Coasting

Life is in neutral, and I'm just waiting for something to happen.

Everything is comfortable, everything is right.

Yet, I have no fire, no drive, no purpose. Where's my guiding light gone?

I spend my time, I make the motions, I pull the weight and tote the load, yet I feel nothing.

Nothing except a kind of creeping numbness that comes from familiarity and boredom, the sneaky soft strangler that comes in the night to rip whatever drive you had away from you.

I can't wait to get away. I can't wait to go to Japan and leave this simple, soft prison behind.

What is my purpose? Why am I here? I've always thought that everyone has a reason for living on this planet. That there was some kind of final destiny for people, if they find what they're best suited for. "You will be a teacher and will love every minute of it." "You will be an astronaut and land on Mars." You will be... what? What will I be? What am I suited for? Recently, the answer has been everything. I feel I can do most things, and enjoy them. I'm trained to be an engineer, but you know what? Being a cook wouldn't be horrible, in fact, I love cooking. Or baking.

I met someone the other day who has led a charmed life. I want to be him. An Olympic fencer, a pastry chef, and now an antiquities hunter (ala Indiana Jones). He's travelled the world and has the passport to prove it. A true drifter and rogue. That would be incredibly fun, yet sneaking thoughts say that he's wasted his life. What good has he done? What purpose or intention has he brought to this world? What work will he leave behind?

Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. His life amounts to nothing. I want to amount to something. And I don't know how to do it. I want to say, "Look world, look at what I have wrought with my hands, look at what good I have done you!" But where the goal and the action collide is hidden from me.

They say they are starting to think about a Mars mission. Dear god, I want to go. I want to explore this planet, and I have an insatiable desire for the new or different. I want to understand this, that and everything. Emotion, places, people, parts, words, experiences are what I crave, what I need to know. And again, the voice inside me says, "No! Take the safe and simple path. Stick to the way laid before you by your parents and society. Be what they WANT you to be, and what you KNOW you SHOULD be."

Is it so hard? Why can't I reconcile the differences in my psyche?

And so I wait. And coast. And wait for the insight I know will come.

Someday.

Somewhere.

Somehow.