a little lightbulb

finally clicks on. Shedding light on why it's so hard for me to care, lately, about all those larger realms of human action: politics, social change, shared spirituality, local economy, community. Because no forseeable change in the world as I know it is going to bring me the happiness, or the peace, that I'm lacking.

That sounds selfish, yeah. But how can you work from the heart for something that doesn't motivate the heart? And how can you be useful at all, if you can't be? Of course, this is not ideal. There's a foundational, essential piece (pieces?) missing in my outlook. And I don't know where to find it/them. I think some of these pieces have always been missing (why I resonate so with that last Inayat Khan quote). I don't even know what they are, exactly - making the search that much more of a challenge.

At the risk of getting cliche-ish, the thing I'm missing most likely has to come from within, or it's not gonna come from anywhere. Which brings me to the real question of the week. Of the lifetime, really, but with the volume cranked up seriously in the last week or so. If you look inside and don't find those answers, or even those beginning motivations, that can only come from within, then where do you go?

Surely anybody who knows me well knows that, if I've done anything in this life, I've tried not to live it unexamined. But I've never known what I'm here for. What I wanted to be when I grew up. And more than that. I'm gonna be honest here, and I don't mean to bring anybody down. But my problem, the heart of it, is that I don't know how to feel that I'm here on this earth for a reason. Even though I cherish the belief that all things, and all people, exist with purpose. I don't know how people find that feeling/belief/sense of unique, claimable purpose to begin with. Whatever it is. And yeah, plenty of kind people have said, believe me, you do serve a purpose. And that's surely appreciated. But if you've been in this place, you know: it's not the sort of thing you can just take on faith. Or on the word of others.

I'm so tired of fighting this fight. Of it feeling like a fight, to begin with. Not that I can give it up (or will, cause it's my life). But so tired. And so damn tired of feeling alone in this fight. Of not having the impression that others struggle in this way. If you don't - well, good for you. It'd be no good if everybody was dealing with life on this level. The world just wouldn't work. But if you do...does anybody out there know what this is like? To hurt like this -- soul-pain so intense it manifests as actual, continual, physical pain? To stay up sleepless with these questions, without answers? To lack the power just to give and share and offer, the things you most wish to do? To flounder around futile, while so many pass by so alive, so full with their purpose and significance? If you do...then where the hell are you??

Put off writing this for a while. But this is where I'm at. And may be for a little while. It's write this or write nothing, cause I can't write fake. It doesn't help that, due to chronic health problems, I've just given notice at my job. My one little source, if not of purpose, at least of competence. I'm grateful at least for my home-space, which is cheap enough and friendly enough not to be threatened by a space of joblessness. Guess I'll be grateful for the time to recover lost sleep. And I'm not asking for anything here. Just talking. This is something I have to work out somehow. But man, this little light's burning pretty dim lately. All of you sharing what lights you got, in words or thoughts or actions, do mean more than ever.