facing possibilities and impossibilities

There was a time when I wrote about everything that took place in my life.

That no longer happens.

I go through event after event less aware of it than all that came before.

Days fit into one of a few available patterns and weeks are entirely homogeneous.

The one real secret to getting rid of stress is simply dealing with the things you can

and not worrying about the things you can’t.

What they don’t tell you is that once you deal with things

and get into the rhythm of dealing with them automatically

and no longer think about them or worry about them,

stress melts and changes colour until it is indistinguishable from apathy.

After all, if there’s anything that stresses you to think you have to do,

it’s the kind of thing that will sap your will to live if you actually do it.

Or maybe next week when I get through a tenth of the things I have piled up on my to-do list it'll seem better.

That's what I keep saying, anyway...

This isn’t to say I don’t recognize the value in these things.

But the more I do them, the more I hate the needs they satisfy

and the fact that I have them

and have to satisfy them.

And the thing is I know I don’t have to. For the most part.

The idea appears more and more appealling that I should just drop all this…

school and work and clubs and social obligations and chores and self-improvement and things I

just

can’t

do

anymore.

I just want to spend my days hiking and biking and thinking and composing music

and writing poetry and writing stories and writing philosophy and writing letters

but right now I’m overcome by the attitude captured in Daniel Johnston’s “Story of an Artist”:

“We don’t really like what you do; we don’t think anyone ever will.”

Except I’m my own accuser.

If only I had the courage to do what I know I both love most and am best at.

The conviction is developing more and more firmly: I am meant to do this.

So why can’t I?

There was a time when I wrote about everything that took place in my life,
and a good deal besides,

but that no longer happens.

I’ve become caught up in the many roles and functions involved in this “Being an Adult” thing.

And I care less every day.

Maybe one day I’ll finally cross the threshold.

Maybe it’ll be after this year of school, which, at

120% of full course load

(which next semester will involve disgusting amounts of travel between campuses),

an executive position in the debate club,

a job at the student newspaper,

and a girlfriend,

among many other new exciting wonderful happy pretty lovely and life-draining things,

seems rather plausible.