nolan_void

Time for a moment of critical self-analysis.

What I know to be true:

-running away from your problems only causes them to grow.

-the state of longing and wanting that most people live in cannot be alleviated by getting what they think they want.

-obsession with the past and future is toxic and takes you away from the only moment that we have, the only time that ever existed, which is right now.

-the past does not dominate who I choose to be at this very moment, and the future will not save me from who I am. Salvation only comes through acceptance and presence.

Now that we have all of that aside, I still want to get the fuck out of here. I completely believe that Heaven and Hell are found here on Earth, and you never know when you step through a door which one you will be walking into. I stumbled into Hell this weekend and I can't seem to find the emergency exit.

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I wrote the former portion of this earlier today when I was sitting around feeling all sorry for myself because I can't write or draw the way I want to anymore. I've simply lost a good bit of my drawing capabilities by not exercising them for so long, and a lot of my creative writing talent has been clouded by thinking that it is going to get me somewhere.

For a long time I have been trying to live for other people. I write because I think someone is going to read and like it, thus leading them to like me. I've been stuck in this idea that I need to have some kind of awesome capability that will draw people and make them like me, this hungry sensation that I am incomplete and that I need to find some way to fill it all up with other people or with my works or something. I was trying to write a play earlier today, since I have had success with scripts in the past, and I got frustrated with it like I always do and wanted to just tear everything apart. I wanted to throw it all away (which I did, but for different reasons) and go back to my room and sulk and wonder why I have been so goddamned miserable this weekend. So I stopped and realized something.

I have already solved this problem before. Anything that any of us do is ultimately doomed to fail, and when I say fail, I mean that whatever we accomplish is at best a fleeting moment in the ever-changing eternity. Nothing is going to last forever. Nothing is going to make me immortal. No art that I draw, no story that I write, will ever make me what I want to be. Eckhart Tolle describes this experience as realizing that "the outer purpose is just a game that you may continue to play simply because you enjoy it." I've started to feel this way about my own outer purposes, such as becoming a successful writer or artist, but there comes a point in some games when you realize they aren't that fun anymore. And there always seems to be someone playing who takes it way too seriously, and takes the fun out of the game with their grim determination to win. I'm tired of being that person in my own game. I'm tired of playing that way. If it's not fun anymore, don't play, and move on to something that you can enjoy for the sake of doing it, not for the sake of achieving something. Life is not a means to an end.