Existential Angst

I haven't been around much. I've been having a bout of existential angst. At various times over the last few weeks it seems like my life has been falling apart bit by bit, and the parts that were hanging around were just becoming untenable. It's been a struggle just to make it from day to day, let alone quilt, let alone blog.

I'm taking a little philosophical break to write here a bit. Disclaimer: It's late. I'm tired. I've got rum. I've been reading Tolkien. I'm fed up with my life.

Read on at your own risk.

My life isn't really mine. Or, it's what I made, but not what I meant to make. It's some pre-fabricated construct that sort of fits into the housing allotment. Like if you were going to have a house "custom-built" in some development. You might get the option of whether to have pillars on your front porch, or what type of garage door to get, or what color roof. But otherwise, your house is going to basically look exactly like every other house on your street.

That's what life in the 21st century in America does to most of us. You get the illusion of choosing a few personal touches, but for the most part you're stuck in the trap like everyone else.

I have to expend so much energy just surviving day to day, that there's no time left to be anyone. We're McPeople, all trying to basically get by without rocking the boat so hard we fall out and drown. Admit it, how many times have you wanted to do something, but didn't, because what would people think? "People" in this case being your loved ones, your enemies, the boss, the 'tribe' with which you hang ... whomever. Our survival depends on fitting in and conforming.

I think as a society and a species we're digressing. I remember reading once that as a species evolves, there are stages. First is survival mode, and there can be no creative impulse or individuality until that initial ability to survive is taken care of. Once that is established, then the creatures that make up said society can begin to evolve individually - discovering and honing personal creative skills, and their individual contribution to the society. Therein does a society grow strong and great and beautiful.

I think we've digressed, in that we've forced the majority of people (in America - I can't really speak for other countries, although I know it's true elsewhere) back to the position of barely being able to survive. Creative expression and individuation are right out the window when you're scraping just to eat and provide a roof over your head.

I work in a job that sucks the soul out of me every day, because it's what I seem to have to do to survive. (I work in a law office that 'specializes' in divorce; so my job is helping people destroy their lives, as efficiently as possible). This area truly is economically depressed, and although I've spent countless hours searching the ads in the local papers, and various sites online, I have yet to find anything in this area that would pay my bills, and not continue to suck the life out of me. That's not entirely an "oh, the whole world's against me" rant. I could move somewhere else. I could go to college and create a new career that would stop sucking the life out of me. Those are options, but they are options for down the road, not right now. As long as my dad's here, I am taking care of him, and am more or less stuck in this rut for the time being.

Now, that doesn't mean I'm railing against every aspect of my life. It's true that taking care of my father is physically and emotionally draining. Yet at the same time, I am very glad that I'm here to do it. He's 81 and in very poor health. He may only have a year or two to live. I am grateful that we have this time together, and that I can help him, and know that I'm actually helping him, not just doing something for the sake of doing it. He has said, and he's right, without my constant assistance now, he'd be in assisted living. But with just what I do, it's enough to allow him to continue to live in his home, relatively independently. And that means the world to him. And that makes it all worthwhile.

I digress. I'll be doing a lot of that. What I'm saying is, some of what I'm doing, though hard, is by choice. Some of what I'm doing I'd really rather not be doing, but for now, circumstances are such that it is what it is, and it's where I need to be now. I'm not bitching about everything just for the sake of bitching. Some of where I am is by choice. What I'm trying to do now, though, is figure out why the parts that aren't working aren't, and what I can feasibly do to fix them.

I'm looking at the bigger picture. To explain it better, let me excerpt what I wrote in my journal tonight.

Greg just left today [on the first of a series of trips that will have him gone most of the next 25 days], and I intended to take the next month to figure some things out. It's early yet, and I haven't really had time to do anything much, but I think I've figured out one thing already.

I have got to learn to become who I am.

Too long I've suppressed my true self, out of fear of rejection, or just to keep the peace and get along. I've spent too much time doing what others wanted me to do, that I no longer had the time or the energy to do what I wanted to do. And over time, I think I forgot whatever that might have been.

Somehow, I have to find a way to go back, far back, to before the world mauled me into some broken version of what I should have been.

I have to find and gather the sparks of what is left, and forge them into a new me - the only person on earth who can give me the life I want and was meant to have ... the one that will bring me true joy. The only person who can make me happy. The presence of another person - boyfriend, friends, whomever - or a job, or anything else, can't make or break that. I have to find "me" first, and then decide what to do with my surroundings. Changing the outer isn't going to fix the inner. I need to find and reclaim the inner first ... then I'll either discover the outer conforms, and all is well - or it will be far more easily left behind because it will no longer serve any purpose.

I know there has to be more to life than this. I've struggled for years to figure it out, but somehow I've been going about it all wrong. I'd look to careers - one of the reasons I never went to college is because I could not figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up. And I couldn't see the point of spending years in college, and going seriously in debt, just to say I did it, but having no real goal in mind.

Actually, at this point, I'd change my mind on half of that - I think a good, well-rounded liberal college education would be fascinatingly fun, even without a specific goal. But I still have the debt fear, so I still haven't done it. I still rely on self-education to learn new things.

But I never have been able to choose "a career," to say "this is what I want to do." I've reached the point - whether through lack of options, or learned wisdom - where I no longer think that's the big issue. What I do to 'earn a living' isn't nearly as important as what I do to live a life.

It might be nice if the two matched up, and I admire those for whom it does - being able to earn your living and pay your bills doing something you are passionate about every day. And I'm not saying I may not some day find that. But I think going about the search with the amount of money I'll earn in mind from the beginning has stifled me from seeing more creative possibilities. I think going about the search with 'career' as the main goal has been the proverbial putting a bandaid on a severed limb. Wrong answer.

Besides, again ... it's not about the money (other than I have to have shelter and food. And rum). It's about making a life. That's far more important to me right now than how much I earn or where I live.

I need to go far, far back to find out who I was before my misguided attempts to forge a life within the confines of how everyone else does it took away the joy of living my life. I need to find those parts, and bring them back.

I wonder where one looks for lost bits of the self? Behind the couch? Under the bed? I never was good at hide and seek.

To follow the continuing saga of Rayne Tries To Find Herself, tune in ... well, whenever I get around to writing again. And for goodness sake, if you're having (or have had) the same existential angst, please feel free to comment, or write me an email (mythrilrayne at yahoo dot com). I cannot be the only person on earth going through this. I've just noticed an odd, unspoken solidarity with the people I know that we just don't talk about this stuff. It's like discussing bodily discharge or our favorite way to have sex. It's just not spoken of in polite company.

Stop being polite. Start being an individual. Then let me know how it's done.