Shared Delusions

I've been really doing some soul searching this past week. Trying to figure out my direction, my purpose. The anxiety from it seems to just compound.

As someone with an alternative view of the world, I find myself struggling walking the line between knowing what "could be" and what is. Sometimes the world around me just makes me sick to my stomach. All the hatred, greed, self-righteousness...

I come from a long line of creative people and it brought me to studying the Graphic Design field. I love what I do when I am in the middle of doing it - when that creative processes takes over. But I don't like what it IS. Manipulation. Plain and simple. Graphic Design is the art of manipulating people though imagery and words. Make you WANT something. I find myself really struggling to make peace with that.

The desire for more is something that is so intrinsically hardwired and at the same time, the root of all evil.

At present, I look around and want to just give it all up. Give it back and just live life on earth the way it was meant to be lived. Peacefully. Happily. Simply. Without so much regret, anxiety and fear.

Everything I see that was man made (at least where I live) is so ugly. It sticks out like a sore thumb and I long for the simple days of nature. Long summer days playing with children and no care in the world. Is that impossible? In this reality we have created for ourselves it is. All we have created is so at odds with enjoying life. Being a part of life.

I think at our core, we really are here to experience. We want to go through things. See things, DO things. It's in that need that we attach to the "more" philosophy. Not because we actually want more stuff. But we want to feel the experience and it's more frequently the only way to get it. We have boxed ourselves in so tight that we can't see a way out. So we eat more. Drink more. Spend more. Rather than DO more. Be More. Live More.

I can see this in myself and in others. The difference is that so many people just accept our lives; society as it is. No questions. No introspections. No dreams of a better place. It doesn't even cross their minds that this is not what needs to be.

I want better for myself. For my children. Finding the place that makes sense in this world of shared delusions is the tricky part. Can we give up what we know to create our own view of the world? Can we be strong to step out into that not knowing what it will fully look like? I'm not sure. But right now, I feel compelled to really try.