standing still before the label of a "checkmated life"

Fifty-five years old.
Unmarried.
Unemployed.
Depressed.

When I line them up in four rows like this, I think to myself that it looks like I'm writing the "reasons for rejection" from a resume in advance.

In this world, there is an easy-to-understand label that gets attached the moment these four things align.

—A checkmated life.
—Someone who can no longer turn things around.
—The end result of personal responsibility.

It's not that I wasn't aware of that gaze myself.
Rather, for a long time, I have been the one to anticipate it and attach that label to myself before anyone else could.

So this is not a confession asking you to "look at poor me."
Nor is it a setup to begin a story about how "it's not too late."

I just wanted to see, for once,
whether there is still a question that remains after accepting the gaze of how the world sees me as it is,
and confirm it for myself.

It's not that I thought about seeking life advice.
To be honest, I didn't have the energy left to explain anymore.

Why didn't I get married?
Why couldn't I keep working?
Why won't I get better?
What do I intend to do from here on?

For every question, a "correct answer" is expected.
And that correctness is usually determined by the convenience of society.

I no longer had the physical strength to retake that test.

That is why I did not go to those who have succeeded.
The words of those who have recovered, overcome, or made a comeback were a little too dazzling for me right now.

Instead, what came to mind was a thinker who lived in a small cabin in the woods.

Henry David Thoreau.

He is not a successful person.
He is not a figure who achieved social victory.
He is someone who, in some way, refused to be consumed as a "person who accomplished something."

What he chose was not to win, nor to run away, but to

keep his distance.

A person who stepped back from competition, stepped back from roles, and quietly re-questioned what it means for a human to live in a place where the voice of "this is how you should be" does not reach.

He does not sell hope.
He does not promise a future.
Even so, he is a thinker who never let go of the one thing: where human dignity resides.

I think that what I needed right now was not the encouragement that "you can still do it."

Can a person who has reached this point
still remain a human being?
—it was a
much more fundamental, more basic confirmation than that.

That is why I
decided to go to the woods.

Not to rebuild my life.
Not to become positive.

Simply,
in front of the label of a "checkmated life,"
to stop just once,
and to ask Thoreau
whether that is truly the truth.

Chapter 1 | The Reason for Going to the Woods—As a Person Who Has Run Out of Energy to Explain

To be frank,
I was no longer in a state to "consult" anyone.

The term 'life consultation'
has certain prerequisites.
—Being able to explain the situation.
—Being able to organize the problems.
—Having the stamina to receive advice.

None of those
remained in me now.

When I try to explain,
my chest feels heavy.
When I try to choose my words,
I am struck by the feeling that I am justifying myself,
or perhaps making excuses.

Why did it come to this?
Where did I go wrong?
What did I actually want to do?

These may indeed
be important questions.
However,
for a person who has run out of the strength to even pose questions,
that importance itself can become a form of violence.

I wanted to
step down from the task of organizing my life into an "explainable form"
for a while.

Therefore,
the reason I went to the woods
was not to get advice.

It was to confirm.

Is there any place left in this world
where I don't have to explain myself
any further?

While putting effort, growth, and recovery
on hold for a moment,
does a point exist where I can still stand as a human being?

To perform that confirmation,
the words of successful people are not suitable.

Successful people
inevitably complete their stories.
Failures become foreshadowing,
suffering is given meaning,
and in the end, it is all collected into a conclusion of "I'm glad it worked out."

But I
did not want to complete my story yet.
Or rather,
I didn't have the energy to complete it.

That was why
Henry David Thoreau's cabin
came to my mind.

That cabin is
not a symbol of success.
It is not a monument to victory either.

It is
a space that has temporarily withdrawn from the speed of society.

Find an answer quickly,
get back on your feet quickly,
you're falling behind, catch up,
there's still time—

He placed his dwelling at a distance
where such voices could not reach.

What matters is
not the reason he went into the woods.
Whether he 'fled' to the woods
or 'chose' them,
such judgments are irrelevant.

What is important is
the fact that he actually lived in a place
where one's very existence is not denied
even if one temporarily puts society's demands on hold.

While picturing that cabin,
I was thinking.

Here,
is it okay not to become someone?
Even if I'm not useful,
even if I can't explain myself,
even if I'm not positive,
will I be forgiven
just for existing?

