rhetoric vs myth

[brightbluegirl]

Last night Aaron called to tell me about his week in Costa Rica. They did some super cool things.

We talked for awhile, and I asked him if he had any goals for this year.

He doesn't have any. He said he's in a pretty good place - he doesn't have any debt, he's working where he wants to work, he's in a good relationship in a good home. He's content, so he's not working towards anything.

And I feel conflicted, hearing that.

On the one hand, I thought - how wonderful, to be in that good place, to have no debt and lots of savings, to be in love and to have everything you want.

On the other, I thought - how can you waste your life, not having any goals? To just live, with nothing on the horizon but the same damn thing, day in and day out? How does a week in Costa Rica compare to a goal for increased artistic skill (that would eventually lead to showing my work). Or does it compare at all?

So now I am, again, stymied.

What is life for?

I KNOW that life is to be enjoyed. I know my life is for me, not for anyone else. But those are just part of the equation.

Or are they all of it?

I feel like perhaps, although I talk the rhetoric about living for me and being anti-consumerist (or at least, moderately consumerist), and material goods are not the sum of who you are, and what you do isn't either and community is the answer, I mean REAL community, and home schooling and attachment parenting and organic foods and get outside and smell the air dammit...

That maybe I fell into the trap of another myth. The myth that says STRIVE STRIVE STRIVE STRIVE you always have to work hard to reach some undefinable thing, because you aren't good enough your life isn't good enough, what the hell are you doing lying down on the job get your fat ass UP and do some good!

I thought that the things I wanted were good - 1) I want to lose weight so I can live a longer healthier more active life with Andrew and our (not yet here) children. 2) I want to get rid of my credit card debt and my school loans so we don't ever have to work jobs we don't like. 3) I want to gain technical skill so my painting has more depth and so I can keep moving with that, so I can say "I'm an artist" and not have that voice in the back of my head that says "you fingerpaint, you're not good enough"

I think so much. I think so much that I double-think. I see more than one answer to everything. I second guess myself, my peers, my teachers, my bosses, everyone. I doubt everything.

Oh for the stability and ease that just accepting and not looking back would offer.

But it feels like I'd be shortchanging myself and the world if I did that! If I did that, who's to say that a more intelligent way of looking at something wouldn't come by, and I would ignore it, like so many conservative people do, because it isn't in my Carved-In-Stone-Ideals? That doesn't seem right.

I don't seem to be able to keep an open mind while just accepting who and what I am. I am CONSTANTLY sifting and resifting through what I've heard and thought and believe, to discover what is most right in this situation.

And I'm Tired.

Comments

You have it right

[a-narchist.livejournal.com]

That's how life is supposed to work. If you don't look back over what you've seen and heard and experienced and thought, and then learn and change and adapt to what you see to be a better way, then you become stagnant. Sometimes you'll decide that you had it right the first time, but at least you've given something else a chance. The thing about people, is that they (mostly) have the ability to adapt and learn. It's a huge part of being able to evolve. There are better ways to do anything.

Also, you have the right ideas with the first concerns, but slightly mixed up. Life is definitely about you, and making yourself happy. And some people do set goals and do things in life because they are told to strive and keep going and never relax. But this doesn't mean that setting goals is buying into that. On the contrary, if your goals are things that will help you feel better about yourself and the world and make you generally a happier person, then you would be wrong in NOT setting them and striving toward them. People who just buy into the idea don't have goals that will make them happy. They have the goals that they are told to have.

More power to you.

[caric.livejournal.com]

This is based on no context other than this entry, but I am compelled to point out what Brian Eno isolated as possibly the only attribute--after all else has been discounted or rendered irrelevant with changing times and tastes--of a great artist:

Confidence.

There's the familiar aphorism of the regular joe who walks into a gallery, glares at some abstract expressionist painting and says, "I could do THAT."

So why didn't he?

I just like to throw a little Eno into wherever he can be helpful. Ask me about how he peed into Duchamp's "Fountain."