Tuesday, February 11, 2025
The inspiration for this post is a song. As some of you might know, I have been going through an especially difficult period in my life. During this time I've been listening to some music that could best be described as "introspective."" Most of it would fit well in a "Depresh Sesh" playlist. Although I think listening to depressive music when you're down is healthy to some degree, to feel what we're feeling, I am aware it can be overdone. During this foray into some more depressive music, I came across the 1994 album The Downward Spiral by NIN. I've long been familiar with Johnny Cash's 2003 cover of the albums' closing track Hurt, a beautiful and poignant cover, with Cash a mere months from Cash meeting his maker (Reznor himself said the cover was so good that the song, "was not his anymore"). As I learned more about NIN and Trent Reznor, I was first relieved to learn that Trent was still alive, as many artists reflecting these feelings tend to die quite young (e.g. Amy Winehouse and the song Black). Much of the music on the 1994 album did not hit me too hard, with the exception of a song with no lyrics, A Warm Place. But then, I was curious because I didn't know what it was about this song with no lyrics that hit me so hard. So I went searching online for more info about the origins and meaning of the song. One interpretation I found on Reddit unsurprisingly referenced suicide (i.e., the peaceful feeling one supposedly gets before committing the act). Another interpretation came in the context of the album, and what came previously, in addition to the idea that the album tells a story about a "character" in the songs:
Considering the placement of the track and the context of the previous song and all that happened up until this point, my opinion is that the protagonist is reevaluating all of his life choices, everything that led him to the point where he is. After what he had just done, he doesn’t recognise himself anymore. He is no longer the person he was. Can he even call himself a person at this point? I always thought A Warm Place was the moment of realisation that the protagonist has reached the point of no return. He cannot redeem himself no more and now he is just pleading for the end of his suffering.
Every time I seriously consider ending my own life I think to myself, "Wouldn't it be a better story if I didn't? If I kept going? If I persevered?" Yet there's this pain I feel every day, this suffering I experience, that makes me understand that if things do get bad enough I can use death as an "escape hatch" (if this is a little morbid, I'll point out Matt Damon makes this exact "joke" in recent (and very mediocre) movie The Instigators). However, a key realization I had after reading this description, that I thought might be helpful for others to hear, is that no one is ever irredeemable. You cannot change what you did yesterday. You can only change what you do today. No soul is ever irredeemable. Indeed, this mindset is vital to both understanding our own humanity and that all humans make mistakes. Isolated actions may be unforgivable, yes. But that does not mean that the person who committed the acts is unable to be redeemed. People do some truly evil things in this world that I won't pretend to understand. Yet I also tend to believe that many people who commit evil acts have had evil done unto them at some point in their life. And so I won't rush to judgment. I do not know who you are. I do not know what you've done. But I know this: You are redeemable.
For me, I am still not exactly sure what trauma I am unpacking. Of course I have the strong protective factor of being a father to my son. I am not worried about me harming myself, and neither should you. But I know that avoiding guilt and shame is critical for helping me make good decisions going forward. If I let guilt and shame get the better of me, and my past actions to define me, it is far too easy to fall into the trap of the "what-the-hell effect:"
The worse a person felt about how much they drank the night before, the more they drank that night and the next. The guilt was driving them back to the bottle. Welcome to one of the biggest threats to willpower worldwide: the “what-the-hell effect.” First coined by dieting researchers Janet Polivy and C. Peter Herman, the what-the-hell effect describes a cycle of indulgence, regret, and greater indulgence. These researchers noticed that many dieters would feel so bad about any lapse—a piece of pizza, a bite of cake 21—that they felt as if their whole diet was blown. Instead of minimizing the harm by not taking another bite, they would say, “What the hell, I already blew my diet. I might as well eat the whole thing.” (p. 144, The Willpower Instinct)
The hope that "you are redeemable" fills me with, when I say this to myself, is non-trivial. And so I thought I'd share this with you. This affirmation, and this belief, has the power to change futures. It is significant and gives me determination. I am redeemable. I believe myself to be a good person. I am trying, every day, to be better than I was yesterday. Sometimes in life we must understand that's all we can do: do better than we did yesterday. No matter what you have done in life, it is not too late to turn things around. You are not your past actions. Guilt and shame will not help you turn things around. The key to moving forward is forgiving yourself. Avoid the "what-the-hell effect" or the "fuck it phenomenon." You are not the worst thing you've ever done. You are redeemable.