Loss

What we often perceive as loss was never really a gain in the first place. Our minds play tricks on us. Since we have the ability to conceive of an ideal state of stable happiness based on life's material details, we are often disappointed by life's failure to conform to those mental images or concepts. We feel we have lost something we have never really possessed in the first place.

This becomes very evident in personal relationships. Our family structures indoctrinate us into a culture of possession. We are taught that our family of genetic origin has paramount significance in our lives, no matter what else happens to us. People who have been adopted are often tortured by the dissonance they experience with this family notion. They can find it hard to simply accept that they have been loved and raised as well as possible by their adoptive parents. They feel a loss which has had no real impact on their lives. In fact, in many cases, once they have encountered their genetic families after years of research they are even more conflicted and disappointed. Despite their first-hand knowledge that their adoptive parents were far more loving and capable than their genetic parents, they still struggle with a sense of deprivation. 

Parents raise children as their possessions in most cases. Procreation is not seen generally as the bringing forth of a completely independent human being in the making. When the young adult offspring asserts autonomy, parents indulge their feelings of loss of the dependent child. They see this as loss, instead of realizing this was their biological mission from inception. Conscientious human breeding brings the responsibility of understanding the implications of developing a new human being, as opposed to cloning the parents for their vicarious pleasure and gratification.

Death brings out severe mental conflicts over loss. When someone we care about dies, they lose their life. We lose an object of affection. However, this loss can be anticipated from the moment we become affected by another person. Just as the fertilized egg is destined to die some day, we are all destined to be parted by our own deaths. This is not outlandish, weird or bizarre. It is not catastrophic. It is life within the constraints of matter and energy . 

Being a humanist often entails acknowledging that life is what it is, from a scientific perspective. Within ourselves, we understand that we did not decide to be born. We do not decide what factors in our time and lifespan will lead to our eventual deaths. We are perhaps more fortunate than most mammals who are born on the run in order to avoid early death in the jaws of a predator. If those mammals were able to reflect and speak to us about their lives, I believe they would be able to give us a vastly different perspective on loss. 

I think it is very helpful to stay real about what life is about. Our minds and our emotions can wrap us up in a very false sense of reality. We have the capacity to weave and encase ourselves in cocoons of self-delusion. Once we ground ourselves in what is really happening in our lives, we realize that we must change or get more real about ourselves. Then we often set about weaving a new cocoon. Living naked and securely independent in reality is a rough practice, but I believe it is a way to becoming a truly compassionate and mindful human being.