I feel every so often as if I’m very near a breakthrough, as if just a bit more waiting will bring some big realization that will make sense of everything I’ve been wrestling with and thinking about. I’ve had that feeling for several months, now.
an epiphany that makes sense in the morning
I’ve had this feeling in the past, but whenever I do have a big breakthrough it seems to be late at night when I’m trying to sleep, and by the morning when I try to explain it to myself again it doesn’t seem nearly as interesting or brilliant. Most times, whatever it was feels rather obvious.
I don’t even know what I want to have an epiphany about; I just feel like, somehow, I’m overdue. There’s something missing and something, anything, needs to come and fill the void.
Something that’ll still make sense the next morning.
alternating peace and stress
Some days this feeling makes me peaceful; I can rest content in knowing that even if I haven’t found a breakthrough yet, it’s coming.
Other days, it drives me to fury, maintaining the outer mask of serenity while screaming internally at the apparent stagnation in my life.
a sense of direction
The whole problem, I rather think, lies in the fact that I don’t exactly know where it is that I’m rushing headlong towards in this journey we call life. I never doubt that there is a destination, but I’ve never known the slightest thing about it.
I don’t know what continent I’ll live on in five years.
When I look at people who do seem to have it figured out, who know where they want to be, I don’t feel jealous, I feel… doubtful? It seems ridiculous that anyone, especially anyone my age, could actually have the slightest idea where we’re all racing off to.
If I don’t know, why should they? My addled brain’s only possible conclusion sometimes is that they don’t know. That people who think they know their destination are just the people who don’t live a self-examined life. Because how, my brain objects, could anyone who actually thinks about the world around them and compares it to their aspirations and internal conflicts actually claim to have one correct guess in ten about how things will turn out or, given that, be able to be happy about the result.
Maybe it is possible. Maybe there are actually people who have their lives figured out. My brain just doesn’t seem to think so.
more doubt
But really, do I actually want to know where life is leading? Would I be happy if I did? No, I don’t think I actually do want to know.
But that doesn’t bring me any peace. Just because on an intellectual level I tell myself that everything will be fine wherever life leads doesn’t mean I really believe it. That I won’t keep looking for hints of the future in the droppings of the present.
the problem of motivation
The fundamental flaw of expecting an epiphany, a breakthrough, an answer to all this glaring uncertainty, is that I don’t want to do anything now, in the moment. Why should I work on my projects today when tomorrow I could have a realization that puts me in a different direction?
Intellectually, I know that’s not how it works. The most likely source of an actual epiphany is doing something. I don’t gain writing ideas by not writing, after all. Still, that knowledge doesn’t give me motivation.
So, that’s the holding pattern I seem to have stuck myself in, hoping and grasping at straws for some kind of breakthrough or epiphany while draining my emotional and mental energy just to do the minimum towards my projects and obligations.
I think things are getting better. Intellectually (I’ve used that word a lot), I know some paths I can take to lead me towards better days.
It takes hard work, though, and right now I just feel drained of motive power.
I know I’ll get there; I’m not really the type to quit. I’m moving forward despite everything. And even incremental progress is still progress.
But some days, some days I just wish it was as easy as having an epiphany and everything becoming clear, just like that.
