Object permanence, powerlessness, and the mystery of the night sky

A monthly malaise

At the start of each month, I get these annoying bouts of malaise, perhaps due to the personal reflections which the start of each month incites, where I get really melancholic.

On object permanence

Way back in January, I told Raghav that I struggled with this concept of object permanence over winter break. It describes how I forget how much my friends care for me when they’re away, similar to the child that cries when their parents cover their eyes before the peek-a-boo. How I can feel so lonely after spending just a day without them.

A chance party

For dutiful bartending exam preparation

I was in the thick of one of these monthly malaises, and on my way to the library, when I fortuitously ran into Lucas and Dan McKeen walking by. They were on their way to buy groceries for Lucas’s party, which he was throwing in preparation for his bartending exam. I didn’t check the office Slack, so I didn’t realize this was even going on. Though I had a late PSET to finish, I decided on a whim to join them.

It was a fun party; there were cocktails, cheese, and crackers; I DJ’ed the jazz music to recreate the exam vibe; Dan Redeker and I made fun of our friend Will for setting timers instead of alarms. I also talked to Raghav for the first time in two weeks—he’d been ignoring my messages, to which he apologized, saying he was going through a nihilist penguin moment.

A conversation with Raghav

Raghav and I left the party together, walking back to our respective houses. It was raining hard that night, and we talked about what we’d been going through in our lives.

Friendship, the struggle for object permanence

I told him about how I had been struggling with a friendship which I had been putting an outsized and unreciprocated amount of effort into, grappling with the feelings of sadness which accompanied it.

He shared his own struggles, bringing up how he too had recently been thinking about the object permanence idea I mentioned, all that time ago. He remarked jokingly that “the teacher has become the student.”

Powerlessness, despair

I kept thinking about why I was still struggling with object permanence even after all this time. Through our conversation, I realized it was because of how insecure I was in my powerlessness.

• Because there exist relationships where despite believing due to XYZ factors my effort is or should be reciprocated, it isn’t.
• Because there exist relationships where I can put in infinite effort, yet due to circumstances beyond my control, they don’t pan out as I hope.

I realized that this powerlessness—my inability to guarantee the longevity of my relationships—is what made me despair. That I can never fully enjoy what I have in fear of always losing it.

A poem on how much you are loved

In response, Raghav recited a poem back to me: One on how it’s tragic that people don’t realize how much they are loved. That you don’t know if your smile walking down the street made it possible for someone else to walk the next few blocks; or how people at the office miss you when you’re gone.

I questioned whether the poem is always truly applicable, because what if someone really isn’t loved by people like that.

But he clarified he likes the poem because he feels that way about the world; because he knows and loves so many cool people, and how he often forgets to tell them how cool they are.

Including me. How even yesterday, he was working in the butler main room, hoping I would be there.

Memories of love

His words warmed my heart. I thought about all of my memories of Raghav, Dan, and the rest of the lab.

• How Raghav bought me bandaids because he threw a snowball a little too hard, accidentally scratching my face.
• How Dan bought me $40 worth of food while I was sick, told me he spent only ten, then blocked me on Venmo after sending me back 30 of what I paid him.
• Even that god awful shake shack coloring page.

Recalling these, I realized maybe the antidote to my malaise were these small moments of love: A collection of memories to draw from when I’m feeling lonely, to remind me of how happy I am to be able to spend time with these people.

The mystery of the night sky

I thought about that conversation with Raghav for a long time, and I texted him my conclusions, which I’d like to leave here as well.

“I decided that just like how releasing ourselves from the burden of perfection allows us to forgive ourselves and live more freely, the world is too complicated to have such simple cause and effect chains. That maybe if we stop expecting our schemas of meaning or morality to perfectly explain the world, then we can be happy in the slow process of unraveling its mystery.

And today I thought of the night sky you showed me how to appreciate. How it’s vast beyond our comprehension yet so beautifully spattered with stars. I think I can view life as something like that.”