I want to do something else. But i can’t access any of the stuff i really want to do, and of the stuff that’s available, i’m not significantly interested or motivated by any of it.
On the other hand, i want to do nothing. But there are all these constant, continual requirements of merely existing, which require effort and time and energy and action… but i don’t see anything of comparable value resulting from paying the cost of those requirements.
I mean… i’m existing… i’m “alive…”
But so what?
There are indeed things i see in life that i would be significantly interested in, and motivated by… but their requirements seem to exceed my ability to both fulfill and sustain them. So i can’t reach any of those things “worth living for.”
So i have to look at what’s accessible, to find anything worth doing… and i’m just not that interested in the rest of it, even though i see some kinda cool things which could, and probably should be, temporarily enjoyable, to some extent.
And amidst the admittedly enjoyable, peaceful, relaxing inaction… i can’t shake the recurring thought/feeling that i want to “do” something… not just sit and wait for the remainder of my life to pass.
But i can’t do any of what i really want to do, and i don’t really want, all that much, to do any of what i can.
And i’m tired of trying to just make myself want differently. It doesn’t work. I want what i want, and anything outside of that is insufficient and/or unacceptable.
When people say “life is what you make it,” i think they forget about all the parts that are made into exactly what i don’t want, by others.
In order for “life is what you make it” to be true… then “life is not what you don’t make it” should also be true. But it is not. If it was, then nothing you don’t want, would ever happen. And if it does, you could just make it different.
Because who would make their life something they don’t want it to be? All of us, given the means to do so, would make our lives exactly what we want them to be.
Without the means, you can’t make much of anything. You can only consider whether to accept what is made of things, by those who do have the means for making. And sometimes, all you can do is say “i don’t want this,” while being forced to accept it anyway.
I don’t want this. I want something else. But i lack the means… and even the means to the means.
And i can’t expect anyone to help with that last problem, because most would expect that i will make something they don’t want, if i have the means… which is probably why i was never allowed to reach those means.
16 comments
can you go into more detail please?
yes please do since ur clever!!
so clever.
yes very! lol
expecting a clever response though! 🙂
“can you go into more detail please?”
A few possible answers to this question:
A) Yes.
B) No.
C) I don’t know…
D) i don’t think details are necessary for what i wished to express
E) if i tried to say everything i want to say, it would take too many words, too much energy, too much time, too much effort, and still not produce any useful results or effective solutions to the problems… which are more about the way things work, than about “details.”
F) i’m disinclined, because i feel like i’ve already tried so hard, for so long, just to become able to properly verbalize everything… and either people don’t understand, or aren’t listening, or… can’t or won’t help. They almost always simply insist that no changes to the world are necessary, and that i’m only miserable or displeased because i’m “bad” and want the wrong things… or whatever.
I want to do something… else. As-in, not this, not what i’ve been doing, and not any of the uninteresting or insufficient stuff that is actually available.
But at the same time, i want to do nothing. But i can’t just do nothing, because existence has requirements. I could probably force myself to meet the minimum requirements of existence, but for what little is gained by doing so, those requirements seem way too high.
I feel like i’m just reiterating everything i already said, which isn’t going to change anything… and is the same thing i’ve been doing for a long time… which is part of why i want to do something else, something different… or nothing at all. But i seem to lack the means to do any of what i would want to do, and even lack the opportunity to acquire those means to any desirable ends, or any desirable middles (which is ultimately the important part; it’s the journey that’s important: what you’re doing while you’re doing it, not the destination).
Clevername… I’m going to try to write a reasonable response… So bear with me…
Personally…I do not want you to commit suicide or throw in the towel on life… I understand the desperation of your situation but you posses one thing that can put you where you need to be with the correct opportunity… And that’s your intellect… I swear had you been born and raised with a healthy body and excellent or even above average upbringing?…. Shit you would be on the Forbes list right now…
You’ve probably sat in silence for countless hours thinking of ways to build or generate a income satisfying enough to make you content…and it hasn’t happened….but….does that mean it can’t?… No not at all…
You say you are unable to sustain the effort it takes to get the things that make life worth living for….well…why?… Besides the physical issues I know you have…other than that what hinders you? And is there anyway possible to eliminate those roadblocks?…if not…can you escape them? There has to be a way to do something to help….
