UNTIRED UNTRIED

Have you ever heard someone utter - "I don't remember the last time I was not tired." You're not Robinson Crusoe there!

Do you know what happens here in Australia when you type the words "why am I" into Google? Before you can type the next word, Google's Autocomplete function helpfully offers to complete your thought. The first suggestion is: "why am I so tired?" The second: "why am I always tired?" then “Why am I always hungry?', followed by “Why am I so ugly?”, and lastly “Why am I always cold?”

What's going on here? Is it just an algorithm, or is there a deep hole swallowing people alive in large numbers? 

 

As Google explains, "What you're seeing is based on how often past users have searched for a term."

Belgian philosopher Pascal Chabot observes, burnout is "civilization's disease."

True, the results of an algorithm lack the nuance and intellectual heft of a philosophical, sociological and psychological diagnosis, and the results may be regional, but Autocomplete provides a valuable insight into what questions are nagging at most of us.

As Arwa Mahdawi wrote last year in The Guardian:

Google has become something of the secular equivalent of a confessional box. Within the confines of a search bar you can ask questions you would never admit to in public.

While there's no shortage of people ready to grumble into their morning cereal about what they're sick and tired of, there's precious little awareness of just how sick and tired we actually are. Like the frog on the stove, we're so used to being chronically fatigued all the time, we don't notice the water's nearly boiling. 

Google confirms to me that my experience counseling on Lifeline was not particular: we've reached epidemic crisis levels. 

 

May I suggest that it matters less what we're sick and tired of, and much more about the fact that we are sick and tired, and why? And the answers to that "Why" lie within you: no-one else, no-where else.

Actually, the thought of so many people hunched over their laptops or iPhones, asking Google, "Why am I so tired/hungry/ugly/cold?" is really sad. It's the right question, but you're not going to find the answers you're looking for outside of yourself. The questions and complaints arise around a private "someone", and identity that is NOT what we are.

 

Maybe we can start by shutting off our devices, going for a walk in the fresh air, running a hot bath, lighting some aromatic candles, turning off the electricity, learning how to unwind, practising a little more kindness and honesty to ourselves getting better acquainted with what we really are and getting some sleep. Wouldn't that be a good start? If that works for you, feel free to get inventive from there onward, as long as it takes you off your mind.....

If you need help, there's plenty available.

How do you feel about that?