The Best Mental Break Ever

As I said in a previous post, I had a mental break last year. It was a scary, but somewhat life changing event that I am still processing, adjusting and applying to my life, nearly every day. As I exist in my life, I find myself rearranging my ideas and priorities of what my life is supposed to be, what it is supposed to mean, and what kind of impact I am supposed to have in this world.

It’s a weird feeling to become completely aware that your life has no purpose, no meaning, no…end game that you are to accomplish before you shed this mortal coil. We are told from a very profoundly young age that we need to be something, do something, make an impact, leave a mark in this world. We are meant to BE something. DO something. LEAVE a lasting impression. But…what happens when you realize you aren’t anything, haven’t done anything and haven’t made any lasting difference, and time seems to be running out?

It’s a daunting precipice to find yourself up against. It can make you feel worthless. It can make living feel worthless. It can make everything feel like there is no point. No reason. No…anything. For some people, this place is devastating and hard to overcome. For others, it is a freedom that opens the doors to all possibilities. I don’t know what makes one person one way or the other. I don’t know if everyone comes to this place in their life, or just a few. I only know my moment there.

Kurt Vonnegut is quoted to have said:

“I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don’t let anybody tell you different.”

First off, it is important to be aware that Kurt was a rich, white male who had every available resource granted to him to not just say that, or believe it, but actually live it. He had what a large majority don’t. He also wrote that during a time where, while the nation was in turmoil, it was not anywhere near where it is today. He had a lot more advantages and prospects than we currently do now, whether that be socially, economically, physically, or otherwise. The world Kurt lived in feels like a fantasy land of dreams and benefits that we currently will never know or have, much due to him and those with him.

Second, we need to realize that the majority of everything we do fits into a construct created by people. Usually people who want power and want to find aw ay to control others. Money, society, government, economy, all these things are fictitious things man created to rule someone, something, or take power that they didn’t previously have. The concept of “work” is a manmade construct, as is “industry”, “Capitalism”, “religion”, “politics” and so on. Without the desire to be and do something, we’d not have these ideologies and constructs that harness us, or even chain us to them in an intricate fashion. If we didn’t have these things, our lives truly would be to just “fart around”.

When you remove those constructs, and really think about the purpose of your existence, you discover there is really only two:

·         To exist

·         To procreate

That’s it. That is all we are here to do. Everything else is just a bonus. All the discoveries we make, are just added value. All the life we live, is just that much more we have added to our memories. And that is it.

It makes the concepts of meritocracy, employment, labor, etc kind of…silly and pointless.

For me, all this introspection led me to the thought:

“Well….fuck. All these concepts and constructs only serve to keep me a prisoner of enjoying the bonuses of this existence. Thanks to the power hungry, my life actually has *less* meaning than if I refused to acknowledge those confines.”

It doesn’t matter if anyone agrees or disagrees with my conclusion. It’s mine and I only apply it to me. But it did change my points of view. With my employment, with who and what I surround myself with. For finding my own inner peace. For attaining what makes me feel happy, fulfilled and content.

There was a lot of relief in this new way of thinking. I didn’t have to care about the work I did, as long as it provided me with the basic necessities, didn’t physically kill me, and allowed me to advance myself in the ways I had determined were important. All the rest were really meaningless because they were fabricated to benefit and profit someone else.

It didn’t give me hope, or meaning, or even purpose, but it did allow me to continue forward, because, now the goal wasn’t what had been dictated to me all my life, it was becoming what I determined for myself. If I decided something wasn’t for me, all well. Change course! The job is a huge pile of shit? Change it! This doesn’t bring me anything but anger and strife? Change it! The goal became to make my life what I wanted it to be and fuck what anyone else thinks or wants from me. In the end, I’m not going to regret the things I could have done, because I did them, or made every effort to.

I stopped watching the news, for starters. I realized the way America is heading at a rapid pace to the dumpster fire, it wasn’t worth keeping up with. Once women’s rights were eradicated, the game for me was over. I ceased to be a person of value and worth in my nation. There was no point in even bothering caring what a shitpile the nation becomes. All it does would create more anger and discontent. I still pay attention, but not like I used to. It doesn’t foster any good feelings towards my life, makes me angry and resentful, and only reminds me of how horrible a world we now live in. There’s no profit to the news, only loss.

Instead, I started watching “This Old House”, “Gardner’s World”, cooking shows, things that made me feel comfortable, cozy and wanting to exist in the world. Things that made me feel like I had options, creative outlets, and ideas. From those, I increased my desire to expand my space, work on my home, create a better garden, eat good foods, put things into my life that made it worth living. I joined a house plant of the month subscription which has honestly filled my life with so much joy every month, the $16 is worth every penny! My little plant corner has exploded with green life in such a way that just looking at it makes me smile.  Planning my garden fills me with excitement, even though everything may fail because I’m terrible at it. Next year, I get a chance to make it better, learn new things and see what happens! Instead of creating to make money, I’m able to just create and enjoy the process without worrying about the value it can give me. (I will run out of room soon for things, so I *do* need to sell things eventually, but I’ll do that at a later date when I’m ready, not because I have to.)

A lot of people think mental breaks are a bad thing, but honestly, it was perhaps the best thing that happened to me. I still lament about how shitty the world has become, but now, I know, I can create my own space away from it, enjoying my life the way I want, creating the things that make me the happiest, having no purpose other than the one I determine for myself, when I want, how I want. That feels like freedom to me.