I’ve been having a bit of an existential dilemma recently…so much so that I’m halfway expecting Dustin Hoffman and Lily Tomlin to start digging through my trash. About once a day for the last two months, I’ve started looking around at all my things and my life and my actions and wondering “What is the point of all this?” and, even as I’ve progressed past the crippling depression that was holding me captive again for a while, this thought continues to plague me daily.

I know; sounds like too much work for a Friday afternoon. Imagine having all the following notions flood your mind at least once a day for a couple months. (Now, imagine that with poopy diapers being changed and baby toys strewn about your living space and that’s my life.)

I don’t mean to sound pretentious, either, but in the last few months I’ve started feeling genuinely awkward and confused when I receive gifts because I’ve been strangely bothered by consumerism and the desire to have/possess things. I can’t appreciate a fabulous pair of shoes anymore or even how someone “saved so much” on a fabulous new handbag. It all just seems so trite, like we’re owning things to cover up the realization that we have no idea what the hell is going on. And then it seems like that’s why we do anything. Because we have no idea what it is we’re here for. Some people busy themselves with working on their social status because they’ve somehow agreed that this gives our lives meaning. Others work to acquire wealth because that seems to give their lives meaning, others work to help others because that seems to give them a sense of purpose, some cloud their lives with causes to benefit others because that fills the void, many attempt to fling their lives into public view in order to validate their existence, many others seek the rush of intoxication to give them the bright feeling of manufactured bliss… It all just seems like we’re creating distractions from just being. Because at the end of the day, all that can be taken from us and then, what really is the point of being?

It’s like, for the last few months, my mind has been muddied with these thoughts every day and I’ve tried to brush them aside, but they keep coming back to haunt me. It makes me wonder what selfish, distractive motivation I have to keep writing my thoughts on a public blog, for example. Do I do it so that I can make my name more recognizable and therefore validated? Do I do it because I’ve always written and this is just a way of databasing my thoughts and life? Do I write at all because I have anything to say and what exactly is the element that makes my writing worthwhile? For that matter, what is it that makes anyone’s writing worthwhile? What is it that makes anyone’s life important, validated, productive? Can’t be happiness; many people never find that. Can’t be creativity or innovation; many people are remembered who aren’t creative or innovative at all. Can’t be notoriety; some of the most important people who ever existed are those who were never documented publicly.

Is the point of existing to build a reality that we’re peaceful existing within? That just seems so self-servicing, even if our existence is to serve others…What about those people who live life just to exist on the bare essentials; are their lives somehow more pure and optimistic than those of us caught up in “mattering” and “having purpose”? Is pondering the meaning of life just one of those things that Westerners made up because we’re bored in our own luxuries? Should I get rid of all the luxuries my society/culture have agreed are so important and necessary so I no longer have to deal with wondering why in the hell I’m on this planet to begin with?

Yes, these are the thoughts that creep into my mind daily. These are the ones that make me look at my life and go “Eh. There has to be something deeper, something more than what I’m just looking at or living within right now.” And yeah, they’re exhausting. I go between wondering if the point of being around is to help others and thinking myself extremely selfish for wasting my life taking care of myself and wanting a career and cultivating an art and procreating, to thinking that maybe the point of life is self-sustainability, to thinking that none of our individual concerns matter and that we should all work to become more communal and blissful within each other’s company, as per the Native American civilizations. And lemme tell you, my mind is easily changed at least seven hundred times daily.

My problem with just not letting things “be” is that that seems purposeless as well. That seems cowardly and indecisive, like those people who are agnostic simply because they’re too lazy to explore any sort of spirituality at all (I’m NOT saying all agnostics are like this, by the way.) There’s a very large part of me that believes that “I don’t know” is too apathetic a way to live a life. But then, there’s another part of me that knows that there’s something very peaceful and surrendering about living in the “I don’t know”.

I like to think I live in the “I’m not sure, but I’m still looking.” I think that might be the healthiest way for me to exist, because it means I’m likely to keep a sense of humility about me and I’m likely to continue growing. I’ve honestly never trusted people who think they have it all figured out, because that just seems too cocky and ignorant to me. I gravitate toward people who are ever-searching, never-settled, ever-moving.

But still, I wonder why this curiosity has been piqued recently and why it isn’t just sitting in the background of my thoughts where it usually does. Because frankly, a break from redefining my core values thrice daily would be really nice.