Trying to get through this funk (yeah, there's been a funk afoot in my life) I decided that even though I couldn't figure out why it was happening (overload, medicinal detox, hormones?) or how to fix it (medicine, retreat, go with it or distract myself from it?) I could just be gentle with myself. I realized that this is the advice I would give to someone who was going through this type of experience and figured that since I *am* such a good advice-giver, I should heed myself.
So today was Day #1 of being good to me. And honestly, this is the first time I have actually felt a sparkle of interest in my life in quite awhile. So sparkle usually denotes good.
My first step was to stop judging life. Which, geez, no matter how many times I write that, it seems lame. But yet, there would be another judgment. And amongst all these value judgments...which has brought me joie de vivre? Nil.
Regarding my existential life questions causing such durress, here are my responses: So I don't know why some things are the way they are. I don't know why people are cruel to each other and especially why they are to creatures smaller than them. And I don't know if they can ever be rehabilitated. I don't know why the love of power and the primal ego survival means to distance oneself from ones who are different still reigns supreme. I'm still not sure why we all run amok, day-in and day-out, like busy little ants making much ado about nothing. And most of all, I don't know why human survivial seems to require much different mechanisms than those needed for soulful fulfillment. I don't know and I can't figure it out. Maybe no one can.
But one thing does remain. I'm here and I need to work to provide for myself and family. You are here and must do things for your human survival. We may not know why we are here, but we have to trust that Someone, somewhere has a higher cause for us that we can not fathom.
My first step is acknowledging that I don't know & shouldn't assume the worst in lieu of a satisfying answer. I don't like not knowing the answers. But there it is and I think that I had better get comfy with the unknown if I ever hope to be both prone to analyzing and happy at the same time.
The second step consisted of following through on creative yearnings, no matter how impractical. I had to run to the store after work so I picked up poster paints. I have not yet received any guarantees that I will be producing anything that will be deemed beautiful by any stretch of the imagination, but I don't care. Something is telling me to paint, and that poster paint is better for me than watercolor right now (watercolor can just be too vague and unruly, and I've got enough of that in my life already). I haven't yet painted. I watched the results show of Dancing With the Stars instead. But painting shall be occuring, even if I have to paint the van's dashboard during my commute.
This is my two-step plan:
1. To stop making value judgments of life, mine in particular, especially when I know only a fraction of the workings behind it,
2. To treat myself gently and well into a state of resilience again.
For good measure on this second step, I also picked up a bag of fortune cookies when I bought the paints. Biting into that mildly sweet cookie, I knew it was a good thing. After reading the message it gave me and laughing my ass off, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt it was also meant to be. The fortune read:
The second fortune cookie was a bit more realistic:
