Sunday 21 December 2008

Purposelessness



I've been sitting at this screen all night.
I keep starting the post, writing it, then deleting it.

I don't really know how to say what I want to say.

I suppose I've been running through the same thoughts since I read a post yesterday by a blogger who'd just celebrated their thirtieth birthday. And it brought it home to me.

The awful truth.
I turned thirty this year. And I've struggled with it. Struggled against it. Struggled against the fact that I feel in my bones it's over.

That all my hopes are dead. There is nothing to look forward to. It's never going to happen.

All my life I have lived one thing in mind. How I'm remembered when I'm gone. I guess nothing else has ever mattered to me. Life is a game and the prize is how you're remembered. And I've been fighting over the last couple of years to give myself some focus, some sense that my existence matters.

I realise how much I despise myself for not having done anything. For not being in a position now where I'd be remembered if I died tomorrow. And you can say you'd be remembered by those close to you. Not good enough. You can say 'You may not be somebody to the world, but you can be the world to somebody'.

I think over the last couple of years I realised something very powerful. How much I'd lost interest in my own existence. Not much in it to hope for any more. As me, life was pretty much over. Oh, you might say I'm still young. Maybe. But I'm not as pretty as I was. Not really got much to hope for. Stuck with that suspicion that the best bit of my life is over, really.

And I guess when Crushed was born, he was hope. I guess I started to believe in a new life. Crushed could still do it. I actually felt happy being Crushed. And I guess that made me feel Ok about life. I did have a purpose. Crushed. And yes, that became more important than anything.
I started to visualise the possibility of winding the rest of my life down. Really just devote it to work. Cut out anything that ultimately damaged Crushed.

You need to understand this. Ultimately, it meant a decision to write off any personal relationships. Why?
Because the whole point was, I had conceded that I wasn't going to achieve anything now under my real name, so why waste time on personal relationships? Live as Crushed.

Put Crushed first and Real Me second.

I think I believed it could happen. That gradually I'd be able to close down my real life. That through Crushed I'd find the happiness I now knew I could never have in Real Life.

I'd started to plan for his future. Even to the degree of ensuring that when I died, it would be announced on my blog. I'd started to see that as the judgement moment of my life. The comments section on my death.

It gave me hope, it really did.

I am proud of Crushed, I don't deny that. I would rather be remembered as Crushed than as me.

But you see- I'm going to get into bed now and try and get some sleep. And you know something? I kind of wish that I wasn't going to wake up again at some point. I'm tired. I've lived too long and I'm pretty much dry on the hope front.

I was asked recently in an interview what my proudest achievement in life was. And I smiled. Because I couldn't say. But it's this.

I realise that I'm going to have a last cup of coffee and a cigarette and ponder. I'm trying to get my life in perspective here.

I realise I'm totally lost now really. I've been on this post now over twelve hours, on and off.

I can sit and make wishes all I want, but I must go to bed and try sleep.
Thing is, I will wake some time.

I'm really tired. This is probably getting incoherant.

I think what I'm trying to say is right now, I really feel like I've lost the will to live. And I don't know if I'll feel differently when I wake up.
And I've been running through that all night.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

You do sound really lost right now and I hope that you are getting some sleep and clearing the muddled thoughts away.

We ALL feel like our best years are behind us when we hit the thirties. I had a bit of a breakdown when I was 31 and realised with great horror that only nine years to go before I was MIDDLE AGED and that holy fuck - time was ticking.
It's a very human passage we must move to..understanding that life has an expiry date for all of us.

So what you are suffering might be a bit on an existential crisis? I go through them quite a bit - what if I never do write that book I say I'm going to - what if I don't lose my weight and be truly happy and slim and pretty? what if what if what if...
and it can feel bloody lonely and depressing when I realise that maybe that is all I'll ever be is what I am right now.
But those thoughts and that frame of mind is just a lack of serotonin. I'm convinced of it.

It's corny but true that the best way to get your serotonin levels up again is to walk briskly for an hour a day...talk to a friend and have a laugh..or have a wank. Apparently orgasms are quite the zoloft replacement ;)


In my opinion - having crushed mean more than having Joe is looking for a bandaid to cover stuff up. You are more than just a blog post eh? Chin up old pal.

(I've always wanted to say that) xxx

Anonymous said...

Get some rest. I think if you step back you might get a better perspective. Worrying about what everyone else thinks (another way of worrying over how you'll be remembered after you die) is no way to happiness or fulfilling a purpose.

I've learned to value my life in and of itself for me. If I leave a legacy by living as I wish, it's icing, but to squander valuing myself for simply being seems a slap in the face for the gift of the chance to live. It doesn't seem like you hold yourself in enough esteem. Until you address that, you likely will go chasing the grandiose, then become discouraged or depressed if the audience doesn't follow or you have to alter yourself to please the world.

Anyway, sleep deprivation doesn't help. Take care of yourself.

Anonymous said...

I understand this. I feel very similar. However, things are going so poor economically, I am dying.

Somehow, I've found a new will to live. But it involves moving across the country. I tried to make it work around here in Detroit, but things are only getting worse.

I'll talk about it more soon. I'm tired as hell, too. One more smoke from my balcony and it's off to find a few hours peace in oblivion.

Hope the troll gets the message. I know how hard headed trolls are.

Anonymous said...

Its a terrible place to be and I would be lying if I said I have never been there.

I had mornings that upon waking I would pull the covers up and pretend it was still night, even when I had two little boys to take care of, I had a difficult time looking outsiode of myself at their beauty.

