I’m often at a loss for words.
I don’t know if it’s because I’m mainly a quiet person; one who likes the sound of silence. One who tends to enjoy silent moments over shared experiences. Not that shared experiences can’t also be silent – but I think that most of my shared experiences have been mainly noisy. Sounds that rattled my already chaotic brain like an overly reverberant concert hall.
That is to say…maybe solitude is the environment I’m meant to thrive in. One that focuses on my experience in a solitary view of the world, a lone perspective of reality. Not that I don’t sometimes enjoy company. Sometimes I seek company. But often…I seek singular and cleansing internalized existentialism.
What does that even mean?
I ask myself that question fairly often. I’ve been given a large amount of time lately to do…well nothing. I’ve accomplished nothing in my time away from the world. I’ve tried to create experiences, but mainly I’ve created debt and wishful thinking. I’ve created a hope that I might achieve the things I wish to achieve. It’s about as vague in writing as it is in my head. I’ve created scenarios for myself in my quiet moments away from the hustle and bustle of my non-existent existence that mean to pull me towards a path of enlightenment. A path of deeper understanding of who it is I’m so desperately wanting to find out I am.
I connect to things that can’t be connected to – videos of travelers experiencing things that I wish existed in my backyard, people connecting with others in heart melting, tear-jerking ways. I so wish to connect with others in the same way others connect others…in the same way that I find solace in solitude. Maybe I can find it solidarity someday soon.
That last sentence was written only for the alliteration. But maybe it means something to me in the same way that all of these other words mean something to me. My brain can only process what I allow it to see – otherwise my internal monologue is just my current actions, not what I’d like it to be, which is a defragmentation of the inner filing cabinets in my mind. A process of moving to the forefront the thoughts that best benefit my creative flow, my personal philosophy. Thoughts that best build a path for me as I struggle to walk the one that others have laid out for me.
Others.
I think I struggle so much these days because I’ve only walked on paths that an older version of me laid out at the instructions of others. I paved this road with golden intentions, but it’s a path that has eroded and dimmed through time – its foundation broken and beaten, the stones dwindled down to shards of sharp rock that have continued to cut me at my own foundation. My feet cut and calloused like Dusty Rhodes’ forehead.
That was mean.
I should say, my feet cut and calloused like the American Dream.
What a concept, the American Dream. I’ve longed to understand it; longed to look at the life ahead of me and say “yeah, THIS is what they mean by living the dream.”
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve placed options in front of me that scream that from the mountain tops – the dream I wish for myself that allows me to fully realize something I never would have thought I’d be able to. However…that has been shot down so many times in the last two months that I wonder if it’s actually in the cards for me. If me finding a working purpose is meant to happen.
Purpose has been on my mind a bunch lately, too.
Like, what is my purpose in life? What is it that I’m meant to do? I thought maybe education was my thing – I was meant to connect with students and help them find their passions and confidence. But lately I’ve been reminded that that isn’t the case. I just don’t see myself finding happiness back in that realm. And isn’t the purpose of a life mission to be happy in ones position? Or am I being too naïve about this whole life thing?
I’ve often wondered about the concepts of free will and predestination; do we have the power to forge our own paths, or are we just treading a path that God paved for us? In either case, God is the ultimate veto power, so if we forge our own path, is there still a path that God intended on us to follow? If that’s the case, isn’t that then predestination? Or is that a concept of free will that we do have multiple paths to which we can fall or rise on? If it’s predestination…how do we know as people when to change our current attitude or course of action to move forward on the path God gave us? It seems that whatever our motives or whatever our actions, it is what God intended, right?
In the argument for free will, God allows us to make our own choices, but in our rebellion to that thought, when things are going right for us, we claim “this is the path God wants for me.” Which is fine. But in our understanding of free will, it is a lack of control from God over our lives that help define what free will is. If we’re meant to follow the path that God wants us to follow…isn’t that predestination? And if we accept that God is all knowing and all powerful, is any path we take out of God’s knowledge? Are both of these concepts intertwined? And at what point are we sure it’s what is intended?
All of that to say…how do I know I’m going in a direction that God wants me to follow? I’ve been so afraid of getting back into my faith hardcore because of the idea that my path may take me away from what it is I so desperately want – a creative career and a wife.
I don’t always mean to pile on my father who can’t defend himself now but…it’s his fault. He was a romantic and brainwashed me into thinking that my life won’t be complete without the one. THE one. That’s a discussion for another time, but what I mean to say from all of that is that the path I am on right now, right this minute…how am I supposed to be sure it will lead to the person I am meant to truly be at the end of the day?
I feel like I have a lot to offer this overly cynical world – I have a lot of positive to bring to the table, a lot of stories to tell, a lot of love to give, a lot of dancing to encourage. I feel like I’m meant to make an impact, but every path I’ve tried to traverse down recently has been walled off.
Perhaps that’s part of the struggle. Perhaps that’s part of the path I’m intended to go down. Maybe I have to forge my own path away from the ones I’ve thought I needed to go down. Of the paths I’ve tried, none have been my own – again. I’ve knocked on doors of jobs that were already somebody else’s, of jobs that didn’t know me from Adam. So maybe I’m meant to make an impact through my own life, my own words, my own experiences.
I get jazzed about that possibility. But the reality is, we live in a world dictated by monetary comfortability. What I’ve been doing is seeking a compromise, a way into a creatively fueled career that also provided me a means to support my other passions, which I guess could be anything that aides in the long-term creative goals. But honestly, imagine doing both? Imagine waking up daily and writing a creative project that helps the success of a small local business, that helps me get my own juices flowing for a personal project after I clock out of my hard days work of writing stories for others?
If that isn’t the American Dream, I don’t know what is.
Life and it's Musings 