I’m sitting outside. It’s 52 degrees in the sun but I’m sitting under a patio umbrella because the sun’s a bitch to my skin and I had a choice: get out of the house right this very second or put on sunscreen and possibly implode from rage. So here I am, shivering in the shade to avoid doing anything I might regret. “Why?” you might ask. Why am I sitting outside, bracing for each chilling blow of the wind, when I could be inside where it is a temperature controlled 68 degrees and there is no wind? Because, frankly, if I clenched my teeth any harder I would have a dental emergency to attend to in addition to everything else.
This may beg the question again, “Why?” The usual list, I suppose. Some of what is driving me to this state I am able to name with pinpoint accuracy. For instance, a cat (darling though he is) that NEEDS to be physically on me 24/7, and not in a chill way, but constantly moving, pushing, demanding never-ending pets and attention. While it is nice to feel wanted and needed, can’t a woman have 5 minutes without a cat pushing her coffee cup over? Or there’s the bf who is forever and always both dissatisfied and angry at his job. Or there’s the sheer insanity of how much work it is to get photos backed up from an iPhone to an external hard drive. That shit used to be (relatively) easy. Now it’s a battle of what technology is going to fail and at what point. The list continues and nothing on it is inherently life threatening, I’ll survive. I might develop hypertension along the way though (and that can be life threatening, hmmm). You might have your own list, the little things that overtime are rubbing your patience for them… raw.
Anyhow! Then there’s the shit I struggle to pinpoint. Maybe you’ve experienced something similar? It feels like a general malaise and discomfort, leaving me certain in the knowledge that I am off my fucking path. Also, I have no idea how far I am from it. Or in what direction it might lay. I am lost and surrounded by a dense forest, largely made up of the needs and demands of others. So much so that I feel like I cannot peacefully carve out time to even try to find my path, or that I would be allowed to follow it should I be so lucky as to trip over the damn thing.
Yes, I hear you. This is a privileged situation in which I find myself, and one you may also find yourself in. My basic needs are mostly handled, at least as defined by Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. I’m not going hungry, there’s a roof over my head (normally, right now there’s an umbrella), etc. Now, I’m searching to meet those psychological and self-fulfillment needs that Maslow also pointed to. Here’s the thing, while there is a massive black hole of inequity in our world, and there are people struggling to meet their basic needs, that hole does not mean that once your own basic needs are met that you won’t notice other gaping black holes that feel like they threaten your very existence. Like at some point, one of them is going to collapse in on itself like the dying star that it is. It’s not like my existence is even very important. I mean, it is to me but that’s because if I were to cease to exist I’d be dead (duh). I believe we are all meant to do more than survive. Maybe our paths, the ones that you and I are looking for, will solve problems that are standing in the way of everyone getting to meet their basic needs. But I think it is important to acknowledge this: knowing that you’re not on your path, your purpose, can feel crazy-making.
A common, if witty, “definition” for insanity* goes something like this, “doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” My question is, what is it called when you feel trapped, you keep trying to make changes, but in the end you wind up living the same day, over and over again? Is this what leads to insanity? Is it where part of you gives up and you stop making changes, but the hope hasn’t died so you keep hoping that something will change?
Here’s hoping (ha) that neither part dies. That the sheer existence of that hope, hope that something will change, will allow us the ability to keep trying. To keep changing, searching, growing. I know the path is out there. I know it in my core. My shivering, chilled, aching teeth core. And I know yours is to. It has to be. Right?
*This is not commentary on individuals battling medically defined insanity, rather a commentary on the general sensation of being out of control associated with recognizing that your true self and the self you find yourself living as, presenting as, being wholly out of alignment.
Trial and Error Plus Hope 