By the way, I do think that awareness is different from thinking. I am similar to most other people, I believe, in that I do not really do my most important thinking in large, intentional blocks where I sit down uninterrupted in a chair and know in advance what it is I'm going to think about -- as in, for instance, 'I am going to think about life and my place in it and what's truly important to me, so that I can start forming concrete, focused goals and plans for my adult career' -- and then sit there and think about it until I reach a conclusion. It doesn't work like that. For myself, I tend to do my most important thinking in incidental, accidental, almost daydreamy ways. Making a sandwich, taking a shower, sitting in a wrought-iron chair in the Lakehurst mall food court waiting for someone who's late, riding the CTA train and staring at both the passing scene and my own faint reflection superimposed on it in the window -- and suddenly you find you're thinking about things that end up being important. It's almost the opposite of awareness, if you think about it. I think this experience of accidental thinking is common, if perhaps not universal, although it's not something that you can ever really talk to anyone else about because it ends up being so abstract and hard to explain. Whereas in an intentional bout of concentrated major thinking, where you sit down with the conscious intention of confronting major questions like 'Am I currently happy?' or 'What, ultimately, do I really care about and believe in?' or -- particularly if some kind of authority figure has just squeezed your shoes -- 'Am I essentially a worthwhile, contributing type of person or a drifting, indifferent, nihilistic person?,' then the questions often end up not answered but more like beaten to death, so attacked from every angle and each angle's different objections and complications that they end up even more abstract and ultimately meaningless than when you started. Nothing is achieved this way, at least that I've ever heard of. Certainly, from all evidence, St. Paul, or Martin Luther, or the authors of The Federalists Papers, or even President Reagan never changed the direction of their lives this way -- it happened more by accident.
(Excerpt from The Pale King, David Foster Wallace)
Accidental thinking ...When it comes to me life planning.
The emotional pressure withheld Quit -- to relax -- to find the thing, and, Rely on me until you find it. To comply would go against my character. I have a hard time quitting, even if it is for the best, and, I'm independent to a fault, only asking for help if I feel like in the end it will help the helper out. I was stuck in this space for a while. It was like if I couldn't figure some large question out, that I would get punished, lose love, which intensified the pressure. "Maybe when you find out what you want to do professionally, you'll be able to be in a relationship because you won't rely on a person to fill the void of what a lack of a profession leaves you like." I know that this is a totally acceptable, valuable piece of advice to someone, but I didn't want to be the person to receive it. I think there are many more valuable things in this life than profession; it being just one small fraction in defining oneself, if at all. (Noted that if I'm having a hard time accepting my situation, and it runs into all aspects of my life, that surely this advice was warranted). But, rootly, I don't believe life is about getting your life figured out, so that you may live - it's about the process - about everything all at once magic & balance & hardship & passion & change.
I come from a family of people who've worked themselves tiresome for hardly any money. They do not have benefits, vacations, bank accounts or security. Despite, they do not put pressure, whether visible or invisible, on me, to earn enough to appear to live better. So many people are trying to live up to someone else. Some exchange investment of love, growth or family for moving up professionally. If this is what makes them feel good, then...but I don't believe the exchange is necessary, unless you operate in single-mindedness & something's-always-got-to-give, and by give I mean gone.
What is realistic pressure? The kind you fall into once When it comes to me...ceases to work. Maybe, also accepting where you are physically, emotionally, mentally, and letting yourself inhabit where you are instead of where you wish to be. Somewhere I became more calm about my future. I used to think downward spirals only ever resulted in further spiraling, but now I feel more positive about them. A downward spiral is not an end all.
Whatever angst I've held over vocation is because I want to be there now; due to impatience, because I want to catch up to someone else who is also 26, who is younger, who is faster, who is writing constantly. I want to be where I'm meant to be - I just don't know where I started thinking I was meant to be anywhere but right here, accidentally thinking.
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