Craving meaning
On a near daily basis, I yearn to do meaningful things, important things, and I am often left unsatisfied.
I'm an incredibly passionate person. I love programming. I spent about a year as a local journalist for a site I made, and produced the best local political coverage I've ever seen for my city. I'm incredibly proud of that work.
During that time, my mental health, which had been poor for many years, steadily declined until it hit an "I want to kill myself" point. On top of the deep depression being a miserable experience, I was finding myself literally unable to function, often brought to screaming panic attacks when trying to do any work. This was true for my journalism work, chores to care for myself, and mundane adulthood tasks like calling the phone company to fix a billing issue.
I've not been the same sense. In many ways, this has been good. I stopped going full-steam-ahead with every passion that popped into my head. I stopped pushing myself past my limits. I stopped having intense ups & downs. I stopped falling into deep depressions for days at a time.
There's still some up & down, but it doesn't veer too far from my baseline. It is manageable and generally not something I'd consider a problem.
Though now my baseline is ... largely unproductive. I do not work. I don't volunteer any more. I constantly fall far behind on my laundry. I struggle to get out of the chair enough to keep my body from hurting. I struggle to cook for myself, and am unable to engage in some hobbies that I'd love to take up again. I can struggle with relationships that require a certain level of social conduct, though I have no issues with my best friends. And I experience a dense psychological pain on a near daily basis, for about 1-4 hours a day, I'd guess.
I'm largely unable to physically or mentally relax, though I do have 10 to 20 minute chunks a couple times a week where I really feel at ease. When I'm engaged in something, this dis-ease often alleviates. When I do not engage in something, it often escalates. There are few things I do where I feel better afterward than I did beforehand.
With all that comes a sort of contentment. I have a new normal, which is pretty stable, and feels like it's taking me in a steadily positive direction. I feel my mental and physical health are steadily improving. And as negative as I've made it sound, there is much I actually do.
I go to the gym once a week. I have therapy on Fridays. I spend a couple hours at the library after the gym, reading nonfiction. I go to bed without a TV for the first time in many many years. I actually read before bed now, most nights. Over a year ago, I stopped my daily weed habit - I still smoke recreationally and it is rarely a problem these days. I see friends a couple times most weeks, I think.
I do some of my programming. It's a hobby in a way, but it's also all geared toward future meaningful work - returning to my local journalism, and some bigger goals that go beyond that. I also do some other programming, like plugins for bearblog or i've contributed to rsslookup.com recently. During my "good" periods, i can code for about 1-3 hours a day, a few days a week. During my "down" periods, I cannot. Working on my passion projects during my "good" periods also make it much harder to care for myself, and then I play catch up during the "down".
I do some writing. Much of it is slop on my blog, on this blog. Some of it is high quality, thoughtful, good writing. I submit some Letters To The Editor to my local paper. I write the occasional email advocating for something with my local government or my state rep or sometimes an app developer.
I don't do any woodworking, and I wish I did - I was never particularly skilled at it, but I like it and I could get better. I almost never play piano, and I wish I did. I haven't touched my toothpick bridge in probably two months, and I wish I would - it's beautiful, damn near perfect, but only half-finished. I don't walk much lately, but I can kind of blame winter for that - either way, I wish I'd bundle up and go.
I'm not living the kind of life I want to live, even if I am happy in many ways.
I have great relationships with my best friends, good relationships with other friends and with family members. I'd like to date, but I can't handle the socialization required to try - plus it's incredibly embarrassing being jobless, moneyless, and living with my mom. I'm not generally embarrassed about living with my mom, and I'm infinitely grateful to her for her support and love - I'm also infinitely grateful for my dad's support and love, whom I lived with for many years before my mom. He moved, all is well there. But in the context of dating, my lack of job, living situation, and lack of money are ... sources of great shame.
The biggest thing I tend to feel, though, is ... a yearning to do something meaningful, something impactful. I definitely do do some meaningful things - I spread 'resistance' propaganda to try and move others to action against my nazi president, plus my letters to the editor and my occasional advocacy. I do meaningful things within my personal circle - supporting and loving my friends and family, in social ways, and sometimes in material ways (in terms of errands, mainly).
But none of this satisfies the yearning within me. And I'm just not at a place where I can let that yearning drive me. So I work slowly, patiently, and occasionally on the projects that build toward doing that meaningful work again. I keep trying to improve my mental and physical health and feel I am making progress.
But it is hard to be patient. The world is moving, nonstop, and so many problems continue all the time. I want to be a part of it. I don't want to sit by and watch. Whether it's the nazi shit, or animal welfare, or climate change, or local politics, or right to repair, or something else ... I want to engage. But I'm not well enough to, not in any continued sustained capacity.
It eats at me.
But my best chance at a meaningful life, in the long term, is to care for my health and well being. To care for my body and mind. To do what's in my power to get better. So that's what I'm doing. It's slow. It's steady. It is meaningful.
I will get there.