I find myself at the precipice of my own renaissance, with all of the opportunity a person could ever hope for. I have the time, I have the availability, I have the support. What haunts me still is the same thing that always has…. something indescribable. Perhaps if I could articulate it well enough I could face it, beat it. It's not quite a fear although there is A fear. It's more like a grinding block, and a huge lock.
Iv always described myself, at least internally, as having 1 fatal flaw. Its what I blame my indecision on, my procrastination, my stagnation, perhaps the only thing I hate about myself. A distinct lack of ambition. The kind of ambition that drives men to action, passion to inspiration to art.
It seems the only thing that will sufficiently drive me forward is NEED. I Needed to work, to feed and house myself. No one else was going to do it for me. Utilizing that need for survival I did work, and I worked well, in the space of 7 years I worked myself from the very most entry levels of positions to middle management. From 17.50 an hour to over 50, at the same company. All from the single opportunity afforded to me by NEED.
There was no passion for the work. Just because your good at something doesn't mean you're passionate about it. Just like I found most people I worked with, didn't work very well at all, and very few showed anything close to a passion for it. Perhaps it was an isolated experience, because I only have a few things to reference it against, but I find that it is not difficult, or at least has not been difficult in the situations I have found myself in, to work harder and better than my peers.
I am afraid, afraid that without need I will accomplish nothing. Afraid that with need I will only accomplish what I need to accomplish. Afraid that I will work hard at something because I want it, not because need has driven me to it.
Is it a lack of discipline? Certainly there are things in life I am disciplined about. I was never late to work, and while I frequently and jubilantly imbibed in many substances, I never allowed it to even have the potential with interfering with my job. Need would not allow it.
What will I do with the opportunity I find before myself. There is an itch inside that begs scratching. There are things I know I want to do, or at least feel like I want to do.
I want to create. It seems to me a divine pursuit. Too many of us do nothing but consume, or the fruits of our labor - what creation we do muster - is in the pursuit of consumption. Work, that pit of time and effort, does not often result in the creation of something for the purity of the objects existence or the glorification of some higher purpose.
What is a power plant, or Laundry mats, or financial spreadsheets, or a stockroom, or any of a million sundry things in this world compared to something original, or unique. Something created not to be consumed, or the measurement or means of consumption, but to be appreciated. Something that can't be consumed, something a bit more sturdy. Something that inspires emotions in others.
Too long have I spent my time sitting on a couch and fritting away my life on distracting, pointless, pieces of entertainment - to the exclusion of all else anyways.
And don't get me wrong, power plants, laundromats, financial spreadsheets and stockrooms, along with all of those who work in them, are important. I should know, iv worked in them all. They are needed parts that drive this world forward.
I think philosophically too much.
Is a person who creates better than a person who consumes? Wouldn't that just be the height of vanity? Is it important to me? Some sort of hope that something of mine would endure? Is a life content with waking up, working, coming home and winding down to do it all over again the next day worth any more or any less than the life of someone pushing forward? Are they all equally pointless?
If I create nothing of value or note, will I think any less of myself at the end of it all? What if I don't even try, or spoil this opportunity, what then? I have been running with excuses for a long, long time; I find that I have finally run out of them all. No more “too tired” at the end of the day or week to put in any effort, no more internalized excuses of putting off this pounding in my chest another day into the future.
Hell, I could get hit with a car tomorrow. I could die from undiscovered cancer within a year from now.
Will I Fail? Am I already a Failure? What exactly is success supposed to be? I'm 32, and I have no idea about what I want to do, or who I want to be.
My stepfather told me I think too much. Does he know that I wished the first 25 years of my life that I would have been someone who thinks fewer thoughts, less complicated thoughts. That I didn't find myself compelled to contemplate and ruminate.
Sometimes I feel like I've lived dozens of lives, although - and thank god - my brain has finally slowed down. I used to be plagued with concurrent thoughts, streams of flowing imagination, a thousand what ifs, the analysis of 100’s of different potentials. I would live out situations in every conceivable variation in my head, trying to plan for contingencies. In my past we would already have had this conversation, I have anticipated your response and already formulated the next one. It was taxing. I felt wise beyond my years.
My brain doesn't do that on its own anymore. I wish some things had been different when I was younger. I often wonder at what I could have accomplished if that energy would have been focused on other pursuits.
I digress. Matters of the past have little bearing on the potential of my future.
I need to develop a schedule. I need to start writing, not just this blog, which will be updated with some regularity, but the book that has been floating in my head for some time. I need to start exercising. I need to start reading the books that I have. I need to start painting again, as well as making music. I have a bunch of classes I paid for.
How about a minimum schedule to start, for a passionless person like myself. Something to get my feet wet, perhaps ambitious given my lack of ambition.
Writing, Exercising, Reading, Painting, Music, Classes - Only 6 things. Maybe touch on 2 of them a day, minimum, for 1.5 hours each minimum.
Maybe I need to think about it a different way, flip the script.
Maybe I NEED to do this so I don't disappoint myself.