I might not get
an answer that turns my life around.
However,
the perspective that it's okay not to turn my life around
is something I might be able to confirm here
.

That was enough.

This place is
not a place to motivate myself.
It is not a place to get myself back on track either.

It is a place to confirm
whether I can manage
to stop driving myself any further.

That is why I
went to the woods.

Not for self-improvement.
Not for the sake of a resolution to start over.

Simply,
to confirm, just once,
a point where a person who has run out of the energy to explain themselves
can still stand.

Chapter 2 | "I don't want anything anymore"

Upon arriving at Thoreau's cabin,
I did not give a long explanation.

Fifty-five years old, unmarried, unemployed, depressed—
I can list that information in order.
But the moment I list it,
I sense the other person's eyes beginning to search for 'causes' and 'solutions'.

I no longer wanted
to be on a scorecard of causes,
nor did I want to be handed a menu of solutions.

So I
said it in the shortest words possible.

"I don't want anything anymore."

The moment I said it,
I was a little surprised myself.
If you say something like this,
usually you're either scolded or encouraged.

However, Thoreau,
without showing a look of comfort or encouragement,
simply said as if to confirm.

"That might not be a defeat."

And he continued.

"Did you stop wanting things because
your desires have withered away?
Or are you just tired of being made to want things?"

I couldn't answer right away.

1. Have my desires withered, or am I just tired of being made to want?

The phrase "I have no desires" is
often treated as having the same meaning as "I have no will to live."

However,
what I had truly lost
might not have been desire itself.

Rather, what I had lost was
the owner of the words that express desire itself.

Come to think of it,
many of the things I had called "desires" until now
were templates offered from the outside.

You should get married.
You should keep working.
You should be useful.
You should keep growing.

Those "shoulds,"
before I knew it, I had taken them into my heart,
and mistaken them for "my desires."

And that misunderstanding
makes you more tired the longer it lasts.

Because,
no matter how many of those desires you fulfill, it never ends.
Even if you achieve one, the "next" one is presented,
and the moment you stop, it's called "laziness."

Before I knew it,
the very act of continuing to have desires
had become a task of continuing to meet someone else's expectations.

That is why I
have been letting go of my "desires" one by one.

I let go of the story of marriage.
I let go of the story of labor.
I let go of the story of utility.
I let go of the story of growth.

As a result,
what remained was "lack of desire."

But it was less like a desert-like void,
and more like the ache in my shoulders after setting down a heavy load.

I wouldn't say it felt lighter.
It was just that,
it became clear that I could no longer carry it.

2. A perspective that it is not a defeat—'not wanting' is not giving up

In the words of society,
I must look like someone who has 'given up'.

However,
there are two types of giving up.

One is the kind of giving up where you let go of something you truly desired,
after being hurt.

The other is the kind of giving up where you finally return a desire
that was never yours to begin with.

My 'not wanting'
was probably the latter.

It's not that I don't want.
I became unable to continue being made to want.

This difference might seem small.
But here, the subject changes.

'I do not want anything'
—within those words,
the subject returns, even if just a little.

In a life where you are made to want,
the subject is always outside.
Parents, society, peers, the atmosphere, common sense.
Even though it is my life,
'I' always arrive late.

But the moment I declare 'I do not want,'
I stand in the position of the subject for once.

It is not a proud victory.
Rather, it is a small reclamation after exhaustion.

Even so,
Thoreau's words suggested this:

'Not wanting' can be read not as a defeat in life, but as a process of reclaiming the subject of desire
.

And I thought.

The 'burnout' that many people today suffer from
might not just be a problem of being busy.

I have always been made to want.
I have always been placed on the rails of expectation.
I have always been asked to continue the correct narrative.

At the end of that,
one day, the desire simply fades away.

At that moment, a person thinks,
"I am broken."
"I have no value."

But there is another way to read it.

--It is not that hope has vanished.
--It is just that the structure that forced those desires upon you has reached its limit.

When you think of it that way,
"lack of desire" is not a void,
but appears as the silence left after an excessive burden has fallen away.

Of course,
silence is not necessarily salvation.
However,
just by having a perspective that does not immediately label that silence as a "failure,"
one can manage not to treat oneself so poorly.

The silence of Thoreau's cabin
was that kind of silence.

