1:47 am - 05.03.2010
My Meaningless Life

For a very long time now, I've struggled with the fact that I am motivated to write in here, and at the same time, often avoid writing in here.

There's been something I'm avoiding. Maybe a number of "somethings". Who knows?

But here's the Granddaddy of subjects apparently too scary to address: My life has no meaning.

That's a tough thing to write about in a journal, even if other people weren't reading it - It just sounds pathetic and sad, a desperate "cry for help" ("My life is meaningless...so will you reach out, and perhaps provide the meaning I am so sorely lacking? Pretty please?").

And it's not the kind of thing that you can address neatly and efficiently in one journal entry, particularly not when you have the habit of waiting till the wee hours of the morning to do it.

But it's an issue that isn't going anywhere. It certainly isn't going away because I'm ducking it, that's for sure.

My life has no meaning.

And because of that, I've spent lots of time pondering what - I'm guessing - gives life meaning for other people.

Religion?

(I don't have one.)

Family?

(I don't have one.)

Partner/spouse?

(I don't have one.)

A career?

(I don't have one...and more on that in a moment.)

(And now I'm bogging down...but I'm going to keep pushing....)

During a break between my Sunday morning WW meeting and a scheduled staff meeting in the afternoon, I stopped at Barnes and Noble, and ended up buying a book by Alan Alda (Things I Overheard While Talking To Myself).

I went to Subway for lunch, and I started reading it right away (Even though I'd brought another book from home for just that purpose - To entertain myself between meetings).

I was very surprised, at one point, to read that Alda thinks life is meaningless, in the existential sense that life doesn't inherently have any meaning.

I somehow wouldn't have imagined him thinking that.

But it doesn't depress him, or leave him feeling hopeless - like it often leaves me - I guess because he's a creative, inquisitive person.

He likes that you have to work to find meaning in your life, or maybe more accurately, you have to work to make your life mean something.

One thing I've realized (probably a long time ago, when I think about it, but it only really crystallized recently) is that I've derived "meaning" from my life - such as I have - from the struggle to "overcome my past" (To be "healed", or be "normal" - whatever that means - or more to the point, to "win out in the end"...by becoming a famous actor, maybe?)

And I've realized that's not really going to work for me (Defining what "overcoming my past" would even mean could comprise a journal entry all by itself).

And I know someone reading this will think, "But Jim, what about your acting? Doesn't that give your life meaning?".

In a word?

No.

I think that is the other thing I've been looking to for "meaning", because I enjoy doing it, and it gives other people enjoyment, and that's all good right?

But it's not enough, even if I were actually doing it (I probably shouldn't think this way, but I do - While acting does provide me with a sense of meaning and purpose, pursuing acting without actually doing much of it?...not so much)

(But again, the reason you shouldn't build your mental/emotional/spiritual foundation on acting is the stuff of a journal entry - or a series of entries - all by itself.)

Losing the sense of a point here, and it has gotten past "late" (And I do have a late-morning WW meeting to think about).

Like I said at the beginning, I'm not going to "solve this" tonite, and that wasn't the point, really.

It's really more about just admitting, to myself (and to You, I guess), that it is an ongoing, major "issue" for me.

And that I need to quit ducking my discomfort over it, and get over my dream/hope/belief/whatever that meaning will emerge somehow from the ether, and think about what I want life to mean, and what I can do to move things in that direction.

And I think that's why I've been so frustrated with myself and this journal for a very long time now - What else is a journal supposed to be, if not a place to wrestle with just this sort of issue?

Not sure if this has made much sense or is as coherent as I'd like, but I was in bed thinking about this stuff, and I thought, "Hey Jim, instead of thinking about this as you lay in bed, and forgetting about it next time you sit down in front of the computer, why don't you try to write about it?".

So here we are.

And now I'm going back to bed...

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