Musings

Well, judging by my long absence from the blogosphere, blogging is not a deeply ingrained or urgent activity. I have actually thought on several occasions that I wanted to blog about some topic or another. But I was unable to overcome the feeling that my efforts would have the net effect of pissing into the wind. It seems largely pointless to write when I have little if any real audience. On the other hand, I desperately want to make some difference in the world.

I have been giving a lot of thought these past few years about my life. I most often end up visualizing my self as an infinitesimal point in an infinitely large and wondrous universe. This is not a bad description. Regardless of how small I might be in the grander scheme of things, the whole would not be the same whole if I were not here. So in this sense, I define the whole just as it defines me. We have this mutual thing going: Mitakue Oyasin ( All my relations).

There is a lot of comfort in those thoughts. Yet, there is another avenue of thought which proves to be troubling for me. In this visualization, I am a hapless bit of flotsam tossed about in the time-stream of existence. Emotionally, I feel as if I have no control. Intellectually, I believe that control is illusory.

Mostly, I can't seem to find anything that seems like ambition or chosen direction within me. The material world for the most part has little draw for me. Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy my creature comforts and have an obscenely large collection of things attached to me. But when I think about these comforts and things for any length of time I recognize that in large part I could live, not as comfortably, but nonetheless live without almost all of it.

It bothers me to think that in large part I have a similar relationship to people as I have with things. In this case though, my people world is decidedly less crowded than my things world. At present, my people world consist of four people. G^2(my partner/wife), my daughters P & J, and Mom. Oh, I have other family and know other people, but when it comes right down to it these are the only people that I share any significant part of myself with.

It bothers me that I have no functioning social group. Yes, there are people out there that I count as friends and feel strongly towards, Brenda, Miguel and Peter. Yet in truth, we shared a very narrow range of experience together, primarily sharing ourselves at the sweat lodge. I see my friends rarely since moving from Portland. In the 2 plus years that we've been in Bellingham/Ferndale, I have yet to make any new friends, numerous acquaintances, but no friends.

Honestly, friends have been a rarity in my life. People have pretty much come and gone in my life, touching me, even changing me some, but none have remained close and connected. This is no doubt due to a very introspective and possibly narcissistic personality on my part. I can't seem to maintain a long term outward focus.

Clearly I am adrift, my thoughts wandering to and fro as I write this. When I started I'd thought that I should just write and see what came out. Not surprising that, in part a sense of lonely has come to the fore. I suspect that my longing for connection will most likely go unfulfilled as I am unlikely to undergo some trans-formative experience which will alter my fundamental pattern of being.

I did want to talk a bit about my want to have some direction in my life. What I am talking about here is actually more than a direction. What I am looking for is a Passion, an Obsession, something that drives me forward. I am suddenly struck by the irony of what I am asking for, in the sense that I have never felt as if I was in control of my life and here I am asking for something to take control away from me and drive me.

I am a dabbler! I paint. I draw. I write. I act. I drum. I play flutes. I do lots and lots of things. None of the particularly well. I enjoy doing them but I am not compelled to do any of them. I am not compelled to excel at anything. I suspect that fear of failure may be at the root of my lack of compulsion to excel. Maybe, I am truly just too lazy.

I am not happy with my lack of drive, because I want my life to amount to something more than just existence. Although, I do think it is pretty cool that the universe wouldn't be the same if I weren't here. I want my existence to have some larger impact on the universe. I suppose that is ambition, so I guess I do have it. So I am coming full circle once again. Leading me back to that mantra which plagues me and pushes me up against my fear, my angst. "Show Up!" "Show Up!"