TGIF Thought

The intelligence of a statement is inversely proportional to the volume at which it is said.

The Independence Day Yet to Come

I have just finished a long, challenging week. I am looking forward to recharging my batteries over the upcoming holiday weekend.

I have a great deal of thinking to do this weekend. In February, I left a job I could barely stand in order to concentrate on finding my artistic identity. Then for just over two months, I lived without a job, getting by on whatever I could earn by writing freelance articles, attending focus groups, and relying on the generosity of the girl I was dating. For most of that time, I felt better than I had ever felt before, like the universe was a dynamic thing looking to communicate with me, if I could just learn to hear what it had to say. I saw messages in every coincidence, and I saw hope of truly finding myself—whatever that means—around the corner.

Of course, too many bills came due, and I had to return to work. I started working through an agency, with the thought at the time being that I could be choosy with my assignments and still spend time reading, writing, studying, composing, and playing. Of course, the sheer size of my debts—growing by the minute, it seemed—required my returning to full-time work, and I am wrapping up my eighth week of such work today.

Full-time work is not what I wanted when I left my last job. Full-time freedom is what I wanted. I spent my time getting inspiration from the words of Thoreau and other like-minded wanderers as I fed my book-per-day reading habit. I felt like a philosopher born in the wrong time, stuck to live in a society that didn’t support my way of thinking. I still feel that way, but this week I have worked to the point that I am too exhausted to think of an alternative to what I am doing. Truth be told, I couldn’t come up with that alternative even when I was adequately rested. After all, what is the alternative to the only thing you’ve ever known?

I certainly don’t know the answer, and I only ask it rhetorically to force myself to remember that the question always exists. Though I have not quite identified my purpose in life, such as it is, I do believe that some of it involves finding an answer to that question. I hope to find it for myself, but I’d love to find it for us all.

So, this weekend I will do my best to sit in meditation, read, write, study, compose, and play. It sounds like a frenetic schedule, perhaps. But to fully recharge, I have to remind myself through action of the person I know myself to be, the person who emerged when no action was required.