Modern life is making me crazy..
Honestly, I don’t see how you all do it..
If I were to be inclined to follow every single rule out there, learning them all would probably take about ten years – and they write new ones, new tax code, new business rules, new whatevers.. as fast as I can learn them.
Being a ecologically responsable consumer is just about impossible unless one gives up buying.. I mean, figuring out the recycling plan for PC boards, monitors, canned goods, plastic goods, how to sort the recycling into the right bins, what should be reused..
I can’t even go out for a sushi dinner without worrying about which of these fish are most likely to go extinct.
How do you all manage it? Once you start worrying about the details (i.e. which forms to fill out for what part of your taxes), it turns out there are so many details that you can’t ever stop worrying. This way lies madness.
And yet – I sure don’t want to be responsable for lining up the grand design. Then we add the factor of me thinking about spirituality and spiritual dimensions and, oh, boy, now I’m *really* buried. If I have to think about the cosmic significance of the choices of words my friends make and what secondary and tertiary messages they might be trying to convey and..
it’s enough to make you whimper, I tell you.
All I ever wanted was to not hurt anybody. But yet, it’s likely that just by existing I hurt thousands. I use too much energy. I eat too much. I write too much.. think of all the poor electrons that are being abused because I wrote this journal entry..
Honestly, not only can I not take it, I’m not even sure that I can define what it is that I’m not able to take any more. There appear to be five billion forms filled out in triplicate to define every rule I’m breaking, and I appear to owe money to uncle sam until the day I die. Think you can own land? think again. You’re just paying a slower rate of rent, and we change the name to ‘taxes’.
And, someone granted the bank the right to always win. Why?
What a mess. I think I’ll get back to my nice, simple programming.
March 28th, 2005 at 7:36 am
The answer is you can’t. You have to decide what the most important “causes” to you are, and just do that. You can’t save anything but yourself. And you do the best you can, and you don’t beat yourself up for being human and less than perfect.
March 28th, 2005 at 7:40 am
*hug*
(this particular train of thought is familiar to me — I remember repeatedly dealing with it when I was 18-21 or so, and off and on since, but I am far enough out of it that I don’t have much useful to say, other than that I’ve seen it and it’s…stressful…but you already know that I”m sure)
March 28th, 2005 at 10:32 am
I’ve had this conversation with myself a lot lately too. I haven’t come up with any good answers.. 🙁
March 29th, 2005 at 9:25 am
It’s just the way life is. And we all do little parts to help the planet. It’s always been such a catch 22 with me about recycling and buying organic, etc. Because my organic food doesn’t last as long, so it goes bad, and I end up throwing it out. NOW THAT is a waste. Or I’m sure you know this scenario: you have food that’s gone bad in the fridge, so much so, that the container that it was in can no longer be recycled. Or things get so piled up that it’s impossible to recycle everything.
Hey, *poke poke, I hope you’re taking care of yourself, and keeping my cleaning streak going! 😉
March 29th, 2005 at 9:28 am
oh, I meant to add, you can’t blame modern life for making yourself crazy. We have to be responsible for our own choices, and we will never know all the “why’s”, because our brains are too complicated to know why we make certain choices, or why we might be geared a certain way. We can sorta figure those things out by looking inside ourselves, perhaps to our past and how we live our lives. But it really is up to YOU to make things simple.
March 30th, 2005 at 2:54 am
i second this…. you cant worry about everything … only those things in which you have control over… you have to weight the things that mean the most to you and put them first and then the other things fall in where they may…. good heart is the most important in my oppinion .. that will lead you to what the correct direction for you is… its just a big game of choosing the lesser of the evils… you get use to it … its becomes second nature to quickly weight out the options and assimilate them then choose the least of them …. thats it … the road is sometimes that of least resistance… and sometimes that of the more simplistic… simplify and streamline and things get a bit more easy … imho