Basics

We have new neighbors. The rock house next door finally sold, after sitting empty for quite some time. The new neighbors are an older couple, who seem rather practical in their approach to moving. Almost everything is going into the storage building, to be brought out and sorted as needed. I'm sure the important stuff will go into the house, but as we all know, many of us gather up a lot of things that aren't essential to our day to day lives. Those things can be left in storage, given away, left behind. There isn't much that we really, truly need.

Sometimes I think the greatest struggle in life is sorting out what we really need. Quite often we spend a lot of time and and energy on things that we later find to have very little meaning to us. Why do we do this? For status? For sanity? For survival? Is even survival really necessary or is that just something we assumed we needed? People say the basics (food, water, etc) are what we need the most, but do we even need those? After all, primitive people were struggling to stay alive, why were they doing so? Surviving one more day wasn't going to make things better. You would just have to get up that morning and struggle all over again.

Maybe there are no basics. Maybe everything is just an illusion, a trap to keep us focused on a beating heart and breathing lungs. What if they stop? Would that really be so bad? That just means the struggle is over. If you really think about the pain and suffering you go through, all the effort you put in to things you don't want to do (day to day tasks, work, obeying the rules, talking to the other people), do the rewards really outweigh the effort?

A lot of people move through life with a sense of constant longing for . . . something. Something that is never really there. They try to fill it with religion and get frustrated when that doesn't work. They try to fill it with a career and then feel tricked when that doesn't work. They try to fill it with family and feel guilty when that doesn't work. Most of the time, they spend their waking hours trying to convince themselves that they love what they have and that things will be so much better IF ONLY they improve some stuff. They believe that life feels sad and boring and pointless because they're not doing it right. They refuse to see that maybe, just maybe, life is really just sad and boring and pointless.

Why do we struggle? Why do we continue? We wake up in fear or anger and we walk through our days in fear or anger and when we finally go to sleep, we are usually either frightened or angry. We think that if we change location or if we get a better job or if someone gets a better job or if someone JUST DOES THIS THING or if we JUST DO THIS THING then everything will be better. Either the changes never come and things never get better or the changes do come and things STILL don't get better.

I have a doctor who is talking to me about getting bariactric surgery. You see, even if you lose quite a lot of weight, if you're still fat, they dismiss what you've managed to do on your own and talk about the knives. She smiles in a very supportive manner and tells me how much better things will be. I smile back in a very receptive manner because right now I need her and have to stay in her good graces. I always find it amusing how people think that the answer to fat people's problems is just not to be fat anymore, as if nonfat people have lives of simple ease and perfect days.

Losing weight won't make life better, it will only make life different. Having a good job won't make life better, it will only make life different. Having a better house won't make life better, it will only make life different. Even with all of these changes, the struggle and fears will remain. They may change some, but they will still be there. New conflicts will develop. New pain will happen. New difficulties will arrive. The people who bitch and complain about things will still bitch and complain and nothing I or anyone else does will ever please them.

And yet I, like most people who, perhaps foolishly, will continue to choose life. I will go through whatever motions I have to go through and jump through whatever hoops have to be jumped through and set my ego aside to get through the whole thing. I'll try not to think my darker thoughts, even if they spill out onto this blog. They may do that a lot in the coming weeks. More on that later.