Corey is…going crazy…
I have been a bad blogger – well…I don’t really know what constitutes a good or bad blogger…so it may be more accurate to say I have been a negligent blogger. For this, I apologize, and I will try to do better in the future. To get things back on track, I thought I would write about something near and dear to my heart…going crazy.
I currently find myself completely unmotivated to do anything. I can’t seem to find a single thing that interests me or brings meaning anymore. All of my days really do seem to run together and blur into one big convoluted memory of a never-ending cycle of work, commute, sleep. Maybe I’m in the beginning of a mid-life crisis – I have read about those, and I think I’m hitting that age. So, I guess the next step is buying a ridiculous sports car and dating a big breasted 22 year old. Even the thought of that does not interest me…let alone actually doing it.
At work, I manage a department of 30 people…constently making decisions that impact the lives of others. Like a good leader should, I gather information and based on the information I have, make the choice I feel is best for the company, my department, and my staff…it’s automatic and I’m quite good at it. Yet, in my personal life…I truly can’t decide if my favorite color is black or gray. Is my favorite type of food mexican or italian? Am I a democrat or republican? I can’t seem take a position on anything. In debates with friends I will take a passionate stance on a subject only to be reminded that the previous month I took the exact opposite position, just as passionately. In looking back on the last 15 years of my life – I think I have somehow lost myself…and thus don’t know what is really important to me. How can you take a position or proclaim to believe in anything without knowing who you really are, whats important to you, or what brings meaning to your life?
I have always been a detached individual. Never really allowing myself to get close or invested in anything or anyone (with a few exceptions). So when something, or someone does come along that I truly care about, I don’t really know what to do. I can’t find a way to show them who I really am, or what is truly important to me, because I don’t really know. Maybe living a life of detachment is finally catching up to me. I’m unmotivated because I live a life devoid of meaning. What am I working for? Who am I working for? Why do I get out of bed in the morning? What is important to me? What am I passionate about? These are questions I don’t have answers too. How can you live a life that is worth anything without having answers to those questions? Every day, I’m learning more and more, that you can’t.
I need to find a way to hold on to relationships that are meaningful to me. I need to understand and recognize, who and what is important in my life. And, most importantly, I need to understand why I have thus far been unable to do those very things.
“Those who danced were thought to be quite insane by those who could not hear the music.”
– Angela Monet
COREYSAYS'S 
OH….So the same disposition. I have so much to accomplish, and yet…here I am 😦
The fact that you are wondering these things does NOT mean you are going crazy. Quite the contrary…you are going sane…and growing up.
It’s painful, but important, so buck up, grab a drink and hold on tight. 🙂
The fact that you are wondering these things does NOT mean you are going crazy. Quite the contrary…you are going sane…and growing up.
It’s painful, but important, so buck up, grab a drink and hold on tight. 🙂
I wanted to add that if you can live in negative capability, then you are a poet. Keats said Shakespeare was the best example of living like this– without trying to use reason as our primary mode of making sense if the world and your place in it. To attempt to nutshell it, I would say that living in negative capability is to live in truth– and beauty. And it is beauty that creates truth– whether it is beauty of the natural kind (i’m thinking of your previous post on gardening and the decorative river rock) or human-made (like creating a poem. Or this blog entry.). I think living like a poet is the best way to find the answers to the big questions you asked at the end of the piece– reading poetry, writing it, living it. You can substitute other genres, of course, or other artistic mediums– but poetry is the oldest form.
And whenever I can’t find myself, I know if I stick my fingers in the dirt for a few hours and plant something, I’ll rekindle my connection with myself. And of course, writing– whether a blog piece, or a poem, or an essay, or even just freewriting by hand in my journal, creates it even more strongly.
In my humble opinion, I feel like you are doing the right things (decorative river rock. Rhodies. Words.) that will lead you to yourself.
And I need to stop composing responses on my iPhone. It won’t let me spellcheck or go back to see what I’ve said. Argh.
I wonder if embracing the “black” and or the “white” would be artificial– premature. Perhaps it is through ambiguity and confusion that one reaches what Keat’s referred to as negative capability– the ability to live in uncertainites and doubts without an irritable reaching for fact and reason. I.e knowing what you think you think might be over-rated and prematurely smug.