The good, the bad, and the ugly

The life i have now is so vastly different from anything i have known that i have no idea what to do with myself.

I’m not used to not having multiple deadlines, conflicting commitments, overlapping schedules and a pace of life that drives me forward no matter what happens. Earlier this year i spent some months readjusting to a more sane and healthy work life, but now, with all the time in the world, i just feel directionless. Of course there are still the broad strokes that are there, and there is work to be done, but really, as G puts it so well as only she has the right to: how long does it take to write an essay anyway?

So the restlessness is bothering me. My first thought always goes to: What is my duty? It is probably the question that has driven me my entire life, and so far it has always been clear what the answer is. Sometimes there is more than one answer, and it will be a bit of a challenge fulfilling them all. But after a while it seems to also give me a sense of security: i am needed, i have a reason to live, i am doing something meaningful by making someone happy. i am doing what i need to.

Part of my being here has to do with the fact that my duty in the broadest sense that i had known was over. And i could have easily found another excuse to spend the rest of my life yoked to a self-imposed responsibility that will give me both a reason to live and also an excuse to not have lived life by my own terms. At least that first step was taken to come out and take responsibility for my own life. But even then, the first thing i go to is still the same question: What is my duty? Except that the answer now is a lot more simple and straightforward. And i have apportioned time to my sole duty here, and there is still time. Of course there is always more to read and find out more about, but it really doesn’t take that much time to research, especially when there is little engagement with people and not much of a challenge to motivate further reading.

So what do i do with myself? The prompt i’ve been getting from people would be: Do what you want to do now that you have time to do it, and now that you’re in the perfect place to. And i know they are right, but i am stuck. Because i have no idea at all what i want. What is this wanting anyway? There are things we have, and things we don’t have. Things we need and hence must work to get if we don’t already have them…and then there are things we may want but are not up to us to have. So what’s the point of wanting anything? The things that are easy to have probably don’t satisfy for long, and the things that would satisfy are what we cannot give ourselves.

I suppose at some point in our lives we will find ourselves along a trajectory that we have gone too far to turn back from. I am at the beginning of a new trajectory, and i have no idea yet where it is going. The polite thing to say at this point is that it is so very exciting. But the truth is that it is also pretty frustrating. It is so much easier to give that responsibility to someone else by making them the scapegoat for our decisions.

So all of these thoughts probably came because i’ve spent most of today in my room, inert and inward-looking. Part of me knows that this is the year of recuperation and rejuvenation, but part of me also keeps having to face up to how i am always clamouring for more things to do, more responsibilities, more duties that become commitments that i start to run away from, then feel bad about. So i have taken to saying no to most things, feeling bad about it, then saying yes to some, then regretting it, then saying no to the next, then feeling dumb, then saying yes, then feeling obliged, then saying no, then feeling bad…

The downside of today was having about half the class walk out of the lecture — the only one i had today. The upside of today is being invited to the wedding party of my Mexican friend, one of the very very few people i’ve connected with since i’ve been here. As our Korean friend put it, i never thought i’d be invited to a wedding here, and so soon.

Is this enough for a day?