Really.
I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. Here, on this blog, or in my life. Sometimes I feel like I’m spraying myself in the face with graffiti, drowning in my obsession with music and writing, possessed with some unspeakable need to express but at the same time wondering why it’s so important for me to share.
I’m bumbling through it, just like you are, wondering if I’m doing the right things, if my energies are going to the right places, missing ghosts from the past who cling to my spine…
But through this process, I am finding out that there are a lot of you out there.
Sometimes, I think the only reason I acted out in past lives was because it seemed like nobody was listening. My parents are very artistic, but they are also, like me, very focused on their own art, and it’s like an endless loop–I’m probably perpetuating the same behavior they perpetuated by being myopic with my duty to creation.
And I was always afraid to speak up, let people walk all over me, which is why I’ve become an assertive person who speaks my mind and won’t blow sunshine up your ass.
Sometimes I feel bad I can’t blow sunshine up people’s asses, but then I realize that it’s because I’m honest that I have everything and every person I have in my life right now. I can’t afford to not be honest. I can’t afford to give up on my creations. I can’t afford to check out and go through the motions. I’m awake. Being awake is hard, it’s raw, it’s painful, but it’s also invigorating and exhilarating and profound.
And I am learning that when I reach out to other people, it’s not my fault they shut me out. All I can do is turn around and reach out to the people who have reached out to me and not act like the people who can’t give back, whatever their reasons. That’s all any of us can do. Not judge ourselves for being honest, for putting ourselves out there. Not shut ourselves down because others don’t necessarily understand, and don’t try to understand, or are afraid of our candor.
Isn’t there something in Zen Buddhism about an I-don’t-know mind? Maybe it’s a good thing to not know, to embrace the not knowing, to stop pretending I have any of the answers, to just trust in fate and karma and serendipity and sacrificing my creations to the alter of the intrawebs.
Maybe it’s OK that I don’t know, that you don’t know, that we all don’t know.
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I like the part where you said you are awake and you cant afford to go through the motions. I feel very much the same, I actually did a similar topic for a speech I gave. On an unrelated note, you are invited for the second flash fiction challenge taking place here: http://realityinprogress.wordpress.com/2012/04/02/flash-fiction-challenge-2/
We look forward to your participation.
Please go here and check it out. Also if you need some background for it you can check out my flash fiction page
“Maybe it’s OK that I don’t know, that you don’t know, that we all don’t know.”
I think you’re right that nobody ‘knows’. They may think they ‘know’. They may actually believe they ‘know’. But, they are either delusional, or lying to themselves and others.
I’m fine with not ‘knowing’ the purpose or reason for ‘everything’. Or, even ‘knowing’ if there is any purpose or reason. I personally think humans have invented philosophies and religions in the hope and need to create some ‘meaning’ to our lives. But, it is just smokescreens and illusions.
BUT, that doesn’t mean that I’m going to kill myself like Sartre and others have. I’m here, and willing to play it out. Make it as interesting as possible. Be as considerate as possible. Not be compelled to change others who have developed or accepted some ‘knowing’ that gives their lives meaning. Just create my own meaning out of what I find. I don’t find that depressing at all!
Mike
OK, Sartre didn’t commit suicide, just smoked himself to death in his old age. I did read some more about him on Wikipedia, and guess that I do agree with his basic position.
The main idea of Jean-Paul Sartre is that we are, as humans, “condemned to be free.”[38] This theory relies upon his position that there is no creator, and is illustrated using the example of the paper cutter. Sartre says that if one considered a paper cutter, one would assume that the creator would have had a plan for it: an essence. Sartre said that human beings have no essence before their existence because there is no Creator. Thus: “existence precedes essence”.[39] This forms the basis for his assertion that since one cannot explain their own actions and behaviour by referencing any specific human nature, they are necessarily fully responsible for those actions. “We are left alone, without excuse”.
Like I said, we have to make our own meaning.
Mike
I think our whole family was intensely focused on their own projects, to the point that _everyone_ was lonely. Proof you ask?
“Hey Aneka, will you come to the store with me? I want/need company.”
You weren’t the only one that ever asked that. ^_^;;
That being said though, everyone feels alone in some sense. Orson Wells says we’re born alone and we die alone. He was a really intense fellow. Undoubtedly correct, but I think some people take it to heart too much.
Just because the only thing we can really keep in life is our ‘self’ our consciousness our will, (as long as we are alive, presumably) doesn’t mean that others don’t touch us in indelible ways. We make our meaning from mosaic of broken moments, messages from our past experiences to our future and present selves.
The truest mark of wisdom is in realizing that you don’t know anything. As Plato said,
[…] οὖτος μὲν οἴεταί τι εἰδέναι οὐκ εἰδώς, ἐγὼ δέ, ὥσπερ οὖν οὐκ οἶδα, οὐδὲ οἴμαι
– This man, on one hand, believes that he knows something, while not knowing [anything]. On the other hand, I – equally ignorant – do not believe [that I know anything].
Well said, Both you and Plato.
Mike