So, thoughts. The rabbit hole. My half-truths: I’m not happy, I’m not sure how to be, and I’m not sure I even want to be. I’m alone, and I’m alone by choice. I’m not sure how to feel connected. The world is too big to be changed, but the world as it is doesn’t sit well with me. I don’t have a net positive impact on the world around me because for all of the good that I do, I still exist as an emotional black hole. I am not worthy of the opportunities I’ve been given, specifically, that I have an obligation to improve the world and that not reaching my potential would be a violation of that obligation. I’m going to try to go through these in order. I’m sure that I’ll think of others in the process of expanding these, so don’t bet on order being maintained.
I am not happy. I’m not sure what a good definition of happiness is, but what I do know is that I consider it to be temporary. So, what I’m really referring to when I say that is joy. I am not joyful; but I’m also not happy most of the time as well. In the past, I would flee to things like tennis, video games, or t.v. to find happiness or satisfaction in the moment. I do still enjoy them to some degree, but something has changed. Suddenly, in the last few months I’ve been unable to run away from a feeling of restlessness and anxiety. To some degree it’s just that the world seems to big and too wrong for me to stay in it. I don’t mean that to say that I’m suicidal, more to say that I find it hard to imagine peace for myself unless there are some impossible changes made to this reality or to myself. I’ve been confronted with the question, year after year, from my mom - “What do you want for Christmas?” Nearly every time that she’s asked I’ve given the same response, “I don’t know.” Going to a broadway show or to a concert or out to dinner or some object. I generally end up feeling like spending the money, the time, the value is ultimately wasted. Wasted isn’t quite the right word though. I do enjoy those things, but I’m also sensitive to the existence of millions of other ways that time could have been spent. Millions of other people who need where I do not. How can I justify spending on myself? How can I justify allowing other people to spend on me?
I think that question of justification ties very closely to the opportunities bit. By and large, my sense is that anyone who even has the opportunity to read the words that I’ve put down on this page is lucky. They, you, are lucky because you have access to an electronic device that is connected to the internet. You are not wondering about whether your next meal will be a few hours from now or not. Our race, the human race, has spent effectively hundreds of years breeding a sub-race. A sub-race of workers/slaves/untouchables/invisibles that it is much easier to ignore the existence of than to confront the reality. I find the concept of genetics and inheritance fascinating. We inherit our physical and mental features and characteristics largely from our parents. The remaining parts being left to little more than recombinatory chance. That our individual consciousness exists where it does is largely not random. And yet, I can’t help but feel that somehow it’s somehow dumb luck that I’m in the position that I’m in. I live in perhaps the most developed nations on the planet. Within that developed nation I have a quality of life that, while nowhere near the highest, is very very stable. I have done nothing to deserve those two immensely meaningful advantages. It came down to a mix between decision to mix two libraries of DNA and an element of chance to create the consciousness that is me in the physical body and location that I exist in. Am I obligated to the people whose circumstances were not so favorable? Does my successfully passing the 1 year mark and the 18 year mark suddenly mean that I’m absolved of responsibility to the people around me? Does it mean that I am fully responsible to the people around me? Does it mean neither? Why am I here?
The search for meaning is not one that’s unique to me. The lack of motivation associated with lacking a deep internal sense of meaning is not unique to me either. But the ability, the choice, to search for and create meaning for myself is something that’s unique to me. Only I am capable of creating meaning for myself. In fact, by chance, I have the opportunity to choose more paths in the search than most people do. And we come back to that same question - am I obligated to try to create more options for other people? I feel like I am. But am I? And if I am, why is it so hard to motivate myself to work for their sake? Why is it so hard to motivate myself to work for my own sake? I honestly don’t know. Struggling for that answer is a daily battle.
Struggling for that answer makes me ask, how can I even accomplish the creation of more options for other people. How can I give people more freedom to seek and choose their meaning? What gives me the right to interfere? What gives me the right to indirectly promote their lack of freedom? The world is too big. Even if you make the world small, the questions do not hide themselves away. You’re reminded of the potential associated with this dumb luck that made you the you that you are where you are. There is so much to be and do. And yet, it feels empty for me. Full of potential, even for accomplishment on behalf of other people, but empty. Somehow there is a void. And in that void, lives a single thought. I was not made for this. I once read in a book that “The goal of human action is to remove an uneasiness, which could be anything from a desire for food or sex, to concern for the plight of one’s fellow man, and his need to act is what builds civilization.” I can’t help but feel that civilization hasn’t inched me a step closer to removing the uneasiness. What’s worse is that I’m not sure what to do about it.