Blarg

One of my least favorite sensations is blarg. It is the feeling of being simultaneously overwhelmed and underwhelmed. It feels like your nerves are being tickled randomly, like someone fumbling to play the guitar for the first time. The sensations make you want to say “Ugh!” because it is tiresome, distracting, and unpleasant.

Blarg is a type of boredom. The kind that nestles itself deep within the folds of your soul. Like crumbs of a cookie in your bed, it is difficult to remove, but always noticeable. In cartoons, characters usually use it in conjunction with “blech” or “bleurgh” to express seeing something gross or to show frustration, disgust, or annoyance. When blarg is felt within your soul, it is much like the exclamations of cartoons, but far more visceral, because it is within you.

Blarg is a byproduct of stress, chaos, and rigidity. It is a time when you have some order in your life, but that order isn’t healthy or fulfilling. Instead, it is a constant churning of a crank that, though necessary, yields little reward. Surrounding that smidget of order is a swishing bowl of chaos and entropy. These uncontrolled forces drain away the life of the day and may even be stifling your ability to recover and replenish.

In many ways, you could confuse blarg with depression, but with blarg, you can be joyful, relatively productive, and at peace to a degree. It is a complicated emotion that isn’t quite sadness or frustration, but shares some of the same traits.

One of the best ways to address an acute instance of blarg is with meaningful, genuine interactions that stimulate your mind, body, and soul. You need an activity that splashes you with cold water and dries you off with a warm towel. It needs to be something that helps you feel seen and heard, an experience that reminds you of your humanity and celebrates life.

Though beneficial, one or two enriching activities might not be enough to pull you from the clutches of blarg. Typically, it requires something more substantial and sustaining. Living a fruitful life requires nourishment; we need to eat, sleep, and exercise. Our minds require stimulating conversations that challenge and inspire us, and we need purposeful order and adventurous variety.

Every day you need to be searching for ways to add paint to the canvas of your life, because in many respects, a healthy life is a masterful painting; it has real and implied lines, beautiful shape and form, rich colors, delineates positive and negative spaces, and is abundant with fascinating textures. It has a soul-soothing rhythm, is balanced and harmonious, emphasizes goodness, offers variety with a gradation of experiences, and is always moving forward.

As you paint this gorgeous painting, remember that you work to live, not live to work. Obligation, duty, and responsibility are important because they introduce and maintain order, but in this life, we need to feel alive. Breathing and going through the motions isn’t enough, because those are tasks any robot can do. You are a living breathing magnificent soul who wants to explore the sights and sensations of existence.

Do this by creating a nutritious, well-balanced life, one that is packed with an assortment of delights. Sure, sometimes it is going to be salty, bitter, and sour, but with discernment and wisdom, it will be savory and sweet.

This doesn’t mean you need to go out into the world to indulge your slothful or carnal thirst. Instead, it is a moment to stop, take a breath, and breathe. It is a time to look up at the brilliant blue hues of the sky, to witness the magnificence of the fluffy cottony clouds. This is an opportunity to celebrate the second, to truly feel the sensations of existence and be grateful for the infinite blessings of God.

So, if you are feeling like blarg, tend to the sullen parts of your heart with tenderness and care. Give yourself a hug and whisper sweetness to your spirit. Find ways to cherish every second, take some time to feel alive, and live your life.