Work, sofa, beer, tennis, work, sleep, food.
That pretty much sums up my life. It is much less exciting to be “settled”. Maturity seems to me to be largely the inability to break away from one’s routine. That isn’t really mature at all….it is just inflexible.
The routine isn’t always bad though. I like work sometimes. They certainly need me, so I feel a certain responsibility to make sure it doesn’t all go to hell in a handbasket. I like tennis. I like to sleep.
So am I complaining? I don’t know. I enjoy parts of the frantic, endless achievement of work. I enjoy my distractions that keep me sane.
I’ve partly crossed this bridge before. When I was younger I had a self-reinforcing need to examine the significance of what I did. Every answer I found, I asked another question. It was intellectual quicksand. The more I asked, the deeper I sank.
Because at some point, many questions away from the original reality, you come up empty. Every line of logic, no matter how elegant, ends at vanishing point where reality meets the great unknown.
Everything is made of the 4 earth elements: Earth, Wind, Fire, and Water. No, it is all made of Atoms. No, Protons, Neutrons, and Electrons. True, but all of that is made of Quarks spinning in different directions. But Quarks are made of Cosmic Strings vibrating at different frequencies……keep asking the questions and one day we’ll make a telescope that can reach so far out into space you’ll see the back of your own freaking head!!
And then we’ll back to the original question: Would someone remind me what the hell we are supposed to be doing here??
I got a lot happier overall when I starting policing how many questions away from reality I would allow myself to venture. If you can answer the first few with any satisifaction….I say that is enough.
When I started work last March I imposed on myself a one year question moratorium: No questions for a year. Whether or not I “like X” or if “Y is meaningful” was only allowed as a means to pass time. I could ask just a few questions, and I was not allowed to take action on anything I thought.
I think this has been a sound policy and largely successful. However, I don’t want to be ostrich and my year is about up.
I wonder if I will continue my question cease-fire?
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Interesting comment about the fact that they need you at work. It gives you a since of accomplishment and fulfillment. Also I am happy that you enjoy the tennis. It is something that can stay with you throughout life. Be open mined to golf.
I find a lot of satisfaction in compliments at work that I take for granted but they are amazed that new and innovative things are happening.
I will regret leaving the Chamber soon as they will miss me. I will try to stay close to them and help when I can as a volunteer.
You said: “Interesting comment about the fact that they need you at work. It gives you a since of accomplishment and fulfillment.”
Partially true. It gives me a odd, hurried sense of accomplishment without answering the question of what exactly I am accomplishing.
And as for fulfillment…not so much. It is only fulfilling in as much as it distracts you from the rest of your life, which may or may not be fulfilling (for many people it isn’t).
I find YOUR comment interesting, that out of the whole post you predictably zero in on the one comment that most validates your viewpoint.
The fact is, work gives YOU a sense of accomplishment and fulfillment. If you re-read my post, you will see that I am actually questioning, not affirming, that it can do the same for me.
As usual, you see what you want to see.