I still do not know
if I will ever be able to desire anything again.

But at the very least,
I might be able to avoid calling myself
a "finished person" for being unable to desire.

With just that possibility,
my breathing returned just a little.

Chapter 3 | "I have become depressed" -- The assessment of not having become dull

After saying "I have no hope" in the second chapter,
I paused for a moment and told them one more thing.

"I have become depressed."

This phrase is strange.
The moment you say it, the air changes.
The temperature of the conversation changes.
A "handle with care" tag is placed on you in the other person's mind.

And the reaction that follows is usually predictable.

It's all in your mindset.
You'll get better if you rest.
You should exercise.
You're overthinking it.
Are you taking your medicine?
Are you sleeping properly?

These are all likely well-intentioned.
But beneath that goodwill, another premise shows through.

--In short, you must have been weak.
--You must have failed to adapt well.

I did not have the words to resist that.
I had neither the strength to argue nor the power to explain.
So until now,
I have just smiled vaguely and said, "I suppose so," to end the conversation.

Would Thoreau say something similar?
I wondered.

But he said, without even moving an eyebrow.

"It is not because you were weak.
It is because you did not become dull."

Those words were not encouragement.
Nor were they comfort.
They were something colder, more precise—a different classification.

1. Do not speak of illness as a character flaw—see it as a matter of sensitivity, not weakness

The pain of the word "depression"
is not just in the symptoms themselves.

It is because, before you know it,
it is substituted for an evaluation of your character.

Lazy.
Self-indulgent.
Lacking backbone.
Socially maladjusted.
Mentally weak.

Even if those words aren't said to your face,
they drift in the air.

And above all,
you end up saying them to yourself.

For a long time, I lived by the formula
"depression equals my own defect."
Because it's a defect, I hide it.
Because I hide it, I become isolated.
Because I am isolated, it gets worse.

This cycle is less like a symptom of an illness
and more like a cage built by the language society uses to describe illness.

Thoreau's words punched a hole in that cage.

See it not as weakness, but as a matter ofsensitivity.
See it not as being broken, but asfailing to become completely dull.

The sensitivity I speak of here
is not the delicacy of a poet.
It is something more primitive—a bodily sensor.

When you pile hardship upon hardship, you feel pain.
You feel absurdity as absurdity.
You feel falsehood as falsehood.

Society sometimes says
that those sensors are "in the way."
Don't feel, don't care, get used to it, it says.

But getting used to things
is often just "training yourself not to feel."

In other words, adaptation
is often another name forparalysis.

Thoreau neither affirms nor denies this.
He simply said, "You did not manage to become completely paralyzed."

In that moment,
something inside me unraveled.

It wasn't that I was bad,
but that my sensors were working until the very end.
When put that way,
depression changes its form from a "character flaw"
into an alarm for overload.

2. The Violence of Speed—Adaptation as Numbness, and the Dignity of Those Who Stop

Thoreau continued.

“To adapt to society is also to
numb your senses.
But those who could not numb everything
stop along the way.”

“Those who stop are not dropouts.
They have simply stepped off the violence of speed.”

I was struck by this word, “speed.”

Speed.
It is the very atmosphere of the modern age.

Reply quickly.
Produce results quickly.
Heal quickly.
Earn money quickly.
Recover quickly.
Move on quickly.

Speed is always linked to being right.
Those who are slow are considered lazy.
Those who stop are considered worthless.

However, I want to consider one thing here:
Is speed truly a virtue?

There are things you can see by moving fast.
But there are also things you stop seeing by moving fast.
Pain, fatigue, discomfort, sadness.
They usually cannot keep up with the speed.

In order to match the speed of society,
people discard them.
They pretend not to feel them.
Eventually, they get used to not feeling.

That is what is called adaptation.

But that adaptation is also
a contract to surrender your own senses.

I could not keep signing that contract.
One day, my body stopped.
My heart stopped.
My words stopped.

I had always called that stopping a “defeat.”
But Thoreau offered a different vocabulary.

It was not a defeat, but rather
stepping off the violence.

Speed can be a form of violence.
This realization was significant for me.

Violence is not just physical assault.
It is driving people on.
It is not allowing them to rest.
It is constantly saying, “Don’t stop.”
It is making them say, “It’s your fault for stopping.”

