Everything is terrible. Even the most overeager contrarians are showing signs of cracking under the perpetual onslaught of rampant illness, unyielding systemic violence, and the predictable in-fighting among social groups predicated on communication no one is willing to work for. Becoming despondent under these conditions is justifiable.

It’s taking a toll on me as I observe more people in my immediate circles spiral into despair and/or rage at the slightest provocation. Problems that once could be worked through are now matches striking and falling on kindling dwelling within the seemingly sensible. Each time I feel this friction I must remind myself that the feeling is temporary. Not every disappointment and momentary upset is the catalyst for a greater rebellion.

But it is difficult communicating why others should spend more time reflecting before they act when action is all they’ve ever known. Or when reality is so hellbent on demoralizing everyone at the moment, not just those of us who’ve only ever known cruelty.

I’ve spent a great deal of my life mitigating dissatisfaction. Anger gnaws at me daily despite my best efforts to not give into the feeling. It comes from an early understanding of the terrible disparity humans inflict on one another, and from watching (and desperately trying to intervene) in the suffering of friends from backgrounds I will never experience but can empathize with. The anger simmers perpetually, occasionally boiling over when I simply cannot be silent or dismissed or told yet again that an observation born out of a lifetime of hypervigilance is too extreme despite it later being proved painfully accurate. It’s a maddening cycle of being painted as too this and woefully not enough of something else.

Despite failing to control this often justified but still problematic rage, I know my success rate is higher than believed. I know the moments I walk back from ledges after spending a few days mulling over my options and the possible solutions to my problems. I know the catharsis of meeting a like-minded person struggling with the same established dysfunction I am and finding hope that perhaps we can work together to finally change it.

Mitigating the raw and amaranthine dissatisfaction of life and passion transcends pithy how-tos and philosophical bandages. It is the agonizing process of identifying and using pain, of denoting injustice and amplifying its causes. This ache is eternal and it whelms in each of us. Some can pacify it with platitudes or willful ignorance but it continues to grow just the same. The dissatisfaction takes root in our consciousness and inspires terrible abuses against those we’re conditioned to dehumanize. Running from the interminable discomfort is the central part of our violence against ourselves and others.

You cannot ignore the pain but you also cannot become so enamored with the feeling of hopelessness and injustice that that is all you know. This mercurial procedure of identifying, knowing, and yet controlling the dissatisfaction we face is a learned skill born from learning how our pain is not all that exists and knowing that we cannot simply claim the pain of others. We have to confront challenges effectively. Sometimes the solution is wholesale destruction, but frequently that can be self-serving and not as effective as it seems. Learning the times to destroy vs the times to work toward change is the secret to not letting reality burn you up.

The next time you feel the shoulder-tensing, brain-burning friction of dissatisfaction priming to ignite, think about why it’s happening. Do not suffer injustice but don’t look for reasons to call something an injustice when it is more likely poorly conducted or designed.

Or be like me, bask in the limitlessness of nothing actually being okay. That’s a less healthy action but I find it oddly calming when all the usual methods fail me.