The Antidote to Despair: Grief Part 2

Issue 45/ July 2025

Read time: 8 minutes

The Shift

The Antidote

This week brought devastating news, and alongside it, a million questions I know will go unanswered. As I wrestle with mortality, I keep returning to a line from Midnight in Paris:

In the film, it's spoken by Gertrude Stein, but in case you were wondering, the quote is attributed to Woody Allen’s scriptwriting rather than Stein. Nevertheless, it resonates because before I became a therapist, I was an artist. I still am. I lived in Los Angeles for over a decade, acting, writing, and making films.

And when life threatens to collapse into despair, when hopelessness and meaninglessness rise like floodwater, my instinct is to search for the antidote.

Without that instinct, I imagine creating would feel nearly impossible, and I doubt I could show up fully, let alone be an effective therapist.

It seems no matter where I find myself in life, despair is still despair. It’s horrifying. Grief is nauseating. And the pain feels too brutal, too cruel, to be real. This must be the raw edge of human existence.

And when we brush up against that edge, many of us understandably slip into denial. We sugarcoat. We look away. We distract. And honestly, it’s completely understandable—staying in contact with that brute-force intensity for any prolonged period is overwhelming, even unbearable.

But what I’ve found, over and over again, is that the work, the calling, is to face it. To stare into the abyss long enough to name what lives there.

For the artist, the job isn’t just to endure despair, but to translate it. To give it a shape, a sound, a story.

The artist wrestles, bleeds, collapses, cries out, gets back up, and what’s left on the canvas, the page, the screen, the stage — is the record of that struggle.

Art is the alchemical residue of profound emotional and existential friction.

We likely wouldn’t have Dostoevsky, Sylvia Plath, or Radiohead without despair. They have faced what we all must face.

I have seen artists take many forms. It’s not just the writer or the musician or the painter. This capacity to engage and offer connection lives in all of us.

The single mother who, exhausted and heartbroken, still shows up each morning for her children.

The teacher who senses the despair behind a child’s silence and chooses not to punish, but to ask, Are you okay?

The former addict who, after years of wrestling with their demons, becomes a sponsor for someone younger.

The community organizer in a neighborhood plagued by violence, who gathers people around shared meals.

The boss who offers dignity in the middle of layoffs.

The neighbor who introduces themselves, breaking the quiet wall of disconnection.

So what’s the antidote I have found?

First: To face the abyss.

To acknowledge the horror, the pain, the injustice, the fragility, the inhumanity, the silence.

As James Baldwin wrote:

“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”

To face the abyss is to live in truth, even when that truth is nearly unbearable. It’s what Buddhist teacher Pema Chödrön calls “leaning into the sharp points.”

Second: To play anyway.

To find wonder. To stay curious. To stay present. To connect. To create.

To play is to reclaim freedom in a world that demands survival. And play calls out for connection.

Nietzsche once said that “we should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once.”

And so you keep putting one foot in front of the other, and consider it a dance.

On the days when the abyss is too much, when you can’t transmute despair, when you can’t shape the suffering into anything coherent or beautiful. When despair is so thick, so totalizing, that the will to gesture, to care, to create, is simply gone.

In those seasons, a breath is enough. Allow someone else to carry the torch for you. Let them bear the weight. And let yourself be witnessed by someone who loves you.

The Essentials

Your Weekly Toolkit

HEADSPACE

If you’re looking for a gentle, approachable way to bring more calm, I highly recommend the Headspace app. It offers guided meditations, sleep support, mindful movement, and beautiful animations that make it feel like a warm, steady companion. Right now, it’s 40% off for an annual subscription.

LEARN MORE →

100 TIPS FOR A BETTER LIFE

A curated, bite‑sized collection of practical, brain-friendly advice inspired by the rationalist community. I just found it interesting. If you’re hungry for grounded insights—micro-hacks, mindset shifts, or tiny experiments that nudge life forward, it’s a good read.

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QUESTIONS

Alexey Guzey is an independent researcher in cognitive science, economics, and science philanthropy, and he curated a list of deep questions. It’s not a blog filled with answers, but an open-ended invitation into thought experiments. The English is a little off in places but many of the questions are excellent reminders.

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