ril's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Recent Reflections Recent Reflections I�ve been traveling quite a bit lately. That�s not the full explanation for my online absence, but it�s most of it� the rest can be attributed to my attempt to return to a pen and paper journal. My friend from school whom I�ve written about a couple of times gave me a beautiful leather-bound, gilded-edged journal for my birthday. And, since I tend to write with a slightly more personal style whenever I write in my paper journal� and that�s what I thought I needed at the time, I focused my efforts there� The funny thing about that is that I also (quite inadvertently) began losing contact with other online journals too� and, to tell you the truth, I missed �hearing� about the goings on in their lives. Is that way out there strange? Why is that, I wonder? What is there about the little bit of insight I think I can gain about the lives of others that means so much to me? To be sure, there are some exceptional writers (and one person in particular comes to mind), but that isn�t really what�s in it for me. I struggled with this for awhile, and I think I finally have a handle on it. The �insight� isn�t about other�s lives� it�s about mine. I mean, the writings may be about their lives but (again with reference to the good Dr. Covey) it turns out that those things which are most personal are, in fact, most universal� Reading the musings of others gives me faith� hope really� and perhaps the strength� to believe that the kind of people I need so much to believe are really out there, really are� and there are mornings when that knowledge is the only reason I talk myself into getting out of bed. If you knew me personally, you�d think that that was a very strange thing for me to say. On the surface I am the guy that other people refer to as the one who has everything �all together.� There are certainly outward indicators of success, at least if you measure those sorts of things the way that most people do� but, deep down� on the inside� I know the truth� I am operating on momentum� the events I set in motion years ago continue to carry me along� at least well enough so that I�m not sinking� at least for the moment. I recognize that I am exceptionally fortunate in many, many respects. I, and all those I care about, are healthy. I have been blessed with the talent (and the ego) to sincerely believe that I can do anything I want to� and I am in a position to be able to do it anywhere I choose to� � and that�s how I know I�m in trouble� I�ve lost my compass. I've spent considerable time thinking about this over the past few weeks, and I can honestly say that there isn�t anything I can think of that inspires me to any noticeable degree. Like I said, I�ve been blessed to the point that I don�t really have any significant �need� in my life� but I also feel like I am missing a certain drive or passion about my life. It�s not (as I think I suspected at first) that I was becoming generally insensitive to emotional stimuli. In fact, as I�ve gotten older, I think I can appreciate the subtleties in the infinite variety of life�s experiences better than ever� I feel so many emotions so intensely� but nothing motivates me�. nothing drives me to do anything more than the bare minimum any more. I don�t have any particular goal I feel the need to achieve� there are no injustices I feel the need to right (I mean, there are plenty of injustices� but none of them offend my sense of right and wrong to the extent that I take any of them personally)� no hobbies I care anything about� and, although I consider it one of my core values, I don�t feel as if I�m part of this community� or maybe more correctly, I don�t care anything about becoming a part of this particular community� This �me� that I�ve become is so not �me.� It is the antithesis of the me that I was for the first 35 or so years of my life, and the undeniable realization that I may not be who I�ve always thought I was has very much taken me by surprise�. and yet here I am� So� while I sort all of this out (or perhaps while I don�t), I just want you to know how much hope and inspiration I draw from the knowledge that the kind of people I so desperately want to be a part of my life are really out there� and that I may meet some of them sometime... In other words, I just want to say thanks for being there. - 2002-03-09 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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