My life is not bad. My life is not particularly hard. I really have almost no legitimate grievances with my personal state of being. I shouldn't complain about things. But, I do. A sampling of such things: (just from today, mind you...)
--It's HOOOOOT.
--I got almost no sleep last night because it was HOOOOOT.
--I had to get up at 7 in the morning today.
--I have blisters on the backs of my heels and they hurt like mad.
--I have 8 mosquito bites on my left ankle and they itch like mad.
--I have writer's block.
Are any of these things life-threatening to me? Not really.* Yet they're what I think about. Things like the video about Esther and the HPA make me feel sort of guilty that these things are what I devote my worry to. The world is much bigger and could be much worse than the part of it I see. But in a way, that ignorance is sanity. If my time was spent worrying about all the issues and tragedies and just plain bad shit that happens to everyone-who-is-not-me in the entire universe my brain would explode. Thinking about distressing things but knowing that you have no realistic control over them produces a mind-bending amount of stress and a sense of personal worthlessness. **
So, I present the idea that vapid, personal small-worry is good. It's distracting. Not, like, bad-distracting...in a more prioritizing-type way. ("Okay, there's a splinter in everyone's eye but there is a motherfucking plank in yours. Like, it's probably really damn painful. Possibly held in place by a rusty nail. What are you going to do first?"***) It has focus. Steps can be taken to fix it. Once it is fixed it feels like an accomplishment; it's relaxing to have nothing trivial to angst over, and then the focus can be directed towards concern on a more global scale. Which is good.
Does this make any sense or am I just yammering my way around the fact that, basically, I'm sorry other people but I kind of enjoy being wrapped up in myself? I don't know anymore, on with the footnotes:
* Though it could be argued that this list encompasses global warming and the threat of death by sleep-deprivation...
** I was like this for a bit. It's depressing and infuriating if you dwell on it. So what I'm trying to say here is: don't.
*** Bible quote (probably unsuccessfully) paraphrased. I added the rusty nail.
2 comments:
I agree... although I do think it's good to step back every once in a while and realize that, comparatively speaking, your life doesn't actually suck. Perhaps try to be a more optimistic person in general and work on letting the little things go, because even though what you say is true, it is not a good thing to get so stuck in your own complaints that you fail to notice the problems in the world around you. Personally I find it very helpful to write about my complaints and meditate on them and then, 80% of the time, I'm completely over it 2 hours later. If that doesn't work try ranting to somebody who doesn't mind that you're pissed and who won't divulge your "secrets." But yeah, moderation is usually a good thing. You don't have to be 100% happy with your life, just don't, like, forget about the people with real problems... you know?
(Not a comment on you, just a general observation/philosophy)
I kind of had this exact moment a couple days ago when I had a shower at an inopportune time and the water pressure was shitty because the washing machine was on. And then I got really pissed at myself because, you know, tons of people don't have running water at all and I should be grateful for a trickle of water. So I felt like a selfish, spoiled North American for a while and then I got over it and tried to stop being so shallow while realizing that my having a shower isn't the problem.
What the problem is, I don't really know. I think there's too many. But I'm still trying to fix them.
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