That kind of pressure
can erode a person from the inside.

If so, then stopping
has a different meaning.

Stopping in your tracks is
not an abandonment of productivity.
It is not a lack of willpower either.

It is a dignity to keep yourself from breaking any further.

I am not yet
trying to turn my depression into a beautiful story.
The pain remains pain.
There is no easy outlook on whether it will heal or not.

However,
when I can only describe this illness with the vocabulary of "dropping out,"
I am wounded twice over.

Wounded by the symptoms,
and wounded by the meaning assigned to them.

What Thoreau gave me was
not a cure,
but a perspective to distance myself from the violence of such interpretations.

It was a small salvation.

"A person who has stopped" has dignity.
That one sentence
helped steady my breathing just a little.

※ A quick note: The text up to this point is a presentation of a philosophical viewpoint, not medical advice. If you are currently in a critical situation, such as having strong suicidal ideation or being unable to maintain your daily life, your top priority is to connect with real-world support, such as your primary doctor or local consultation services. Your suffering is not the kind that can be contained by words alone.

Chapter 4 | "How should I live from now on?"

Even after receiving the words "the dignity of a person who has stopped" in Chapter 3,
reality does not become any lighter.

Dignity is not a painkiller.
Much less will it pay for living expenses.
It does not directly give me the strength to get out of bed in the morning.

That is why I,
in the end, uttered the oldest and cruelest question.

"How should I live from now on?"

Rather than expecting an answer,
I think I was afraid of sinking while holding onto this question.

1. The weight of being fifty-five—there is no "next story" prepared

For the suffering of the young,
society still has a "story" prepared.

You can start over.
You can redo it.
You can make up for it.
It's just the beginning.

But when you reach fifty-five,
many of those words suddenly fade.

Of course, in reality, people can change at any age.
You can begin. You can start over.
I understand that with my head.

However, society shows a different face.
It does not bother to provide a thoughtful narrative
for the "future" of a fifty-five-year-old.

If you have lost your job,
the word "gap" comes up.
If you say you have depression,
the condition "once you recover" is attached first.
If you say you are unmarried,
an atmosphere of "it's too late now" drifts in.

And that atmosphere
does not just pierce from the outside.
It also wells up from within oneself.

What is there to do now?
Who needs it?
What can be built up?
Where can I go?
Isn't it already too late?

I held a bundle of those questions.

Recovery takes time.
If you rush, it can sometimes get worse.
Starting over also takes time.
But time is finite,
and fifty-five is also an age where that finiteness is visible.

In the face of that reality,
the question of "how should I live"
sometimes becomes a pressure rather than a hope.

How should I live?
—in other words, how can I be useful?
How can I rebuild?
How can I return to normal?
How can I create the next story?

Feeling as if that is what is being asked of me,
I felt suffocated.

2. Thoreau's reversal answer—you don't have to think about "how to live"

Hearing my question,
Thoreau paused for a moment.

And then, he said this.

"You no longer need to think about 'how to live'."

For a moment, I didn't understand the meaning.
Even though I am currently seeking that very answer.

But he continued.

"Instead,
just decide 'how much of the world you will take on'."

These words
do not present a "goal" for life.
They are not a to-do list, nor a formula for success.

Rather the opposite,
they were words to untangle what you are taking on too much of.

The question of how to live
immediately summons "everything".

You should work.
You should earn money.
You should be healthy.
You should return to society.
You should interact with people.
You should plan for the future.

Everything, everything, everything.

However,
for someone in the process of recovering from depression,
"everything" becomes poison.
Or rather, "everything" is inherently poison to any human being.

What I need at fifty-five is
not to paint an ideal image of myself and run toward it, but
to break down the world's demands into smaller pieces instead.

What Thoreau means by "taking on"
does not mean to become morally kind.

It does not mean to strengthen your sense of responsibility, either.

It is a more practical
matter of load.

I will not take on all of society's expectations.
I will not take on all of my family's narrative.
I will not take on all the demands to "be normal."
I will not take on all the impatience that "the faster the recovery, the better."

Instead,
I will take on only what I can handle.

What I can do today.
The stimulation I can endure today.
The range within which I, today, will not break.

In other words, what is being presented here
is not a guideline for action, but a philosophy of load adjustment.

It was then that I realized
I had been misunderstanding something for a long time.

