Disillusionment
disillusionment - the condition of being disenchanted : the condition of being dissatisfied or defeated in expectation or hope. - Merriam Webster Dictionary
If I had to pick one word to sum up our world today, and especially this last Presidential election cycle, it would be "disillusionment." I feel it. I see and hear examples of it every day. For many of us who voted against Donald Trump, the disillusionment is rooted in the realization that the values and foundations of our American democratic system that we took as universal, are not universally held. And for many people who voted for him, they did so out of disillusionment with some of our iconic American institutions. Institutions that they feel have failed them.
I have come to see disillusionment as a natural reconciliation between reality and our beliefs and expectations. And therefore, for true truth-seekers, disillusionment is a natural progression in the search for truth. Our lifelong learning process is filled with disillusion, continuously dashing our idealized view of the world with a ruthless dose of reality. We learn to cope and move on. As infants and children, we learn that the world doesn't revolve around us, that our cries will not always be met with instant gratification of our desires by our parents. As we grow, we learn that we don't always get what we want, we have to share and consider others. Love is not always reciprocated, it is often unrequited. And over time, and through science, we learn perspective, recognizing that our individual perceptions are not always accurate. For example, it sure seems like the sun revolves around the Earth. (We stand still and watch the sun go around us.)
These are all examples of disillusionment. And as such, disillusionment isn't purely a negative, but rather something that helps us find the truth, a natural part of education and our evolution as human beings in a society with other human beings. The word "disillusion" itself tells us that what we believed was an illusion. So, ridding ourselves of illusions can be a good thing. And of course, the truth isn't always pretty. Reality isn't idealistic, as much as we would like to believe otherwise. Better to know the truth than to believe something that is more pleasant, but untrue.
The key is how we deal with disillusionment. We can accept it and deal with it, we can deny it, we can tilt at windmills, we can wallow in disappointment, or we can turn away and isolate ourselves. Acceptance is hard, it requires us to challenge our beliefs. Denial is much easier. Tilting at windmills may make us feel better, make us feel like we are doing something, but it replaces one illusion with another...the illusion that our actions will make a difference. Turning away is a survival instinct; what is the point of worrying about something we have no control over?
As we celebrate the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, this is a good time to think about how we deal with disillusionment. His life was certainly a lesson in dealing with disillusionment. Despite the promise of equity and value for human rights delineated in our Constitution, despite the promises that our legal system would uphold those principles, the reality is that all too often people are judged by the color of their skin, not the quality of their ideas. Martin Luther King had many options for dealing with this disillusionment, but he chose the path of exposing reality and finding a constructive way forward. MLK acknowledged the disparity, shed light on the reality, and set a path forward toward fulfilling the dream of a nation that lived up to its ideals. At this time of disillusionment, we can all take inspiration from his legacy.
"You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty." - Mahatma Gandhi
