On Purposeless Meanderings
I think it is given to everybody to be at a point where they can look back, in retrospect at the entirety of a life (long or short as it was or seemed), and with having grown a little bit wiser, if not in years, then certainly in perspective. How many times have I heard people, friends, ask “Why must so and so have happened, if in the end it was not to have been after all?” How many times have I asked that myself, of one thing or another, and in true existentialist fashion, determinedly wonder at the greater meaning behind it all – the greater purpose. They say this is an era of truth, where humanity seems bent on embarking on deeper meanings, and worthwhile living, and purposeful acts.
Follow your heart seems to be a common watchword, as one friend recently told me of her own resolution by which to judge her own decisions. So many times have I followed this very watchword, and in the resultant tally of losses and gains was a bit put out to suspect that my own “following my heart” might have led me astray. But perhaps I spoke too soon, for one who is really still so relatively young. There could be no final accounting of anything, I suppose, until the very end of a life. And until then all you can do is stack your cards as each situation demands it.
The stack of cards does grow, at any rate, as time goes by, and as one enters into successive reflections, lights of understanding can explode inside the brain. I don’t think it a futile or pathetic thing to believe that it had all been to the good, everything that has happened, when now I can sit back and write about it all, with greater understanding than if I had always been on the outskirts, seeing and observing everything from the safety of the sidelines. If only for the sake of first-hand experience, I have greater confidence to write about what I know, and to judge the credibility of my own opinions scattered within my work product (which are surely to come out) by the standard of my having seen, and known it all myself.
I have, again, recently had occasion to turn down another job offer – which in terms of compensation and connections (and workload) was very promising. The potential income was, in fact, so very tempting that it gave me troubled sleep for several days, especially considering my current tight-fisted (I would not say distressed) circumstances. I flatter myself that over the course of this year alone, I have had to turn down more offers than I could comfortably tell my supportive parents and family of, even if they had not known of my career resolutions, my state of health when I did work, and my current happy and all-out effort to come up with good (if not my best) work while I am able. But after the last civil word of negation, things seem to be easier, still, than ever before. Truth to tell, I would not trade my current peaceful state for tons of money (I cannot, in good conscience, say “all the money in the world” – “all the money” is still too great a temptation). I have listed the pros and cons long ago, and have it imprinted on my brain; and come to a heavy stacking of cards judiciously on one side.
But like I said, till a life ends, who is to say what may happen? For now I am content to let the cards fall where they may, content with the present uncertainty, content that whatever comes of it, it can all only be to the good, and content to find that my choices, difficult as they may be for some to comprehend, have been formed by all my seemingly “purposeless” meanderings.
So it would seem that there is a point, after all, even to events that are “not to be” in the end. Any arbitrary turning along the way, and I would be different; I would be someone else. Certain that I might be writing about completely different things now, too – if not what I still consider juvenile ramblings, then surface and superficial attacks and promotions of timeworn subjects. Less certain, but still possible, that I might not even be writing at all.
