Saturday 26 November 2011

water water everywhere

There must be a little masochist inside me.  A cranky, self-flagellating man, Silas from the Dan Brown books if you will.  Because I am laying here, desperate with thirst, dry lipped, sore throated, enfeebled and headachy in a flat with working taps and many bottles of Evian.  None of these happen to be within arms reach.  So it is probably safe to assume that my masochist is in cahoots with the lazy bastard who keeps my arse welded to the sofa.  This is how people kill themselves slowly.

Thursday 10 November 2011

Purpose

What elevates us above the other primates is our ability to think philosophically.  Who am I? What is real? Why am I here? Our ability to ask these questions is both a blessing and a curse.  We are blessed that we have the capacity for existential thought, but we are cursed in that the questions we ask have had no satisfactory answer for thousands of years.  It is unfulfilling and possibly pointless, but our nature ensures that we will continue question.

I feel that today I went some way towards answering the unanswerable "Why am I here?" by realising my purpose; my overall reason for doing the things that I do.  Why have I studied?  Why am I continuing in this career?  What are my plans for the future?  All of these questions now seem, in my head at least to have some kind of unifying answer, and I feel that I may soon be on my way to living a Purpose Driven Life.

I'm not a Christian in any sense of the word, and I haven't read the book of that title, but the phrase perfectly encompasses how I am feeling right now.  Once there is a purpose that drives you, your actions are automatically imbued with special meaning, unconsciously pushing you to greater effort and greater success.

In my career I feel that there are two main priorities.  To help people, and to make money.  As a slave cannot serve two masters, everyone has a slant towards one or the other and some are wholly entrenched in one camp.  I do like money, I like the doors that money can open, and a life without money worries is an easy (easier) life but I want to help people.  The feeling when a dental phobic patient tells you that they trust you is indescribable.  I want that to continue.

I'm sitting here and I was compelled to write because I'm feeling so inspired right now, but you'll realise that I have yet to state my purpose here.  This is because it isn't yet in a form that lends itself easily to description.  It's a feeling, an idea, a thought, a spark of something special that is not yet alight.  I know that for dreams to be realised their airy insubstantial nature has to be solidified with specifics and time frames but I'm not ready for that yet.  I'm inspired, and I want to enjoy this feeling.