If you were given an initial…. 100,000$ …right now in cash only accessible to you….how would you make that money work for you?.. Would you be able to invest that money in something to build residual income?
I envy and admire your intellect… In all honesty if I had to name the “top dog” here as far as logical rational intellectuals go? I would have no choice but to select you….in case you haven’t notice (I know you have lol) you’re probably…most likely smarter than everyone on this site….and that’s not an insult to anybody here…it makes them not a bit stupider by saying I think you’re more intelligent but it needs to be said…
I swear…if I had discovered this site and I was in great condition?…. I would have personally invested money in you to create whatever it is that you need to be stable and financially secure…not because I like you….not even because you’re smart…but because you have the ability to focus analyze and dissect shit like I’ve never seen before…and any half wit knows thinking is the first step in anything….and you’ve proven you do that very well…
I think if you keep thinking… Eventually… The lightbulb will go off… Hang in there buddy
Hello Clevername
I hear you. Sometimes being clever isn’t necessarily a good thing…now is it? My mom used to tell me ad nauseum…”You’re sooo smart you’re stupid”.
That was the background music of my childhood. Sometimes when you are “clever” you outsmart yourself. Usually by overthinking, over analyzing…you manage to take the joy out of everything for yourself.
I know you are clever…my friend Procel told me so. But do you ever listen to yourself? Are you ADHD as well? hahaha
You give great helpful advice to others…yet can’t find any for yourself. You are basically an untapped wealth of potential with no passion. So how does one find one’s passion? By looking of course. We find things in strange places for sure..but you have to be looking to find it.
Just a suggestion….look somewhere you have never thought of looking before.
I am currently reading “The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari”. Have you ever read this? It is fiction…but you just never know where you’re going to find your answers…do you? What is the most influential book YOU have read…fiction or non fiction?
I understand a restless mind…and so I am wishing you Peace my friend. I hope you find your passion…a way to utilize your brilliant mind in a way you feel beneficial to yourself…but in the meantime…you are helping many here while on your journey.
Peace
Love and Light
Ama
The monk who sold his ferrari, and here I sit with one hundred years of solitude. Fiction or mont fiction does not matter to me. I gladly read and in this case re-read any truly good written book. As to clever, I shall wait patiently for that answer that will enlighten me as to how he has miraculously survived the entire ordeal for more than 20 so what years? Was it love, hope, a suicide project gone wrong?
Its Clevers decision to share how he survived(love, hope or suicide gone wrong) although i think we are all curious about each others stories. I for one am keeping mine close to my heart(in a box on the shelf lol)
@Pain n Ama: good responses
honestly, i didn’t survive. I kept trying to do what i couldn’t, until it broke me. I’m only alive because i’ve been carried by a few people who figured the least-bad choice was to allow me to live, instead of allowing me to die. I’m sure we all “hope” that i can someday recover and finally achieve efficient self-sufficiency… but i’ve gone to great lengths to ensure my carriers understand that the chances of that happening are very slim, and the requirements to produce that result are both very high, and not currently available.
(i’ll just pause here to thank Pain and Ama for their posts; i still intend to address them directly, but not up to it at this moment)
I’ve had many “close-calls” in my life, but in many ways, i have to consider myself lucky to have avoided catastrophic damage. But i didn’t avoid ALL damage, and many of those experiences have left their marks (and i don’t mean external, superficial, aesthetic scars…).
