13 Nov 2018

 I want a purpose for my life.

I want to believe that my words and actions make this world a better place for all.

So, I try not to base how I interact on race or beauty or gender or age... all the protected classes that really say that our outward appearance has nothing to do with our inner selves. (Well, except people DO respond and start building their lives by how they’re treated by others, whether it’s adored or scorned.)

I try to remember to recycle, yet I also take measures to reduce my material waste. So, I would rather eat fresh produce instead of canned veggies, I would rather eat on a plate than have to deal with take-out bags and wrappers...

I do not claim to be holier than thou - I can see how I easily slip on “this or that issue”. I can especially see my deadening, my growing indifference to the “Big Issues”... a despondency born of hopelessness.

Yet, returning to the ground, what can I do, in my daily works, to spread happiness? Some say, “take care of thyself, first!” - meaning unhealthy lifestyles just help to propagate an unhealthy mind, a cynicism...

I heard today that “it’s important to entertain people”... I see a lot of tangents off that nugget, with some good and others bad. I once thought that at the heart of all comedy is some sort of harm. Yet, stories are such an important tool for people; because our ability to communicate some extremely complex ideas is probably at the heart of our ecological dominance - not tools, but telling how to use tools. For the time saved through instruction, especially mass instruction creates time that can be used in extending and exploring what the instruction means..? (Waxing philosophically, perhaps)

I want a purpose... I want to rise above the quests for food and shelter, and I want to nurture prosperity. I want to know the my friends and family (and neighbors and even unknown strangers) are benefitting in some way by the things I did today.

I do not want to be dragged by addiction, or left abandoned and scorned, or branded a lunatic who is best to be avoided... because all of that puts walls between you and I. The fear becomes tangible, as we fail to comprehend each other.

Yet, I see, laid out before me, so many scripts and so many models of living that I have to watch which script I read; if I don’t want to be cast as old-fashioned, or dangerous, or boring ... like all those before me who chose some subset of that set of scripts.

Simply: different people expect me to behave in different ways, when facing the same situation (because that’s how their father/boyfriend/etc did it)

In the ideal world, I want to greet each day with enthusiasm. Instead, I have constant anxiety.

Really. My soul is getting ground way by the sands of time...?