I want to sincerely thank the admins for returning me the ability to put titles on my posts. It is a little comfort that I previously took for granted, but now understand the frailty and value of.
I started writing this as a comment, and then I realized that it was going to be more of a thought than a tangent, and here we are.
My wife this evening [last night?! what does one put at 4 AM?] made a remark that put it all in perspective I think;
“I often wonder what my life would be like if I was doing what I was meant to.”
As an existential agnostic, my mind spins and sputters at the idea of destiny. I believe my retort was; “I thought I went for what I was supposed to, and that was the end of that.” I spent my entire adult life at least investing in a career that I think should be dead. I don’t get to die, but the career path should. I can get published AND READ in computer science easier than sociology, psychology or anthropology.
Anyway, I think there is a feeling of entitlement to the concept of destiny. It isn’t that I doubt that there is a higher power, what I doubt is that he/she/it/them has the motivation to sculpt a path for my life. As in; I’ve been asking for 28 years [since I was five] what I was here on this planet to do. Thus far, echoing silence. Which does not mean an answer will not come. It means that all signs point to it not coming.
I’m like a sailor washed ashore after an awful storm, one that killed most of the people I care about. Thinking maybe I should build a little seaside shack, and never board a boat again. I know the thoughts I have, all the things I know would be a waste if not put to use. Yet that is the sunk cost fallacy, a well known logical aberration. Maybe a horse was a fast runner, for years and years, and maybe you and the horse had an understanding of each other. The fact is that it is now an old slow horse. Either put it out to pasture or send it to the glue factory, because it is done running. You can fight it all you want, but you can’t make an old lame horse run like a young horse.
and I am aware that I jumped metaphors midstream. I couldn’t think of a sunk cost metaphor from the point of view of a sailor. Maybe something about some ships are so damaged they are impractical to repair? I feel like the horse thing is more relatable. Just because I have a fascination with nautical engineering doesn’t mean anyone else does, or that I should impose it on others.
1 comment
Ah, the oft asked question.
If we found what we were all meant to do, we wouldn’t be here on a suicide site O_o. Sigh, if only I had my drive, my passion, my desire for life back. I feel like most things we do are bullsh*t, put on Earth to slave away for our corporate masters who keep us enslaved with low wages and high costs of living. How many people *actually* enjoy what they’re doing or enjoy their lives?
I’m going off on a tangent. Idk wtf I’m saying. Just that, you’re not alone thinking existential thoughts. Often I think it better to be one of the masses who never think so deeply. That is the cause of depression, surely, thinking too much and too deeply.
If there *was* such a thing as destiny, then isn’t it evil and as*hole-ish to put us on Earth? That would mean that murders and rapes and all sorts of evil were also “meant to be.” A depressing thought eh?
Anyhow, I enjoyed your writing, for what it’s worth. O_o