Turning 30 was difficult but honestly for me 31 was harder - and then 40, watch out for that one. But I haev to say that I am getting comfortable in my own skin finally.

I think there is a time in all of our adults lives when we look at ourselves and examine what we are. There is a ton of self loathing and judgement that comes with that, but if you can get passed that point to a point of actually identifying what is important to you, what does make you happy or gives you satisfaction and then you have a place to begin the second half of your life.

Goals help me stay on target and I had none until I hit 41 years old and understood my life was really half over and if I really wanted to travel or to write, then I needed to begin now.

(hugs)

I hope you come out of this grey funk soon, its a terrible place to be at anytime but especially during the holidays.

Cat

Anonymous said...

Crushed, I figure everyone gets that “What is the point?” feeling at least once.

I also figure that birthday milestones can be real bad juju because they can make you think about stuff like that. Also stuff like school reunions when you get to see who has a career and a hunky/loving/considerate guy and and who looks fab, despite being mumble mumble years old, and you would never have guessed it if you didn't know...

And Christmas...

The thing is you do matter. You matter to your family and friends. You matter at least enough for people like us to write comments to your posts. Your ideas are out there like little mental dandelion seeds drifting... OK so they may not all make sense... ^_^

You can never know about posterity, not in your life time for sure... Take Cecil Rhodes, he must have thought he was fixed up for posterity, absolutely in there Even had a country named after him... Bet he would have been glad they changed the name of the place before they totally flushed it down the pan. Or like Ozymandias of Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair! fame.

Real posterity has got to be your jeans and your memes. Face it, none of us will ever know for sure what difference we made. It is an act of faith, bread upon the waters...

In the morning sow your seed, and at evening withhold not your hand... for you do not know which will prosper, this or that, or whether both alike will be good.

Cheer up crushed.

Anonymous said...

Well, this is wildly sad. Let me tell you my perspective dear buddy.

You are miraculous. You are as near to a god as anything is in this universe. You have infinite power to affect the world.

The intricacies of causality which rule the universe dictate that every damn thing you do shall forevermore affect all who witness it and all who thereafter witness those and so on and so on.

We all are a permanently changed entity; our brains re-wired, with every observation we make and every idea we ponder.

You have much time left to live. everything that happened in your past is GONE. Except for all the learning you took from it. Look only forward with all your good insight.

The possibilities for you and your life are endless. You are not trapped in your curcumstances. Choices utterly abound if you will dare to dream and fuck whatever expectations from others you think you're supposed to meet.

It doesn't matter what anyone thinks of you but you. The way that we all judge ourselves based on our perception of other people's perception of ourselves is wildly prevalent and wildly INSANE. It is a charade. It is an illusion. It is entirely without sanity and serves only to further our successes within the societal matrix of reputation, wealth and bullshit -- utterly hollow illegitimate happinesses.

It doesn't matter how you are remembered. Let it matter to you how you affect the world.

Break out of the damn prison that the matrix has put you in. There is nothing to fear.

Face the truth. Face every horrible thing you don't dare to question about yourself. It's okay. It's normal; natural; inevitable. But you have the power to be better than normal. Face the truths and you evolve. Find the truths and be the priest of your own religon; the religon of truth.

I'll shut up now.

Anonymous said...

I think most can relate to what you are going through right now. I am 32 and I certainly didn't embrace my 30s when I entered them. There is a more urgent sense of panic that you won't have time to do all the things you wanted to. I came to the conclusion awhile ago that the best course is to just try and appreciate the here and now. Spending all your living worrying about how you will be remembered when you die kinda sounds counter productive. You have alot to say. So say it and live it, the rest will fall into place.

Anonymous said...

You sound pretty exhausted. I've had moments like this myself. I'd always hoped to accomplish a lot more by the time I was 30, and then 40, and now finally 50. But I've learned to live with it because I still enjoy many things that life has to offer, even if luck hasn't always gone the way I'd like it.

I think a good long sleep would be some help, and then maybe as someone says, a brisk walk. I hope you feel better.

Anonymous said...

Perhaps more drugs would help?

Anonymous said...

Oh dear, depressed at thirty.

Wait til you get to forty. The first thing that runs through your head on THAT birthday is "How the hell did that happen so fast".

Anonymous said...

Well I can't add anything of value here to these comments. It sounds as if you might have been partying and not sleeping and you know that alcohol while initially a stimulant is ultimately a depressant. So it has all caught up with you.

Luckily when I turned 30 this fear of thirty had not yet become an issue and we looked more towards 40 as going over the hill.

Life certainly changes between the twenties and the thirties but I have always thought for the better. I think one really comes to maturity as an adult in that decade. So really there is a lot still to be accomplished Crushed, even if you haven't yet found that "purpose". So far you have a great desire but it hasn't crystallized as you envision. You know that saying, life happens while you are making plans. Enjoy the process and I hope will soon be feeling more positive.

Anonymous said...

Mr Crun is correct.

My depression problems started to get really bad after 30. Now I'm 32 and almost 33 and just now starting to realize I have to pull myself out of the murk or I am going to be a suicide case.

There's still time for us. The best years of our lives have to be in front of us, because what has passed cannot possibly be thew best.

But I do always agree about one thing: Blogging has been a huge plus to a very bored life.

I'm trying to keep the ship afloat.

Obviously, I could use some Crushed lessons in determination.

Anonymous said...

Dont worry about age.... believe me the older you get the better life gets :-)