Thursday, December 16, 2010

12/16/2010

Hello again.
I would like to point out that I tried. Allow me to come to my own defense and direct your attention to the numerous times I tried to write in the past few months.
Ahem:
- October: 4 times
- November: 3 times
- December: 3 times

If all the posts I started were published, there would be a lot more for you all to read. Sadly, I have the unfortunate inability to release anything that hasn't been entirely finished. And what with my lack of time these days, I rarely get around to finishing anything.
For more reasons than one, too...

Slowly but surely, my imagination and my creative spirit are dying. I don't have much faith in anything these days. People are all horrible (myself included), we're messed up, constantly failing, using every minute to pursue useless endeavors that will inevitably result in nothing at the time of our expiration.

So what is worth pursuing? What, at the end of the day, is really worth my effort and dedication?
After all this time asking the same question, I still don't know. I still cannot quite figure it out.
But I think I'm getting closer.
Of all the things I have done thus far, all the things I have tried to learn, tried to devote myself to, the only endeavor that ever seems to feel right is helping other people; if what I do benefits someone else, even if only in a very small way, the hours spent working and sweating seem worthwhile.
Which always leads to the next question; what can I do with that?
What job or career can I involve myself in that will let me accomplish what I want? People have suggested that I become a teacher or something akin to that, but I don't know if I'm up to the challenge.
Which I suppose might mean that I am not really dedicated to helping others. If I can't put in the work necessary, I must not really want to help anyone.

But I don't know.
I don't know what I'm doing, where I'm going, or how anything makes sense these days.
I made the mistake of believing that life would come together like a puzzle over time, with more pieces being filled in as I learned and experienced. Unfortunately, it seems to be the other way around; I had a picture of life, but the longer I'm alive the more the picture doesn't make sense and I keep removing pieces, hoping that I'll be able to put them back together in a way that makes sense. But more choices present themselves as more pieces are removed. Now I don't even know what picture I'm trying to build. There's just a pile of pieces that belong to some fragmented picture of a once concrete view of life.
There was less as a kid; less stress, less money, less worry, less care, less consequence. The world existed on  a much smaller scale and so the input on my picture of life was minimal.

At this point I just want to put the pieces down and go take a walk. Maybe if I come back in a little while, the picture will be clearer.

Over the course of the last few days, I have been working on seeing things. Not just looking at them, but seeing them. There is a massive difference between viewing the larger scene and observing the details within it. It is brilliant.
It makes me want to take pictures again because there really is so much to be seen.

Hah.

Friday, December 10, 2010

All The Beautiful People

The world is full of beautiful people. Or so we perceive. Beautiful faces sprawl across sides of buildings and beautiful bodies lounge on billboards, looking down at the rest of us with that better-than-thou look of superiority. Beautiful people even exist in the flesh, walking down the street, ordering coffee in front of us, sitting across from us on the bus, etc.
Those of us who do not possess the natural (or even feigned) beauty of these individuals feel inadequate. There is such pain and want in the looks of those people who read the magazines filled with the "beautiful" people, and for what reason?

I know I feel inadequate. Not so much compared to the people I see in the magazines, movies, and billboards, but compared to the beautiful people I see walking down the street. The men I know champion these beautiful women as something particularly special, as if the rest of us are some secondary class of woman.
In order to quell these deep feelings of inadequacy, we tell ourselves that these women must not be as funny as we are, or not as intelligent as we are, but when a beautiful women shows up who is everything we are except better, it scares the living hell out of us.
Most times, I feel like I have a limited number of things going for me. I'm not the prettiest, the nicest, the most talented, or the most fun. I'm pretty run of the mill; there aren't any defining parts of my character that make me special.
So when a beautiful person comes along who is funnier, smarter, and nicer than I am, I become immediately secondary.

At this point, I'm wondering why I care. In some ways, I know why. I am not where I should be at this point in life. I am a child surrounded by working professionals; people who, for all intents and purposes, have everything figured out.
And right now, I have nothing figured out. Not a single thing. I feel utterly and completely lost, totally unsatisfied with my life, and confused beyond belief. What is the next step from here? Where am I going? How do I start?

I know myself well enough to know that my most immediate reaction to this overwhelming wave of reminders is depression; I want to lay down and not get up. I want to hide, be forgotten, and fall apart. For the past two days, I've been doing a mediocre job of avoiding this. I've managed to do a few things and stay in a relatively good mood (not without the help of a wonderful boyfriend).
But as I head back to another week of work, I can't help but wonder why I'm doing everything I'm doing. My life is devoid of any meaning or purpose at this point, and it is devastating.

Some large life change is imminent. I don't know what that means exactly, or what it entails, but something has to move forward. Not just change, but change for the better, change in the forward direction. Otherwise I will fall apart.
I am teetering on the edge of a very vast and bottomless chasm, debating the pros and cons of simply falling off.