Disillusioned

"Disillusioned" and "disillusionment" convey a darkly negative connotation, which is odd because they denote, literally, one's shedding of illusions.

Unpleasant as it is, disillusionment, unless it's accompanied by despair, makes us stronger, more mature, and more susceptible to apprehending reality than the "illusioned" person.

Take, for example, a young person swept away by transports of infatuation and the adrenaline surge of sexual attraction, declaring perpetual love with the sincerest oaths imaginable.

As I walked out one evening,
Walking down Bristol Street,
The crowds upon the pavement
Were fields of harvest wheat.

And down by the brimming river
I heard a lover sing
Under an arch of the railway:
'Love has no ending.

'I'll love you, dear, I'll love you
Till China and Africa meet,
And the river jumps over the mountain
And the salmon sing in the street,

'I'll love you till the ocean
Is folded and hung up to dry
And the seven stars go squawking
Like geese about the sky.

'The years shall run like rabbits,
For in my arms I hold
The Flower of the Ages,
And the first love of the world.'

But what happens when perpetual love proves temporal? When the nation which one has idealized, motivated by a pure and honest patriotism, shows itself to be a cannibalistic predator? When the glow and energy of youth dissolves into the boredom and ennui of middle age, followed by the pain, multiplying ailments, and loss of vitality of the sunset years?

But all the clocks in the city
Began to whirr and chime:
'O let not Time deceive you,
You cannot conquer Time.

'In the burrows of the Nightmare
Where Justice naked is,
Time watches from the shadow
And coughs when you would kiss.

'In headaches and in worry
Vaguely life leaks away,
And Time will have his fancy
To-morrow or to-day.

'Into many a green valley
Drifts the appalling snow;
Time breaks the threaded dances
And the diver's brilliant bow.

Disillusionment is negative because it carries a strong connotation of disappointment. But if I could choose not to be disappointed by the knowledge that time "coughs when (I) would kiss," I'd be more aligned with the true state of affairs than when I mistakenly think that "I'll love you till the salmon sing in the street."

'O plunge your hands in water,
Plunge them in up to the wrist;
Stare, stare in the basin
And wonder what you've missed.

The disillusioned person wonders how he could have gotten where he is. "Where has my life gone?" he asks in utter bafflement. "How could this have happened to me? I thought I was doing all the right things."

'The glacier knocks in the cupboard,
The desert sighs in the bed,
And the crack in the tea-cup opens
A lane to the land of the dead.

'Where the beggars raffle the banknotes
And the Giant is enchanting to Jack,
And the Lily-white Boy is a Roarer,
And Jill goes down on her back.

'O look, look in the mirror,
O look in your distress:
Life remains a blessing
Although you cannot bless.

'O stand, stand at the window
As the tears scald and start;
You shall love your crooked neighbour
With your crooked heart.'

It was late, late in the evening,
The lovers they were gone;
The clocks had ceased their chiming,
And the deep river ran on.

(W.H. Auden [1907--1973], British poet, wrote and published "As I Walked Out One Evening" in 1940. In his later years he divided his time equally between the U.S. and Austria.)