Ultimately, when it comes right down to it, you have a choice: you can keep trying, no matter how bleak or impossible the desired outcome may seem… or you can surrender all future chances to try anything, ever again. I’ve never been a “quitter.” When i encounter insurmountable obstacles, i CAN’T quit. I smash myself into them from every possible angle, until either i beat it, or it breaks me. Some of the things i just couldn’t beat, and those things left me “broken,” in some ways. Being truly defeated, and with zero recourse, is a truly devastating feeling. It’s not like “losing one game,” or “losing one game-life.” It’s discovering that your own maximum usable efforts and capabilities, are simply inferior to what is required to succeed, in a given set of parameters.
At some point, a little over 2 years ago, i finally reached a degree of overburdening misery that i simply could no longer manage. Too many things had bothered me for too long, and despite my best efforts, i had not been able to overcome them.
Idk if any of you know how it feels to try to lift something that is heavy enough that even your whole body’s maximum efforts cannot budge… but if you try that for long enough, you strain your body to the point where you can’t try again, at least not with any efficacy. You can go through the motions, but your muscles reach a physical exhaustion stage, where you simply cannot generate meaningful force, until you have spent enough time recovering. But due to the perpetual requirements of existence, i was always short on recovery time, and so life kept taking more and more of me than i could give, until one day, i just couldn’t do it anymore… but i was still healthy enough that it would take a very long time to agonizingly starve to death… so it was either check out, or allow myself to be carried, in the hopes that maybe someday i’d be able to find a way to “make it,” that i could actually sustain, without anyone’s help. I hate needing help. I want to do everything myself… but i hate having to do things that shouldn’t even need doing, because those requirements could be avoided entirely, if people would just listen to me. But i find that most people don’t seem to want to listen to me, a “failure,” a “loser,” a non-productive member of society, tell them how they could improve things (for more than just themselves) by doing things differently… and that they SHOULD do exactly that, BECAUSE of the potential improvements, and for more than just themselves. I try to explain, but people get offended or upset, because they’re too busy with being trapped in “survival mode,” to really pause and take a step back and listen to alternate ways of better understanding things. They just want to do the easiest thing that works (and i can’t blame them or even argue against that, because that’s natural and expected; even beneficial, if applied the right ways, to the right things…).
I would like to actually write a book about “all this stuff,” but there’s so much of it that it overwhelms my organizational capacity. If i had like 3 years to do nothing but relax and think and work on that, without the pressures of “life,” i could probably pull it off.
So there’s more “stream of consciousness” (which i’m often criticized for) for all of your reading “pleasure.” 😛
As I said…I do get it. Remember I am 52 and a slow learner. haha
A gift:
CHANGE
This is where I yank the old roots
from my chest, like tomatoes
we let grow until December, stalks
thick as saplings.
This is the moment when the ancient fears
race like thoroughbreds, asking for more
and more rein. And, I, the driver,
for some reason they know nothing of
strain to hold them back.
Terror grips me like a virus
and I sweat, fevered,
trying to burn it out.
This feat is so invisible. All you can see
is a woman going about her ordinary day,
drinking tea, taking herself to the movies,
reading in bed. If victorious
I will look exactly the same.
Yet I am hoisting a car from mud ruts
half a century deep. I am hacking
a clearing through the fallen slash
of my heart. Without laser precision,
with only the primitive knife of need, I cut
and splice the circuitry of my brain.
I change.
Ellen Bass
@clevername, Would your book be able to have passion and credibility if the “pressures of Life” were not a factor in your life?
@clevername, Would your book be able to have passion and credibility if the “pressures of Life” were not a factor in your life?
@OLIR:
no…
But would life be able to have my book, if the relentless requirements prevent me from completing it? ^^
To know how to live you also must know how to die. If you look at each day with a feeling that it’s going to be your last then suddenly the air is crisp, the sun brighter than it’s ever been, sounds clear, taste of an apple so sweet, all thoughts subside. Surrender to this life through the eyes of death and each breath comes alive completely.