Interpret this question how you will.
Purpose. As I alluded to in the most recent 3-word story challenge, I recently finished Chad Harbach's excellent novel The Art of Fielding. More than anything else, what struck me about the main character Henry was his singular, intense sense of purpose. He knows that he wants, even needs to be the best baseball player possible, and he works day and night for years to achieve that. I wish I had his clarity of purpose.
First of all, thanks for the thoughtful reply, it's what I had in mind.
I do think there would be something satisfying in knowing EXACTLY what you want to have your life's pursuit to be. I have far too many things I'm interested in and striving for at all times. My wife and I both struggle with this from different perspectives. I haven't chosen one discipline that requires all of my focus and feel divided by several projects and passions at the same time -spread too thin. She chose to pursue medicine and outside of our family life, this consumes all of her time and energy. She is a very smart and capable person and therefore often wishes she could pursue other disciplines too. More than once I've heard her say, "I should have been a ______." -The thing is she's an amazing physician and though she's at the beginning of her career, I have no doubt she'll be one of the top in her field globally some day. But you could have said that about her regardless of what she chose. Me, not so much. I'm good at the things I do. Some of them I'm very good at, but I'm not the "best there is globally" at anything. Better to be really good at a number of things for me. For her, I'm glad she's chosen a specific pursuit and it could have been any number of things to pick. I guess the key is to pick, or to consciously decide not to.
I would like love as well. Hopefully the date I have tomorrow leads somewhere.
I'm sorry. Loneliness is such an exhausting emotion. I hope you find some refuge soon.
I've got a bunch of dates this week, so I have my fingers crossed!
The next step. I have everything I could ask for. Awesome wife, healthy awesome baby, awesome house, awesome career, awesome side business.... but what's next? The next step in my life is missing. I hate being stagnant and feel empty when I don't know where the next rung of the ladder is. I'll find it, but man these doldrums kill me.
A decent opponent for Gennady Golovkin (32 year old Kazakhstani). He has the highest KO rate of any middle weight champion ever. He just looked too good coming up, no named guy wants to take the risk of facing him. The only guy calling him out is one the best pound for pound fighter in the world and has eight pounds on him (Andre Ward, and eight pounds means a lot in a boxing match). Hopefully Golovkin has gotten big enough to generate a payday that can tempt a top guy into the ring. Shame to see a guy who might be one of the best in his generation stuck fighting less than top tier talent. Just watched him knock out a great fighter in 1:19 of the 2nd round.
I don't have your knowledge of boxing, but I can appreciate a skilled fighter and even my untrained eye can pick up his skills. He seems extremely poised in the ring. That was fun to watch, I hope he finds his Tommy Hearns, everyone needs a worthy adversary to become great.
Clarity. As in I don't know what I'm doing after this week, I don't know what I'm trying to get out of a date that's happening in a few days, and all sorts of other things.
I'm curious if you've read the book I sent you?
I started it, and just could not jive with it in the state I was in. But I started re-reading it earlier today, and I think now that I'm really working to put my life back together I'll be able to read it and not be angry.
My Flaming Lips movie. Where the hell is it?!?!?!
Here you go: Or you may be referring to The Fearless Freaks? which is also awesome.
Yeah, Fearless Freaks. Haven't seen this one in forever though. Thanks man!
One might assume that missing is the act of failing to connect with a goal, or failing to coincide with a particular event in spacetime, or losing out on an outcome to which one has been working. You missed the bus, you missed out on meeting up, you missed the party, you missed your chance. Another way to consider missing, however, is to consider that the opportunities which one would have closed down by connecting with one's assumed plan are still latent. In missing the opportunity to have a romantic relationship with that person, you still have an opportunity to have one with those people - some of whom you may have yet to meet. In missing being hired for this job, you may (or may not) have opened yourself up to the possibility of many others. If the onrushing universe of experience must be whittled down to a manageable level by our ability to use our past experence to model the present and thence project our assumptions into the future, then everything we feel we have missed in the present must also be considered to leave a vast tract of potential experience open to us in the future. So, chin up.
A lot of hair - I got a haircut today. My head feels much lighter! But more seriously, while there are some things that I don't have at this moment in my life, there are so many things that I do have and that I can enjoy now that it greatly outweighs that which I miss.
This may or may not be helpful but you might try Anki. It's natural in that cards that are easy for you to remember get pushed back while hard cards stick around. This is a simple explanation of it, but it helped me learn every bone in the body no problem. You need to use it every day for it to be effective, though.