Under the guise of asking "how to live,"
I was actually just reading aloud
a verdict that said, "You must live properly."

But Thoreau tore up that verdict.

You don't have to ask "how to live."
Instead,
decide "how much you will take on."

This is not an order to advance.
It is not permission to retreat, either.
It is a more intermediate, more human decision.

This much for today.
This much for this week.
This much for this relationship.
This much for this information.
This much for this expectation.

Being able to say "this much."
That will be the practical art of living
for me at fifty-five.

And finally, Thoreau
said this calmly:

"Your job is
to stop treating yourself poorly from now on."

Job.
That word remained in my heart.

It is not what society calls "work."
It is not work that can be written on a resume.
It is not work that leads directly to income.

However,
for someone in the midst of recovery,
I believe it is the most difficult and most essential work of all.

*Note: This chapter presents the perspective of "load adjustment" and is not medical advice. If you are currently in a situation so difficult that you cannot maintain your daily life, or if you have strong suicidal ideation, your top priority is to connect with real-world support such as your primary physician or local consultation services.

Chapter 5 | The affirmation that you don't have to become anyone

In Chapter 4, Thoreau said,
"Decide how much of the world you will take on."

As I ruminated on those words,
I thought about what I had been "taking on too much" of.

Life, the future, society.
Of course, those are part of it.
But there was something more deep-seated.

**The command to "become someone."**

It is not heard as a voice.
However, it has permeated our inner selves
almost like a religion.

You only have value if you become someone.
You are only trusted if you have a title.
You are only respected if you have achievements.
Your existence is only permitted if you contribute.

Fifty-five years old. Unmarried. Unemployed. Depressed.
The reason these four lines sting is
because the state of "being no one" shows through them.

And "being no one"
is always treated like a punishment.

Thoreau spoke as if to break the logic of that punishment.

"Being no one at fifty-five is not a shame."

I could not accept those words immediately.
Because for a long time,
I had driven myself using the feeling of "shame."

Working to avoid shame.
Pushing myself to avoid shame.
Smiling to avoid shame.
Giving agreeable answers to avoid shame.

That is how I
kept pretending to be "someone."

But let me consider one thing here.
Was that effort truly my own?

Redefining "being no one"

"Being no one" is not worthless.
It is simply difficult to measure by society's standards.

Society prefers things that can be measured.
Annual income, job type, position, performance, follower count, educational background, qualifications.
Things that cannot be measured are often treated as if they 'do not exist'.

However, the core of a human being usually lies on the side that cannot be measured.

What you have endured.
What has broken you.
The fact that you survived anyway.
The nights you held on without showing anyone.
The fact that you did not completely abandon yourself when things were not going well.

Such things cannot be proven.
They cannot be written on a resume.
Yet, they certainly shape a human being.

What Thoreau's words indicated was not to erase 'being nobody', but a perspective of looking at

what remains even after removing the condition of 'being somebody'as a point of view.

In other words, what is being affirmed here is not success, but
the lifting of the conditions of existence.

The position of a person who did not sell themselves out

Thoreau continued, saying something like this:

“Rather, only those who did not sell themselves out to become somebody are standing there.”

This statement is also cruel.
Because we are all, to a greater or lesser extent,
living by selling ourselves out.

Going along with the atmosphere.
Playing the character that is expected.
Swallowing words to avoid friction.
Passing off unreasonable things as 'normal'.

That is also a technique for social life.
It cannot be completely denied.

However, when the selling out goes too deep,
people lose their own outlines.
“What do I dislike?”
“What is painful to me?”
That sense begins to go numb.

This is a continuation of the discussion about 'becoming dull' that appeared in Chapter 3.

I, who became depressed,
probably stopped at the point where the selling out exceeded my limit.
I had no choice but to stop.

That is not a victory to be proud of.
It is not a story to boast about.
But, in the end,
I did not continue selling myself out indefinitely,
and on that point alone, perhaps I am still on the side of being human.

Thoreau's words were scooping up a dignity that can only be scooped up in that way.

The evaluation of not being tamed, even if you didn't change the world

When we talk about 'value',
we tend to jump immediately to world-scale topics.

Did you change society?
Did you save someone?
Did you accomplish something?
Did you have an influence?

And those who are not are
pushed to the side of "doing nothing."

