My Journey So Far

I flew halfway around the world to pursue an understanding of life,
only to be told “God is within.”

I was furious and spent years in depression abroad.

At last I flew halfway around the world to return home,
only to find it no longer there.

I am lost and wandering.

Winning

I achieved something I really wanted recently. I would even call it a great achievement. It was one of the wildest dreams that my mind could conceive of  come true. It was a hard-won triumph. I sacrificed much, went through much pain, stress, disillusionment. I gave my all. Those grueling years was for that glorious shout of “VICTORY!” Then poof.

When a goal has been achieved, then what? I’m left with nothing. That desire was satisfied and then gone, and I remain empty.

What is this life for? A dear friend said, “keep looking for Completion, and your life will be one without regret.”

Love/Loss of self

The realization that I was all alone was what put me in the state of paralyzing depression. There’s a belief behind it that I was unloved. For four years I haven’t been able to do the work of seriously finding my way Home. The feeling of love itself is what finally freed me enough from this paralysis. Ever since I felt love, I witnessed changes in me. I don’t recognize myself in these, and for the first time maybe, I can say that something else is working through me. Determination was set, and I did not create it.

Love towards whom? Maybe it doesn’t matter. My experience convinced me that people are disappointing. Anything conceivable is disappointing, if not soon then later. But it turned out, love feels the same regardless of whom or what it is directed. What do you do when love comes? “Follow him, yield to him,” Khalil Gibran says.

In my early teens I prayed hard so that God didn’t let me love him too much. Love was too overwhelming, and I felt I was on the verge of giving up everything, my self, for God (my notion at the time, based on my upbringing, was by becoming a nun). Now in my braver times, I long to love too much.

Bleakness and Survival

Do we have to view life as bleak and serious in order for us to survive? Somewhere along the way to adulthood I picked up this belief. Somewhere Rose said that “life doesn’t take you seriously. So why take it so seriously?” I miss the period when I could allow relaxation and enjoyment to be a part of my daily life, and I didn’t see that they would conflict with my survival. Back then I didn’t see myself racing with time and competing against the whole world.

Freedom and Void

Since last year I’ve been preoccupied with my unusually prolonged coming of age. One night as I was chatting with a close friend, an insight came to me that I’d been focusing on the wrong problem, the wrong direction. It seemed that the thought came out of nowhere since we were talking about something unrelated.  At that short moment my belief (that career matters) was truly challenged by the simple question: “what if it does not matter?”

That moment I felt a sense of relief from the burden of my beliefs (of what it means to be a responsible adult). It was subtle, there was no heavenly choir singing gloriously, but it was a relief, a breaking of a chain. I fear giving it too much emphasis or importance because very soon after that, the freedom leaves a space … for nothing. A void. Freedom to do what? What do I do with/in this free space then? I still feel an immense lack of something. “Loving others and getting love from others,” I thought at the time, inspired by the fact that the insight came as I was talking to a good friend. The insight that job and career (and, as it turned out, much more) may not matter was not freeing. A bigger, more threatening void loomed. It brought fear, intractable dissatisfaction, and the worry-thought that I should care about some adult thing, and if I don’t I’m leading myself towards death. Only people, friends and family, matter, I thought. But don’t I have to do something a little more important-looking than just exchanging love?

Conflict and uncertainty

I quit my job last week. It took me a while to do this, despite the fact that I felt I would get little to lose and I felt increasingly unhappy there. I felt like I could use my time for better things, but the thought that without this job I would lose one more self-definition–that is, I could no longer define myself in terms of what I do–hindered me from quitting. Luckily, perhaps, I could no longer imagine another week of working there. What was strange, several weeks leading to my finally taking action on the thought to quit, the prospect of having no status (unemployed), though scary, was getting more compelling. Somehow I was lured into trying to live with no status/label in society. Somehow I wanted to take up this challenge. It was exciting, sort of like getting an adrenaline rush from doing something risky. But more so, I wanted to quit, just quit, spending more time and energy doing something I didn’t want. I got to the point where I could not care if by doing this I was plunging myself to everything that I fear: a life where everything is uncertain, where I will have no respectful position,  and/or a tragic end where i blow up all my potentials and privileges.

At this point my future’s becoming more and more uncertain. Partly due to exhaustion, I had planned for this break after graduating so I can take a clearer view of what I want to do in life. But the prospect of a complete break in which I would do nothing, and thus be nothing, freaked me out. So I went out to get this job so I could meet people, explore different things, build up connections. “Great,” I thought, it would then be a productive break. But I didn’t last long for I just could not care enough about all these. It turned out that my notion of a responsible adult did not mean too much for me.

I asked myself whether I am not being a spoiled brat who can always go home to find food and roof above my head if I can’t tolerate something out there. I wonder if life is too easy for me. I wonder if I haven’t push myself hard enough, haven’t suffered enough. But then, how do I know if what is at work behind these questions is the idea of the need of maximum suffering to pump up myself, to make me feel I am worthy. And how do I know if the last sentence is not a rationalization to avoid “being an adult”?

So far and in general, I enjoy what I get to do now. I enjoy not being needed or required. I enjoy being my own boss, having a slow day. I’m reluctant to admit them at times because of a self-judgement: am I being negatively complacent or living in the present moment?

Some time ago a thought occurred to me that as long as there is a need for a purpose, sufferings will never end for me. Somewhere I apparently got to the point where I identified suffering with life-purpose. To be a worthy and meaningful purpose, it requires great suffering. So I have two conflicting desires in direct opposition with one another: end of sufferings and meaningful purpose. It seems to me everything that is going on in my life now is in opposition with one another, like career and loved ones.

What’s the alternative purpose for me?

I wrote this about a month ago, but a lot is still pertinent to me now.

I thought I was going to write about what preoccupy me most lately, that is, what I want to do in life. The question seems to demand a more serious answer now, especially as another year of my life is passing away. I always think of the answer in terms of career, despite the fact that I think Eckhart Tolle’s answer “our purpose is to be present” makes the most sense. Anyway, a visit from a close friend changed the plan to write about this.

Career and loved ones were never in the same place for me. Living at home again after so many years away pursuing career gives me both comfort and stress. I missed my family and being home, and now that I am here, I am clutching it so time stops and I will never have to leave again. In vain, I know. I am getting older and expected to go out and “be a person” instead of living off of my mother. But the feelings that come to mind as i recall my past couple of years of establishing are cold, lonely, harsh. Is it about love (i.e., that I don’t want to be separated from the people I love) or am I merely cowering and hiding from the outside world?

I know that both career and loved ones won’t be the permanent answer that will end my angst. To be honest, I don’t believe that the end to suffering is attainable for me. So I’m settling down for less, holding on to what I think is the next best thing, no matter how impermanent and insufficient.

Especially this past week I have not been setting aside time to be alone and do nothing. I opted for spending time with my close friend in his temporary visit. I don’t believe that any resolution of my biggest fear can be reached in solitary reflections. I am tired of locking myself up and working alone. I need a savior.