The Unruly Bag of Questions

Talking to people these days is terrible. The ones who are still bright-eyed and bushy tailed about earth and how it works are the toughest; I carry my cynicism like a badge. I can tell that sometimes I strike chords I’m not supposed to, and curiously enough, I am often trying to defend what I believe in, which essentially is the breakdown of hope and possibility. Does it mean I have forgotten myself? Given up? Maybe. Or maybe this is simply a cycle, and I am on the underbelly of a shadow. Essentially I forgot what it means to have hope. Or don’t have the guts to trust hope.

I heard a story today about a guy my age who is creating a community library in a village in India – from scratch. And I heard another about a girl my age who set up education centers for village kids in India, to teach country boys entering the city about how to get a job, what jobs to go for, which to avoid. These are people who just went for it. There were no questions standing in between what existed and what was possible. Meanwhile I am a virtual bag of questions. I hear stories like these and my heart tugs at my intellect, begs it to listen. But my eyes glaze over, because… Because I don’t believe it. I don’t really believe that our efforts make any difference in the end.

This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try though! Says my heart. Every little bit counts!! But what exactly are we working towards? We work to give others better lives? And what is the better life that we give ourselves? To be surrounded by the people we have helped? Or to work towards something higher than oneself? Maybe that’s it. To work towards something higher than oneself. To work towards something meaningful. What if 'helping people' has lost meaning, because you just don’t care anymore, what happens to us? Or because you feel overwhelmed by the job -- fighting ‘the system.’ We have no better ‘system.’ So make a better system, my heart says. One person does not make a better system, says the grey matter, the collective makes the system. Essentially, the grey matter says, ‘you, YOU, can’t make a better system.’ So don’t try.

The last few days I’ve been hanging out with New Age people. They seem to have this same quality of just going for it – no questions between existence and possibility, only existence. I find them fascinating, in small doses. The New Agers seem to have a freedom that I cannot even begin to feel. My every act is questioned; they live in the moment. They paint, draw, sculpt, speak, sing, dance, fuck, all seemingly without hesitation. These are the ones that might, on a whim, take up an entirely new belief system because it feels good. I ask, what if I don’t enjoy the flakey banter, the New Age trust in crystal healing and tarot cards turns me off, and the advice to be light and airy always only contradicts my essentially human tendency to have dark and selfish thoughts? Which I know they also have. But these kinds of questions don’t work well in friendly conversation. And the only reason I can speak of them with any authority is because I used to be New Age chic, and now have no hope of ever returning to such bliss.

Ideas that suggest that life should be light and airy anger me. The cynic in me says, Never think for a moment that there is comfort for the human spirit, especially not dressed in the words of man. I believe that happiness is possible, but its pursuit will take a lot more than just trusting in human contrivances.