8/52: How Should I Know? (No, really, tell me how...)

“Stay afraid, but do it anyway. What’s important is the action. You don’t have to wait to be confident. Just do it and eventually the confidence will follow.” - Carrie Fisher

Dear Internauts, 

You keep reading 'em, so I'll keep writing 'em. 

Like a couple million other folks, I just got done watching the Oscars. Believe it or don't, but I went to an actual Oscar-watching Party...with actual people and actual...conversation...and stuff. 

To think that not only could I attend a social gathering but actually participate—truly an absurd notion. And yet, there I sat, feeling all the tension gather in my neck and back after having worked out once this past week for the first time in several decades. Of course, I could spend all night or even the rest of my life going over all I should have or more often shouldn't have said, but instead I'll try to find some nebulous form of pride in only thinking about how much I'm not over-analyzing everything. 

These days I sit with guitar and wonder why I'm here. 

These days I drive 'round in my car and wonder why I'm here. 

These days I look up at the stars and wonder why I'm here. 

These days I fear I'm more far than near, unclear, peering through tears and wonder why I'm here.

No matter how many times I submit an application or email asking about a position or gather up this tiny spark of courage for reaching into the madness of consumer society where I feel more consumed than societal and if I'm socio-anything it's more than likely down a damp, dark path, and I wonder why I'm here. 

From about age seven through twenty-two, I knew for certain (and by this I mean I felt assuredly convinced) that my life was imbued with a divine purpose. After all, I'd spent most of my lifetime in the company of grown ups who told me God had created me with a very specific and important goal in mind. How specific and how important tended to vary, but that I was tethered to this buoy of existential prevenient tunnel vision stayed a constant theme. 

What my great purpose was supposed to be seemed, for the longest time, to be finding out what my great purpose was supposed to be. Never much crossed my mind that this assumption my purpose was both certain and great could lead to a tad bit of arrogance. My fear, which I imagine isn't one I held alone, was that the struggles and confusion I faced in life only added up to exactly the sum of their parts. I was all about the pursuit of some special thing hidden behind all the ordinary things. 

However, I now propose that meaninglessness and worthlessness are not the same thing. 

Maybe in my search for the preeminent extra special sauce to make my actions and circumstances feel both credible and satisfactory, I missed out on the ability to face real life. I can speak round and round the quasi-mystical wonders of the universes, but in the words of Guts from Berserk, "You can't eat honor." In philosophy you sometimes have these real out there concepts about the nature of reality and new perspectives on ethics and consciousness, but at the end of class, you close the book and gotta figure this is someone who survived long enough in human society to write a book (at least). The real revolutionary thinkers aren't high functioning individuals. This isn't me trying to be part of the cool club of intellectual introverts or start a fight against anyone paying a mortgage, but ultimately, the struggles of life continue to exist no matter whether there's a divine meaning behind them or not.

To get up and out of bed and get dressed and step outside, for a whole lot of people it's possible because they're desperately clinging to the idea that purpose is just waiting over the rainbow or in some chance encounter. Maybe this new year, maybe this new job, maybe this next prayer, maybe just a little more belief or work or money will finally be enough. Finally, I'll have whatever it is that can fill this gaping hunger inside me for more than a fleeting instant. Maybe for you, the chase to please or connect with a divine entity or mystery is enough. I don't mean to disparage that, though I've lost a great many good friends who thought I was trying to and, if you're reading this I'm sorry.

What this nonsense ramble of mine is trying to communicate is that I reached a point in my life where a one-sided relationship full of pleading, confusion, self-loathing, and abuse no longer sustained my ability to go on living. In fact, I can say honestly that if I were still a Christian, I wouldn't be, because I would have killed myself several times over. It's very possible and statistically extremely likely that this is where our paths may shoot off in vastly different directions. I'm detached from an entire culture which shaped and bound me more than and for longer than anything else besides my own family, and even that is tied in this. But it's not just about religion or even theology.

I'm writing this because I came to the place where I no longer had the motivation to live or to participate in others' lives. Though I was the one who left school, the church, my hometown, everything in me felt like something or someone had left me. There was an exile like being born.

I'm writing this because maybe someone out there can relate, at least to the extent of feeling like there is no reason to keep going on. There is no deeper, hidden meaning behind everything that happens to you. There's no massive spiritual battle going on between angels and demons over every tiny minutia of your day. And yet, all the little things don't disappear simply because they're not secretly big things. I haven't felt much joy in a long time. I used to mistake my inability to be as happy as I thought I was supposed to for a flaw in my character. Now, I think of it more as a chemical imbalance. Now, I cherish those moments that can make me smile even more for their rarity. As hard as it can be to break old habits, these days, if I do something nice for someone, I don't secretly put another mental tally mark up on my soul-board. I'm not sweating whether or not the choices I make are approved by a pastor or a fellow church-goer or even a deity. I simply make choices because I have to. The outcome of each decision is mine alone. I can't control the universe or anyone else's actions, but I can own up to my own.

All that word-vomit to say, whether I ascribe deeper meaning to it or it's simply a case of cause and effect, I get to decide for myself what my purpose is or isn't, or even if I have one. Personally, I don't think that's how things work anymore. I was born like anybody else, and I'll die like anybody else. That stuff and everything in between doesn't really mean anything or at least it doesn't have to anymore. I've stopped pushing this need for an ultimate agenda on everything and in that, yes, nihilism, I've found just the tiniest island of calm in the storm.

If nothing means anything, then it's a choice to ascribe value and meaning to aspects of life. We get to decide for ourselves what's important to us. We don't have to worry about failing to discover our purpose or missing the ark of self-discovery or believing hard enough to make miracles happen. Every tiny speck in the universe is built on actions and reactions, and somehow we have the ability to think about our own interactions.

Once again, meaninglessness and worthlessness are not the same thing.

You have worth, but me or anyone telling you that won't be enough, believe me. You have the right and the ability to choose to see that worth or not and be treated according to that worth whether or not you or anyone else can see it.

That right is one we've collectively decided as a culture is due to ourselves. Some speak of rights as something we are owed by the universe. In the US we fixate on the idea of a creator endowing rights upon those who've been created equal, and yet lines drawn in blood, gold, and compromise on a piece of paper still dictate the extent to which we recognize that equality. We imbue meaning into our discourse about these values with our actions. Mostly hypocritical, we recognize the deeper value of at least trying to improve. We obsess over our membership in groups who imbue certain values with more weight than others. We're stubborn to change, often holding more tightly to a sense of familiarity than to any real stake or dedication to our way of thinking.

After all, it only takes one example to prove a stereotype to someone who wants to believe it, but millions of counter-examples are just seen as the exception to the rule.

There are people who will be unable to see your worth because what matters most to them excludes the possibility of you having any worth. Even the simple mention that maybe you have as much worth as anybody else can set some folks teeth to grinding. Why do you suppose it is that in any survey about immigration reform, those who are most anti-immigrant tend to live in places with the least number of immigrants?

Now, I know that correlation more often than not doesn't equal causation, but what have I been droning on about this whole time? You gotta decide for yourself what really matters to you. You gotta make up your own damn mind about what it means when a preacher, politician, or partner says something. If you're happy, be happy. If you're bothered, be bothered.

Ultimately, though, it'll be clear enough exactly what is truly important to anybody. It's not in any cryptic, desperate scraping for hidden, enlightened meaning, but in the why that makes the what.

So why am I here?

And what the hell am I gonna do about it?

Thanks for reading,
Odist


p.s.- just got a notification that Joe Casey, producer of my next EP, has sent me a rough copy of track one. i'm so excited i could just sit right here and listen to it a few times.