I’ve been in a pretty pessimistic mood lately. I keep questioning everything and most of the time I don’t know the answer to these things and it just makes me more and more pessimistic. Again, I think I’m in an identity/existential crisis. The questions make me feel like whatever I am right now is not what I should be. I’m in the wrong place/ career / faith / etc. I’m not depressed and I hope I won’t sink into depression anytime soon. I’m still functioning quite well, I’m still perky around people most of the time but it’s just these questions keep popping in my head and follow me everywhere, much like a really annoying swarm of mosquitoes. My question is not WHY, but rather WHAT. It’s not exactly the best feeling to have. In the past few years my dreams mostly revolves around never-ending searches for things I don’t even understand, and now it’s like those dreams are coming to reality.
One of my lab’s PhD student writes in his nickname on Gtalk: “Work like you don’t need money”. My first reaction was, yeah rite – if I don’t need money than I don’t even wanna work! That’s the lazy answer, obviously. But of course if I’m doing what I really like / feel I’m born to do / think serves a bigger purpose in life other than a paycheck – well, who wouldn’t work like they don’t need the cash! For now, I can’t even proudly tell people what I actually do. And this is definitely not what I am, nor what defines my identity. If I ever lose my job, I can’t identify with it. An Engineer can say he’s an engineer even if he’s not employed by any firm, or even after he retires. An artist can say he’s an artist all his life. A clergy can say he followed his calling and that is what defines him. A salesman can say he’s a true salesman and he can sell sand to an Arab. And me? I feel like I don’t have an identity at all.
Some people are happy enough doing what they do, working for a monthly paycheck and providing for themselves or their family. I’m not say that’s bad in any way, but I feel like I need to find my own calling, my identity, and can finally confidently and proudly tell people who I am, and can comfort myself, telling myself that I’m not useless, that I do have a place somewhere on earth which serves something good for other. Yes it is my opinion that we can all find happiness inside ourselves, but these questions inevitably came to me, like I woke up one day and then realise that life has a meaning, is this it, is this really good enough for me, that I need to find my own interpretation of the answer to the biggest question in life, and convince myself that I’m not just another filler for the earth’s crust. It’s an overwhelmingly sublime feeling, edging on loneliness. It’s also an overwhelmingly desperate feeling, since I realise that I don’t know where to start, not to mention where to go.
I don’t know if it’s a good sign, that I’m actually looking beyond myself into something bigger, a start to a journey of exploring my own feelings and knowing myself better and hopefully growing into someone wiser and more aware of myself and others. Or maybe that’s a bad sign, that I’m not satisfied with what’s been given to me and this particular journey is indeed pointless. Maybe not everything has to have a meaning. Maybe not every question must have an answer.
I feel like I’m getting old really fast. I need some margaritas for lunch.
(It’s funny, and counter-intuitive, how depressing feelings pushes you to do self-destructing stuff. Drinking. Smoking. Popping pills. Jumping into the subway track. When you’re feeling low, shouldn’t you be watching cartoons or standups or pulling pranks instead? I guess that’s another quirk of the human mind.)