But Thoreau places a different scale there.

“You may not have changed the world.
But you were not tamed by the world.”

The terror of these words lies in the fact that
what is being evaluated here is
not achievement, butrelationship.

What kind of relationship did you form with the world?
To what extent did you follow the world's demands, and where did you refuse?
To what extent did you ride the world's speed, and where did you get off?

That is hard to see from the outside.
Therefore, it is difficult to register on society's scale of evaluation.

However, within a human being,
it becomes a decisive difference.

To be tamed by the world means
“continuously adjusting your own senses to fit the world's convenience.”
Not calling pain, pain.
Not calling discomfort, discomfort.
Not calling suffering, suffering.

Those who succeed in that adjustment
are considered socially "adapted."
But at the same time, they lose something.

I stopped along that path.
By stopping,
I lost my livelihood, my social standing, and my prospects for the future.

Even so,
if there is something that remained without being lost,
it was probably
the sense of not being able to fully dismiss my own pain as "nothing".

Thoreau called that "not being tamed."

The final departure from the narrative of success/influence/contribution

What is happening in this chapter
is not about becoming positive.
It is not about regaining motivation.

It is something quieter.

Stepping down from the condition
of "having to be someone".

Just because you step down,
it doesn't mean you will immediately feel at ease.
In fact, your anxiety might increase.
Because a place without conditions also has no footing.

Yet, there are people who can only breathe
in a place without conditions.

I am probably that kind of person.

The phrase "you don't have to be anyone"
is not an indulgence.
Nor is it a denial of effort.

It is
a final permit to withdraw
offered to those who are tired of supporting their existence through 'achievements'.

And when that permit is granted,
a person can, for the first time,
live based on the standard of 'Can I stay unbroken today?'
rather than 'Can I become someone?'

I think that is what
Thoreau meant when he said that is enough.

*Note: This is a philosophical reinterpretation and not a substitute for medical care or treatment. If you are currently in a critical situation, such as being unable to maintain your daily life or having strong suicidal ideation, your top priority should be to connect with real-world support, such as your primary doctor or local consultation services.

Chapter 6 | The Way Home—Receiving Permission, Not Hope

When I left the cabin,
the air was a little cold.

The forest does not change dramatically.
Only the angle of the light is different,
the trees stand as trees.
The path continues as a path.

And I, too,
had not changed dramatically.

I hadn't found a job.
My depression hadn't been cured.
The future hadn't become brighter.
Not a single piece of evidence to say 'I'm okay' had been added.

So,
on this way home, I asked myself again.

—What was I seeking when I came here?

A path to success?
A way to recover?
A procedure to rebuild my life?

No.

I think that from the beginning,
I wasn't looking for 'hope'.

What I wanted was not hope

The word 'hope' is
often beautiful.
But sometimes, it also becomes a form of violence.

Have hope.
Look forward.
Don't give up.
You can still do it.

When those words come from the mouth of someone healthy,
they look like a gift of goodwill.
However, when you cannot stand,
hope becomes a whip.

Because I, who cannot hold onto hope,
become doubly disqualified.

Even though I am suffering,
even the way I suffer is being graded.

Even though I cannot stand,
I am even blamed for not being able to stand up.

I was in such a place for a long time.
A place where I judged
my own 'self that does not try to get better'.

So, if there was something I desired,
it was not hope.

Hope is a word for the future.
But what I needed was
a word for survival in this very moment.

The perspective that you don't have to fight

While walking in the forest,
I suddenly realized.

That I had been fighting all along.

Fighting society.
Fighting my own weakness.
Fighting laziness.
Fighting my age.
Fighting my illness.

The word 'fight' turns
living into a noble story.
But at the same time,
it keeps life in a constant state of tension.

A person who keeps fighting
cannot rest.
Losing is not permitted.
Retreating is not permitted either.

And for a person with depression,
'Fight' can become the worst possible command.

I have no strength to fight.
Yet I am told to fight.
I blame myself for not being able to fight.
I get tired from blaming myself.
I get so tired I cannot move.

This cycle
erodes human dignity
even before the symptoms do.

What Thoreau gave me
was not a weapon to win a fight.

It was a shift in perspective,
that I don't have to fight.

That is not an affirmation of laziness.
Nor is it a denial of effort.

