Gentle rants: Monologue
Life: Tired or Hired
“You write so well, why don’t you write anymore.” “Richard, when next are you going to write?” The answer has always been a full hearted smile, almost blushing, followed by a low toned “I don’t know”. True as it was, one of my goals this year was to write more than I did last year. And by writing this, that goal has been achieved. Really looking forward to this years’ year in review. If writing was fun and people enjoyed my word orchestration, why did I stop? How did a skill I once revered (and sometimes bragged about) get relegated to the back burner, to the dark corner of the room where no one wants to look at. That’s not to say I have any dark corners in my room, if anything, it’s too bright in there. I digress. Having asked myself this question more times than I should have, I have decided to spend time pondering on it. Here we go.
I can’t say that I’ve always loved writing but like most things, I grew into it. I loved it and for a bit. I was excited by the thought of sitting by my computer, webbing words into strings of thoughts, sharing knowledge that would otherwise die in my memory. But I soon came to question said thoughts and the weight of the supposed knowledge that I was sharing. Understandably, this sounds like a period of self doubt and critique but it was more or less than that, depending on your scale of importance. I will let you decide for yourself.
Hired: “Be the best you can be. Conquer the world and be the best!”
Tired: “Why? Life is pointless, you are meaningless in the grand scheme of things. Just live till you die.”
I lived the majority of my childhood as a hired person. Two (2) years ago, that changed. Or more accurately, I started getting Tired. The older you grow and people start dying, you begin to question your existence and the relevance of it. Why do I have to strive so hard just to drop dead for any number of reasons completely unrelated to me? For the most part, I am now convinced there is no point to living except…living. “Write your name in the sands of time” Yeah, that sounds great but when you are in the great beyond, that wouldn’t matter. Not to you or any of your peers, should you have any (this is assuming that the afterlife does not ask for a resume). And so, for the last two years I haven’t attempted to do anything meaningful aside from being meaningfully employed. I lived or at least I tried, and I will continue to try. However, this is getting boring and repetitive. Perhaps a good, managed, and well designed balance between being Tired and Hired is the way forward. I still intrinsically believe that life is meaningless and we live just for living but I now also believe in chasing everything that brings happiness paying no attention to how feeble such happiness might be. Hence, if writing brings me some fulfillment, then I should chase it.
Thus, I have decided to start writing my thoughts as a way of storing my personal thoughts over the years for my future children and grandchildren. Perhaps for myself as well. More importantly, for those who inspired me to start writing again.
How do you live your life? Tired or Hired ?
