Recently I have been grappling with the concept of control. More often than not I like feeling like I am in control of my actions and the consequences. In examining my worldview and transcendent meaning, I have developed a strange relationship with control. With the realization that I believed the universe has no meaning, I suddenly felt free. I could do anything that I wanted because, why not? The universe is meaningless so if I do anything it won't matter. This line of thinking made me feel powerful and in control of my actions. It connected me to the Call of the Void urges that I had never acted upon; small acts of rebellion and actions outside of the social norm were now a daily occurrence.
Then the switch came. Another realization had hit me. The universe was huge. Nothing that I did mattered. The realization was paralysing; I no longer wanted to do anything, because why would it matter if I did? There began my spiral from functional nihilist to lazy, tearful, depressed potato. I have been in this stage of my existential crisis ever since. One day, I became so frustrated with how I was feeling; hopeless, depressed, and at a loss for a reason to do anything. I feel and felt small and insignificant and like anything that I do is ultimately pointless and meaningless. That day I needed to feel like I was in control of something, when I remembered: the only thing I can truly control is my actions. I decided to prove to myself that I did have control of something, anything. I got up out of bed (where I had been for hours), grabbed my wallet, phone, and mace, and left my dorm. I didn’t know where I wanted to go, I just knew I needed to walk; I needed to prove that I could choose to get myself out of bed and do SOMETHING, even if it meant I would still be lost. It took me about an hour to get to a place where I had no recognition of where I was or how to get back. Fortunately for the purposes of my journey, my sense of direction is shoddy at best, and I my attention was absorbed in the music from my headphones. (probably not the smartest way to walk in unfamiliar places, but it certainly got me lost) I ended up in a parking lot of a corner store. I bought a bottle of water and a candy bar and sat down on a concrete block to take in my surroundings. The corner store was dilapidated and faded, like it had been moved from the Dustbowl to 2016 Ohio. Around there were fallow fields, and a few stores. It was a great place to end up if I wanted to rest. The few sounds were occasional cars, and of course wind across the flat land. I felt present in the moment and was thankful to be in a new place. I think a lot of why I decided to get lost as opposed to simply going where I had been before was that I was looking for a physical representation of how I was feeling. It was a perfect example of my existential crisis and current search for meaning. I feel almost completely lost; no longer in the state of mind and worldview that I used to be. It helped to get out of my daily routine and surroundings, if only for a while. My problems didn't cease to exist, especially since my adventure was the physical representation of my emotional journey. It seemed like time had frozen. I could set my existential headache aside and just focus on taking in the moment and the physical world around me. On my way to being lost, I had decided to write about my experience on my phone once I was at the lost point, however once I was sitting at the corner store I realized that writing and using my phone would have taken away from the specialness of the moment. My lost hours made me feel like I was at peace with the concept of control. I felt like I had struck a balance of control and non-control. I chose to get lost, but did not consciously choose where I ended up. In being present, I felt like control did not matter as much as it normally would; I only had to focus on the moment and place and experiencing it not from a position of power or lack of power, but as an active observer. If I took anything away from this experience, it would be that it is okay to set aside one's problems and focus on the present. for a few hours that day, I gave myself permission to simply BE; to focus on a place and time instead of a problem or question or fear. I believe that changing things up from the daily routine can be benificial if done in a healthy way. Going to a new place for lunch, taking a different route to work or school, changing a schedule or routine; all are excellent examples of small ways to focus on being present, if only for a few moments. My lost hours were not a loss of time; they were hours well spent simply living. My lost hours were where I found a quiet, peaceful, dignified repite.
0 Comments
|