It is simply
a declaration not to make my own survival a 'war'.

The weight of the sentence, 'You are not a failure as a human being if you get off here'

On my way home,
the words that had remained deep in my chest
rose up as a single sentence.

Even if you get off here, you are not a failure as a human being.

Why does this one sentence
weigh so heavily?

Perhaps it is because I
have been telling myself
the exact opposite for so long.

If I get off here, I'm a failure.
If I stop here, it's the end.
If I rest here, I'm lazy.
If I give up here, I have no value.

In short, I
was living in a world where getting off was forbidden.

However, humans are
by nature, creatures that get off.

Getting off does not mean throwing it all away.
Getting off means
putting down a burden
that is heavier than your own strength.

Getting off means
getting off the train of someone else's expectations
at an intermediate stop.

Getting off means
listening to the voice of your body
saying, 'I can't go any further.'

That natural act
is easily labeled as 'defeat' in society.

But what I received in Thoreau's cabin was not victory as the antonym of defeat,
but a permission that exists outside the vocabulary of defeat.

It's okay to get off.
It's okay to stop.
It's okay if you can't do it right now.
Even so, you are still human.

When you receive this permission,
you can finally stop treating yourself so harshly.

For the first time here,
I felt I could detach the word 'living'
from talk of achievement or recovery,
and embrace it simply as survival.

As the exit of the forest came into view,
I understood a little bit.

What I wanted was not
the words, 'You can still fight.'
Nor was it the prophecy, 'It will surely get better.'

It was simply
the perspective that even if I get off here, I am not a failure as a human being.
perspective.

When you have this perspective,
even if life doesn't take a turn for the better,
you become less likely to break.

And becoming less likely to break
is, at times, a more realistic salvation than anything else.

In the end,
I think it was permission, not hope,
that brought me back home.

Conclusion | Existing here as a person who has taken distance from the stories of society

Fifty-five years old.
Unmarried.
Unemployed.
Depression.

I will write these four lines once more.

When I first wrote them,
these words
were pointed at me like blades.

Words that speak for society's judgment.
Words used to judge myself
before I am even asked to explain.

But now,
when I look at the same four lines,
the meaning seems to have changed just a little.

This is
not proof of a 'checkmated life'.

It is simply
the current location of a person who has quietly distanced themselves from the narrative prepared by society
that itindicates.

I no longer
intend to try to be positive.

Because being positive
often becomes synonymous with
'meeting expectations'.

I will not force myself to look for hope.
I will not force myself to find light.
I will not force myself to assign meaning.

Today is dark.
Today is heavy.
Today I can do nothing.

Even if there are days like that,
I will not label them as 'wrong'.

There is no need to rush recovery.

Recovery is not a competition.
A slow recovery
is not an inferior recovery.

I will not measure myself
by the binary choice of cured or not cured.

It is okay to have days where I don't even know
if I am in the middle of getting better
or in the middle of getting worse.

A person's body and mind
do not move like a graph.

Days of standing still,
and days of moving backward,
are all included within the same time.

It is okay not to be useful.

These words
are not an excuse for laziness.

It is simply a declaration to
remove 'utility' from the conditions of existence
.

There are days when I cannot be useful.
There are periods when I am of no use to anyone.
Even so, one does not have to disappear.

You do not have to bring the logic of a society
that does not count useless people as human
into your own heart.

Having written this far,
there is one thing
I can say clearly.

My life has not taken a turn for the better.
My situation remains difficult.
The anxiety and the pain have not disappeared.

Even so,

I am here.

That is all.

You do not have to overwrite the fact that you are here
with achievements, meaning, or hope.

You do not have to explain
existence itself.

Society
demands a narrative.

A story of success.
A story of recovery.
A story of a comeback.
A moving story.

However,
not every life
needs to become a story.

A life that got off along the way.
A life that stopped in its tracks.
A life that gave up on explanations.

These
are not failures.

They are simply
lives that were not reclaimed by a narrative.

I have
taken some distance
from society's narrative.

I have not left it completely.
A day may come when I return.
Or it may not.

I do not have to decide that
right now.

You do not have to be positive today.
You do not have to rush your recovery today.
You do not have to be useful today.

Even so,
I am here.

Holding onto only that fact,
I think I will close this screen today.

And that,
is enough.