I want to feel like I've accomplished something. One of my biggest fears in life is coming to the end of it, looking back and thinking "What did I do?" What did I do that I'm proud of, that makes me feel like there was a point to me being here, that I can look back at and say "I accomplished something."
I suppose I'm just like everyone though. I don't know a single person who doesn't want to feel like they've made an impact in some way, some how. And I know that I've left/am leaving my mark on some people. There are people who've most definitely left their mark on me. I wonder if those people know that they've influenced me. I wonder if they're sitting around thinking, "Damn, what I have I done with my life?" There are some people I know I would guffaw at if they turned to me and said they felt unaccomplished. And I'm sure I could get the same response from people, maybe even those I look up to.
Yet, here I am, sitting at a low point and feeling pretty darn deficient in my "things I've done that I'm proud of" category. I hate being at one of those going through the motions points of life. I don't want my current actions and state of being to be a means to an end. I want every moment to count for something. Who doesn't?
My struggle comes at the point of deciphering and deciding what to do about it. What do I do about this transitional, transient, uneventful part of my life that I am so apparently dissatisfied with? I don't have a clue. I have all these urges to move, create, build, laugh, experience. I just don't feel like I have the means to be that person. I've spent a lot of my life idolizing people who seemed so free-spirited; longing to be so extraordinary and act so natural. What's funny is that there are people who see me as that kind of person... though I never feel like that kind of person. I just feel like me. Plain Jane, simple, regular.
Right now, I don't know how to compromise these feelings. I have these goals that I just want to rush into. Maybe they're not totally goals, but desires. Sometimes I think I'm only of those people that wasn't meant to live in the real world. Ya know, that world of bill-paying, credential-building, adulty place. I don't think I was made for that. Like I'm Willy Wonka standing in the city and looking at the normal passersby like they're the weird ones. I don't think I'm made for that place, or rather this place I guess.
I'm in Wonderland or Narnia or something. No wait... I want to be in those places because everything that I feel is right is right in those places. What does that even mean? Those places were made up, but man do I wish I could step through the wardrobe or fall down the rabbit hole and just be there. The fantastic just feels natural, normal. And this place feels heavy, busy, and (in my opinion) destructive. I wonder what it would be like to just act like I'm really in Narnia or Wonderland? I don't mean playing pretend, but to live in this brick and smoggy place like its a world of fantasy. Let me see if I can explain this right because I don't want to sound like someone who's lost there marbles (like Teddy in Peter Pan :-P ).
Why couldn't the ideals that Lewis, Carroll, Tolkein... Barrie... whoever! described be rules to live by? Isn't that what they meant anyhow? Aren't there valuable lessons in those stories? If not, then what's the point of them anyway!?! Maybe the fountain of youth is just not letting go of the ethics of childhood where everyone is fair, friends, and interesting. An opposing idea might say "But that's just not how the world works!" I think that's not how the world works because we have forgotten the innocence and importance of fairness and sharing that were so vital to us as children. Kids have probably got it more right that any degree'd and diploma'd scholar. The most brilliant ideas come from minds that have been unaltered by our grown-up mean, money focused rules and regulations.
This is probably why I feel like I have to be accomplished. I have to turn myself into something so that I can leave behind a marker of the great things I've done. Heck, even the characters in the books do great things... though not usually by common means. I wonder the places that unusual means could take us...
