Ever have one of those days where you can't figure out where the hell you're going? In life, I mean? (Yes, look out, this Existential Crisis is brought to you by the Institute for Shambling Through Life Without a Plan, also known as, The Marty School of Follow Your Bliss, Then Get Your Ass Lost.) I mean, seriously. It's like that funny sign I saw somewhere: "This life is only a test. If this were a real life, you'd be told where to go and what to do."
My friend Beth and I were talking about this the other night. Both of us have come a certain distance in our lives and now the progress seems to have ground to a halt. What's next? Beth has no love for her job, although she's very good at it and makes more money than I do in my so-called "fun, cool" job. I don't hate my job by any means, but I'm teetering on the crumbling cliffside of financial instability -- mainly because my salary, for all intents and purposes, is not increasing. I'm the dodo bird of journalism (pun not exactly intended, but I guess it's apt enough) because I actually prefer small-town reporting, and so I've never moved on to that big metro newspaper that would pay me a living wage. But by the same token, things in Boulder have gotten a bit stale for me, and I've lost the idealism that fueled my passion for visual reportage, back in the day. (That's a whole separate topic, there!) And now I've reached a level of stagnation, where I have no money to take any risks in my career without the specter of debt, and anyway, now the whole destination's gotten obscured.
I've always been a person who had strong ideas of what I wanted and went after them-- even if they were dumb ideas-- so this state of not-knowing is foreign and oppressive to me. I fumble about, thinking that moving elsewhere is the answer, or that wholesale career change is the answer, but I can't any concrete ideas about either one. So I periodically annoy whatever friends or boyfriends who are handy with my mental/emotional navel-gazing and tail-chasing. Then I give up and pursue other passions, while I wait for the light bulb to come on. Time passes, I finally notice it's still dark in here. Crap, what's up with that? I grope around for the light switch or something else as quick-fix, and discover that I still haven't the vaguest idea of how to solve my problem.
I've been doing some field research on other careers lately, but none of them really sound appealing either. Can't I just jump on my high-wheeler and ride off into the sunset??
I have to say in defense of my life, though,that none of it truly sucks. I have a really good time with the vast majority of it -- living simply, riding my bike, enjoying my friends and the great outdoors, with little pressure or stress. My job meets my basic needs and allows me six glorious weeks of vacation to immerse myself in the things I enjoy. But the lack of deeper meaning is an insidious beast, sneaking up on me in moments of weakness. Are our lives even SUPPOSED to have a so-called "higher meaning?" Sometimes I think that's a cruel joke to make ordinary people living ordinary lives feel shitty about themselves. Perhaps in reality, meaning is in the details of life; how you interact with the people you care about, how you perform small duties each day, whether you help or hurt the situations in your immediate influence, etc. Perhaps all this big-picture fixating just distracts us from the real stuff we should be doing on the small scale.
Hell if I know, huh?? Now I've just dragged you all into my philosophical spin cycle. There's no shame in using the sick bag. :-)
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