Everything means nothing to me
Elliott Smitt
Warning: this post was made as a way for me to process my emotions and thoughts. None of it will necessarily be true tomorrow. I am working through this and I am sure I will feel differently in a few days or weeks.
I’m finding myself in a bit of a slump. Call it existential dread or call it a midlife crisis although I have been through many comparable things before.
I grew up with far more existential dread than the people around me and I spent a good decade facing most of my fears which is what I imagine most mid life crises involve.
This is a little different though. I’m not sad. I’m not angry. I’m just kind of resigned, and tired. I hesitate to say any of this because I don’t need comfort. I’m ok. I’m just tired and it is what it is.
In a way I feel defeated. I know I can come back and I probably will come back but so much just feels out of my hands and I am already doing all that I can do that all I can do is just wait it out. All the while, age seems to be a thing and I may be severely limited in my capacity to do what I always wanted to do.
It is what it is.
Perhaps most people go through this kind of hard reckoning first and their midlife crisis later and I went through them in reverse.
Perhaps if I am meant to inspire people I must first feel what they feel.
There are still things to be thankful for. There are still things to enjoy. But I don’t feel the same motivation to make an effort to achieve any kind of meaningful change in the world.
I always felt like I could make a difference. I still feel it’s possible to make a difference. But now what is changing is this desire to make a difference. I just don’t care anymore.
If the world wants to burn after I am gone, let it burn. I thought I would like to have kids one day but more and more I am feeling like I would rather just enjoy my freedom. This is not to say I will not help or contribute if asked, but the world hasn’t really asked for my help and I have been trying to help my whole life, I am starting to feel like maybe I should just enjoy video games and escape into more exciting worlds for the time being.
I know this feeling will pass at some point, at least I will not want to escape to the same degree, but perhaps my days as a dreamer are over. My dreams to make a living doing what I love. My dreams to contribute to the world in a big way….they seem to be dying.
I already have enough to feel mildly comfortable and free from any external causes of suffering. Who am I to demand more from this world?
As I mentioned, these feelings of resignation are not entirely unfamiliar to me, but this lack of anger and lack of frustration around them is completely new.
If they were replaced by excitement or happiness or curiosity I would feel less concerned. I would still like to become an old person that evokes inspiration and hope, if not for the sake of the world than because it seems more fun and rewarding than being someone who complains and sulks all the time.
I would like to feel joy and excitement cause they feel good.
I suppose I can look at this as a new start. If I can face existential dread without feeling dread or anger and sadness, I’m pretty much a bad ass in my own right. It means I can do anything.
So maybe my spiritual erectile dysfunction is really just a temporary part of a transformation.
In order to achieve everything that I want, perhaps I need to sacrifice the needing of it. That’s kind of what this feels like, although I am making an effort to spin it positively.
In any case, it is kind of liberating to not care about whether I succeed or fail at anything, or whether or not my work reaches other people. Whether or not it’ll lead to me quitting and hiding in my own little reclusive hole is another question that I will have to try and answer at some point soon.
I pray that I can have more energy to face such things. Perhaps that is what I need. Focused prayer. Regardless on whether you are a believer or not, focused attention can be very powerful. So I will go do that now.