The Data Dude – Dark Nights of the Soul

In an earlier post, I postulated that the philosophy of author Thomas Moore (Dark Night of the Soul: A Guide to Finding Your Way Through Life’s Ordeals) seems to me to be a formidable alternative (or response) to my own intermittent struggles with pessimism. The obvious question is: How on earth might this relate to libraries? Read on, but for the time being, I believe it is necessary to expound on some ideas to further relate what’s been on my mind. It’s at least important to me, and it may also be important to you. Who Knows? If you don’t think so and would rather not waste your time on the filler material, skip to the last two paragraphs (that’s the library part). If this is a ride you’d rather not be on, no offense if you leave right now. Hey, at least I’m not bugging you about a survey. According to Vered Arnon, Nietzsche repeatedly stressed that nihilism is a “transitional stage”. It is a facilitator for a reevaluation of one’s values, or a new way of thinking about who we are. The freedom comes in accepting the reality of this transition. In her Radiolab podcast, Brooke Gladstone summarizes the Sisyphean nature of this: “I think there are cycles in which the sense of meaningless comes out in sharper relief than other times, but you can identify them over and over again.” I’m learning that trying to avoid my own dark nights and failing to realize the transitional or perhaps synthesizing effect they might have on my life only leads to more despair. The recognition of the importance of this synthesis is an essential catalyst to help discover self, soul, true diversity, community, and empathy.  Part of this discovery involves expression in one form of another. I am extremely grateful for the opportunity for self-expression in the form of this blog (throwing in a bit of gratitude doesn’t hurt, either). Again, Brooke Gladstone:

“Camus [said] that the best response is to rebel. Rebel against death, create life on your own terms. Build it for yourself. And one way or another we do. Sometimes we don’t live a very conscious life. But we’re living life. I just think that, this time if anything, we have just grown vaguely uncomfortable in this life that seems so chaotic. But in our lives barely touches us. Essentially, we’re taking in the world through the media. So it may feel more deadening, but it’s less intense. If you had to confront it because the conditions of your life have just crumbled to dust and your beliefs can no longer be sustained, I bet you’d have more energy for it.”

Part of my purpose in posting these blogs (in addition to it being somewhat cathartic for myself and hopefully somewhat informative for you) is an attempt to relate a certain sense of trust, uniformity, significance, purpose, and relationship. I think that this has the potential to be applicable for libraries, how your run your shops, and how you relate to your library visitors and each other. Most of us librarians feel an overwhelming sense of commitment to community. Some of us have lost touch with that, including where we live, the individual persons we serve, the larger community events, places, and being (and feeling) connected. I’d like to think the library story can be more than the things (physical, digital, and virtual) offered, and more than the tools used to tell the story (inforaphics, graphs, and statistics). While the things (physical, digital, and virtual) are essential parts of the library’s existence, they tell us nothing about the real world we live in. The things and services that libraries provide can be important catalysts in building community, connectedness, and soul among individuals, but it requires the individuals working independently of all the stuff that libraries offer. The stuff only provides more opportunity for connection. By their nature, libraries should function as empathetic places that can facilitate these individual and collective life transformations. Sometimes, this can be as simple as providing a book for someone to read (e.g. my Dark Nights of the Soul example); other times it might be providing a safe place that offers opportunities to feed compassion (either staff/visitor, visitor/visitor, or staff/staff); still at other times, it might be community sponsored events by the library that build relationships between people. I’ve heard of some great library programs in Nebraska where librarians go out in the community for events that build these kinds of relationships instead of waiting behind the desk for someone to wander in. One very important factor is acknowledging that those who frequent libraries (or who may be coming to them for the first time), might be in the middle of their own Dark Night of the Soul, and might have few other places to turn. Or they just might choose to turn to the library in an auxiliary fashion, even though there are other places or support systems that are available to them. Either way, providing a warm, welcoming, non-judgmental environment is essential to this self-discovery. I suppose one of the reasons I mention this is to acknowledge my own day to day doldrums and routines. Annie Dillard, in The Writing Life, concluded that: “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” It might be worth noting that I think we often get caught up in trying to find a larger, higher meaning in our lives, or suffer greatly if we don’t think we’ve found or achieved it. Simplicity should be something that is valued and cherished, rather than something that is underrated or unappreciated. Most, if not all, work is inherently meaningless. Iyeshka Farmer sums this up much better than I can: “It is not our work that gives meaning to our lives. It is our living fully, deep in awareness of our Being, our values, and our vision, that gives meaning to our work-regardless of what that work is.” Shaka.