Friday, February 09, 2007

We're All in the Same (Striving) Gang

Pondering what makes a life meaningful, useful, profitable I come to the conclusion that a lot of us are searching for more and as we watch the market praise and benefit absolute crap over and over again, we wonder if we'll ever be able to make a living trying to life ourselves out of the crap.

I'm speaking of those of us who are wishing for an intelligent community that could publish something meaningful to all of us. Why don't we have the market power? Are we all too cheap to invest in the things we hold dear and keep carping about there being a lack of in American culture?

It would be nice to care more about community and culture and the quality of life -- internally than a paycheck. I for one am usually afraid of being poor again. I want a comfortable life, but not at the expense of missing out on life.

I want to write about people doing great things, specifically women, and I think I can find a place that will want to pay me to do that. But right now that isn't happening. I'm trying to narrow things down, find my avenues to something that can be profitable and rewarding. I want to honor craft and others and history and respect humanity at the same time. But you know what is tiring me most? People telling me it can't be done. I believe it can. And I feel like I can at least try on a small scale for some success at this.

I am not alone in this. A lot of people want this. And I think I've long known that satisfaction and happiness for me lie in the striving itself, not the profit you make from it. It is an emotional profit, the satisfaction of a useful life, that you are doing something meaningful -- at least to yourself. It think that's really all I want. And I can do that in many ways. I just want to make sure I don't starve in the process, or that others don't.

The idea that we're all in this together give me hope and strength. I'm one of those people who believes in the power of positive thought, the power of the heart, and the fact that if we think these things together they can change the world, because that's energy, and that's what every fiber of our being is made of. Energy. Thought energy. Heart energy.

And some blood, sweat and tears, as the phrase goes. I've come to the conclusion that you get dragged through no matter what you choose to do with yourself -- why not make it something meaningful? Life will always have hard moments. I risk being Pollyanna about things, but I have heard stories of people who keep believing through droughts of mind and heart, and come out of it with exactly what they envisioned. If we can display that patience, maybe it'll come.

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