I’m constantly wondering if I spend my time well. It’s weird but I always wonder should I be writing? Should I be contributing something to other people rather than just caring about my own happiness?
It’s not that I am unhappy, it’s more that I know too well what makes me happy. I know that there are certain people who I really like to be with, I love reading and I love my job. But I always find that this sort of seems like breaks in between the bigger picture of who I am. It’s probably just some stupid obsession with legacy but I know that there’s a balance to be struck between yelling into the void, because that is what writing is, and my life on Earth. My daily life of people and problems and solutions and then problems and solutions.
My issue with daily life is it’s brutal cyclical nature. It makes it so that I have not resolved some perceived slight, dealt with a girl or said something rude to my family before I can see another problem rounding the corner. It’s exhausting but I also am just looking at the problematic side for the sake of the argument. But it’s the negative side which grates me so, I love the things I love and I’m not sure how else that could be said, ya know. It is what it is, que sera sera. I’m not concerned with the things I like though because I do not have the need to change them.
I find that if there’s something in my life I do not like, I will remedy it. It’s just my nature, I think, to not stew in issues which I think I can fix. I probably am a little overzealous and I have no doubt that other people think I can be a dick or rude but those who know me, who truly do, know that I am a caring, nice person.
It’s a defense mechanism probably. It ensures that the things I value are protected from the outside world. The world of unpredictable, violent and sad things that is not that far from this semblance of safety. It’s what life is, because whether consciously or not, we all care about things and want to be able to care about the things we care about. Nobody wants to be told what to value, what to find important and yet it seems like that most people need others to be like them or they find them repugnant. The news overplays this but I do think it’s necessary to be able to do what you want to do with your life. And I have had people in my life do things that have shown me the tenuous nature of this safety.
Clearly, the world is a complex place to me, and so I have to seem a certain way so that people can know that I am a certain way. I find joy in friends and my work and such things and so I just want to be able to keep doing them. But the random nature of the world, random to me at least, means that I worry that things could pass me by just because I don’t give them a chance.
It is a process I’m working on and I am becoming more and more content as the days go on. I just want to be sure I am not missing out on an opportunity because it is a ‘change’. New things are scary to me but I am know that most of the things in my life I like the most have not been in my life for more than a few years, some even for just a few weeks.
Clay
Clayton Tomlinson 