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plumtreeblossomI recently met a man who is exactly my age, and has a 19-year-old daughter. It set me to pondering things I’m not readily able to articulate, about the differences in lifepaths and how profoundly one life can vary from the next, even within one culture and era.
At 21 he was a father raising an infant. At 21 I was student doing acid and performance art. At 40 he is the divorced father of three with monumental responsibilities and weights upon him. At 40 I am a feather in the wind, with a rare freedom few will ever know, yet without an emotional home ground. He will probably be a grandfather in a few years. I am not yet a mother. He knows exactly what his life will be like in 10 years. I do not.
I am having a “something is missing” day. While I am grateful for my life and the near-absolute liberty that has come to be a hallmark of this lifetime, part of me knows there is something absent, something concrete that I can’t clearly identify. Whatever it is, it is within me, not from an external source. Something in me needs to come out, but I don’t have clarity as to what it is.
Some people’s mission in life, their reason for having been placed in the world, is defined for them at a very early age. Others find it of their own accord early in life, or late. Others never do, and die without knowing why they were here. I’ve never believed that I could be one of those, the lost ones without an identifiable reason for having been born. Yet it feels late. It feels like the deep autumn of my life, pondering where within me lies the key to that mission. By whom in this world am I needed, and in what capacity? We are, I believe, sent into this world with something in us that we must contribute, and want to contribute. Where is that inside me?
That’s what I still don’t know.
At 21 he was a father raising an infant. At 21 I was student doing acid and performance art. At 40 he is the divorced father of three with monumental responsibilities and weights upon him. At 40 I am a feather in the wind, with a rare freedom few will ever know, yet without an emotional home ground. He will probably be a grandfather in a few years. I am not yet a mother. He knows exactly what his life will be like in 10 years. I do not.
I am having a “something is missing” day. While I am grateful for my life and the near-absolute liberty that has come to be a hallmark of this lifetime, part of me knows there is something absent, something concrete that I can’t clearly identify. Whatever it is, it is within me, not from an external source. Something in me needs to come out, but I don’t have clarity as to what it is.
Some people’s mission in life, their reason for having been placed in the world, is defined for them at a very early age. Others find it of their own accord early in life, or late. Others never do, and die without knowing why they were here. I’ve never believed that I could be one of those, the lost ones without an identifiable reason for having been born. Yet it feels late. It feels like the deep autumn of my life, pondering where within me lies the key to that mission. By whom in this world am I needed, and in what capacity? We are, I believe, sent into this world with something in us that we must contribute, and want to contribute. Where is that inside me?
That’s what I still don’t know.
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Date: 2004-08-09 06:53 am (UTC)i have never been able to accept the belief that anybody's purpose or mission has to do with devoting life to any one other person. that is to say, being there as moral/financial/emotional support for a sweetie or raising a child are not purposes in life. they're nice things, to be sure, and rather necessary to the propagation of the species in the latter case at least, so perhaps they could be deemed a purpose of existence on a very literal and evolutionary level, but not in the sense that i think of it, and not in the sense that you think of it, as far as i can tell.
as someone who really doesn't know what she wants out of life but sure likes talking about it a lot, your purpose has to be all you. it can be something like making the world a happier place, but the focus has to be on you and not on someone else and not a group of people and not the world at large. i feel like it's an analog to that whole idea that you can't love someone else until you love yourself. maybe that's selfish of me to say, but i'm a pretty selfish person when you get right down to it. so there.
this is getting long, but i guess what i'm trying to say is, i don't think that you have to have a grounded home or primary relationship or goal in life or whatever, as long as you have a grounded core of you. as long as you know what's important to you about yourself, whether it be an open mind or a huge capacity for love or a sense of adventure or being incredibly reliable and faithful or being just damned well-balanced, you've got a point to go from. if you can find your way back to what you know is you, you can go anywhere from there. i feel like whatever it is you contribute, it's symptomatic of this knowing yourself rather than an end of itself.
as for what counts as a contribution, well, it all depends on how much you expect from yourself. i say aim low. :)
anyway, i need some coffee. i'll get back to you in 15 years and let you know if i feel the same way.