Striving toward the present

Where have I been for the last few weeks? I seem to have somewhat regular bouts of...shall we call it melancholia? Where it really does seem my life is an abject failure. Objectively, even when in the midst of such melancholy, I know this is not true. But it seems my friendships all feel tenuous and not meaningful, and that I am directly responsible for their imminent demise. Such anxiety then, of course, seems to feed back into itself, creating more anxiety and more insecurities, and then it's more of a wait-it-out state than anything that I can do that is actually productive. I like tangible concrete problems (not that this has ever been my line of work in any real sense) -- but I like seeking the solutions, the methodical steps that can produce a satisfying resolution. Life seems to be non-compliant on this measure. And somehow, I have the strange fantasy that there will be a moment at which I will come out on top, where it will be a vast plain of manageable emotions, problems, circumstances. As if.

Why do I persist in preserving this mythology? It obviously does nothing but make me feel anxious about its never being attained. I suppose this is a bit like why I am skeptical of religions that promise some higher afterlife. I mean, you never can fully disprove that it could happen or could exist, but the idea of living in some suspended anticipation seems a bit futile. I have an old friend who is determined to be president some day. So much of his life is about planning to do the right thing that will secure his path to ascendancy. It's so odd to me, because it has started to seem to me (as we hobble toward our thirties), that this life is a means to an end, rather than an end in itself. Somewhere along my philosophy studies, I realized I am far less interested in the former. Life ought to be an end in and of itself. If there is some greater reward at the end (whether while still alive or after), I really feel that it's pretty irrelevant. Sure, this could slip into total hedonism and self-interest (which it has at moments), but it is a lot more present-minded.

The irony is, after all this proclamation of a particular life philosophy, I clearly don't live this way. So I guess that's sort of my goal. It's what yoga has been teaching me. It's part of what I talk about in therapy. And yet it's so damn difficult.