Writing to myself.

I didn’t know how long it was going to take me before I was overcome with the urge to post another entry here, but it turns out that it was less than 24 hours.  This, however, is less proof that I really have something to say, and more that I just have nothing better to do with my time. 

Today was a fairly terrible day that consisted of pacing, staring at a computer screen, trying to make follow-up phone calls for applications and resumes I had sent in, and being overwhelmed with the sense that I’m really just meandering through life right now.  I tried to pick up Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion again, since I had put it aside for the better part of the last week in favor of Millionaer, but that didn’t seem to help my mood for some reason.  This passage might be why:

“Man, it is true, can, by combination, surmount all his real enemies and become master of the whole animal creation: But he does not immediately raise up to himself imaginary enemies, the demons of his fancy, who haunt him with superstitious terrors and blast every enjoyment of life?  His pleasure, as he imagines, becomes in their eyes a crime: His food and repose give them umbrage and offence; his very sleep and dreams furnish new materials to anxious fear: And even death, his refuge from every other ill, presents only the dread of endless and innumerable woes.  Nor does the wolf molest more the timid flock than superstition does the anxious breast of wretched mortals.”                      ~ Dialogues, Part X

Rather uplifting reading, huh?  The point Hume was making at the time was that individuals often succumb to the irrational and imaginary fears of their mind.  In the face of external challenges and enemies, mankind has the ability to find the strength needed to overcome, but may still be destroyed by the demons and humours that too often define our weakest moments.  The context of this was as a counterpoint to the idea that man knows a deity exists, because one can be reasoned to exist through cause and effect, and that everything appears to be designed after a greater model.  Thus, man exists, therefore was created by a similar, but more perfect model.  Hume challenged that if human grace and kindness were created by a divine model, where was the kindness that would allow a creation to destroy itself by inherent and seemingly natural causes.  It’s a delicate way of saying, “if God exists, why do bad things still happen.” 

Actually, in that same part is another great passage that puts it sublimely:

“Is he willing to prevent evil, but not able?  then he is impotent.  Is he able, but not willing?  then is he malevolent.  Is he both able and willing?  whence then is evil?”  (And you thought Rabbi Kushner was making an original point…)

I felt today the way Hume describe above, caught up with the demons of my fancy.  I have put out resumes, and heard nothing.  I keep searching, but there seems to be little out there for me.  My dad is now starting to put pressure on me to go to a hiring agency and sign up with them.  But that wouldn’t do me any good, as it would still be leading me nowhere I want to go.  Besides, if I’m going to allow myself to get a crappy temp job, I might as well do it in a place that I want to live.  Let me move to Boston, find a roommate, live cheaply, be closer to the opportunities I want, and if I need to, get a crap job to survive.  I just feel like somehow, finding a job to have a job seems like giving up.  I don’t want to surrender my life. 

But maybe I already have, because I’m not really living right now.  Then does that leave me with two options?  Shrug my shoulders and accept things as they are, or pick up my life and take a huge risk and see what happens.

Great Scott

There is a great, trippy scene in the third chapter of the Back to the Future trilogy, after Doc Brown finds the Delorean in its cavernous hiding place, where he himself had placed it some 70 years before (that’s the trippy part), the two time-travelers break it out, clean it up, and after a few new tires are placed on it, get it running again.  All the dust and decay of an extended hibernation couldn’t stop the ol’ tin can from taking Marty back in time to face his destiny.

That thinly veiled metaphor is what I hope will happen to my blog.  My life is in a rut.  I really don’t know what I’m doing or where I’m heading, but time doesn’t seem to want to slow down so I can get out a map and figure it all out.  Consequently, I really don’t have a focus for my writing.  I would like for there to be one, as aimless ramblings don’t really amount to much, and I’m not one for keeping a diary for the sake of keeping a diary.  I don’t even know if I believe I am important enough to have something to say.  One could make the argument that because I belong to the human race, that makes me important enough to have an opinion.  The other side of that argument is, of course, that stupid people tell themselves that in order to validate their lives.

I want to validate my life in a real way.  And so maybe that should be my blog’s focus: my efforts at validating myself, to myself.  My best friend once told me she didn’t know if I would ever allow myself a shot at happiness, at going after what I want.  I am where I am right now, and perhaps that is proof enough that she wasn’t being too overly dramatic when she said this. 

My record here is of my progress – narcissistic, vain, and likely futile though it may be - toward finding my balance, my acceptance, and my peace about myself.  Or whatever else I decide to write about.  Man, that’s almost existential.

Back to the Future.