Sunday, January 13, 2013

Cataclysm

I am supposed to be writing...real writing.  I have this dissertation that is staring me in the face like a starving lion needing to be fed.  It is hungry...for words, research, thoughts.  I am less motivated than I would like to be to write at the present.  Regardless, it is going to be completed-just not at this moment. Why, the least interested reader may ask?  Well, I am somewhere else right now.  I am on a mental joyride racing over and through the dense forest of my own thoughts...trying to make sense of all the emotions that are within me.

I am home with my LO right now, but he is napping.  So Daddy, well Daddy is trying to figure out how to give him the world and find a sense of purpose for myself at the same time.  Whenever I am truly stuck...like not knowing which way to turn or even what to think about my future I feel the need to write.  I do not always follow the need, or else this blog alone would be voluminous by now.  No, there are times when I just want to say something but do not know how to say it...and since now, if you say something-anything here, it will follow you forever I say nothing.  But that was before.

Before I thought that the transparency of emotion was a good thing.  I mean, I am having trouble with the next step of the dissertation...maybe the trouble is not trouble at all but the battle between myself and the words.  I know I am not the first man to fall prey to indecision and doubt in this process, and therefore the world may judge me but others may applaud the emotion-because it is familiar to them.  Most will say nothing as they will never read this and that is okay as well.

In addition, I am a husband and a father, and I work hard at those titles as they do not come without substantial responsibility.  However, I am also an individual.  In that individuality, I am trying to find the space-be it career or outside the office work, that helps to define me...to me.  You see, it really does not matter, at least not that much, what the world thinks about you.  I say that because regardless of what you do the world will have an opinion of you-the earlier you learn to accept that the opinion you have of yourself and the world view may at times differ, the easier life will be.  But still, you make an effort to be a good showing out there to the world.  But you cannot put on a show for yourself.  Either you are happy with you or you are not.

I mean from a child you are taught how to act in public, be it at school or church or at a restaurant.  You learn early the rights and wrongs of social behavior.  But, no one takes the time to tell you that whatever becomes of you is okay.  I mean literally-if you are clumsy, goofy, not good at anything in particular...all that stuff is alright.  Yet, there is no one going around saying hey-great job being, well, not great!  So, some of us are left to question ourselves all the time.  Therein lies the cataclysm...the grand tragedy of humanity is the dissatisfaction with who we are.  Not who we are becoming, or who we are when we get dressed up or who we are when we are with this certain group.  No.  The cataclysm is the dissatisfaction with who we are right now at this very moment.  Period.

The fact is we are this ever-evolving mass of humanity, that often considers the world, and everything outside of ourselves first.  Simultaneously, we judge ourselves based on how every other person in the world functions...pretty, smart, rich, poor, black, white, gay, straight, Christian, Jew...yadda, yadda, yadda.  The reality of it all is that we are all, individually necessary to make the world function...as it was created to function and therefore we each need to truly get right with the individual who dwells within us to ensure that we add value to this entire world.

So now that it is understood that the individual is of the utmost importance to both him or herself and the greater community-how then do you tap into the individual and the greatness within?  Moving from the great cataclysm of man to the continuum of self-awareness?  Well, the LO is awake and duty calls...is this not an ironic moment in time?  Until the next mental joyride...