graduating to gratuity

It has been over four months since my last blog post.

In that time, I attempted to write one -- a New Year's Day post.  The thesis of that post would have been that 2013 was the best year of my life so far.  But two months into 2014, it's already better, so that post is obsolete.

One of my primary goals with this blog has been to develop a stronger understanding of my own motivations, instincts, feelings, and ways of engaging with the world.  Impatient for progress, and believing that personal growth occurs most dramatically through adversity, I deliberately put myself in quite a few stressful situations over the past year.  I tested my self-control to its limits, and I learned a lot about myself.

I put everything I'd learned together, and came to the conclusion that I had "found" myself, as much as I can ever hope to.  The realization was both troubling and freeing.

I reached this epiphany a few days after I wrote my New Year's Day post.  I didn't post it right away because I wanted to add a quote from one of my high school yearbooks, and didn't have the book with me when I wrote the post.  The quote was a message I had written to myself, in my own yearbook, exhorting me to never lose sight of the things that are important in life.

When I found the yearbook and read that quote late in December, I was moved by its earnestness and positivity.  I tried to capture that feeling in the post, and expressed a sincere desire to reattain that attitude.  I even wrote that the entire past year's worth of blog posts had been an effort to regain that sort of "joie de vivre."  A few days later, I reconsidered, and utterly rejected that conclusion.  That is why you never saw that post.

I recognize that I am a fantastically lucky person.  With one major exception, I have been given every single advantage a person can have in this place and time.  With a little effort, I can acquire, do, or become nearly anything I desire.  Nothing is scarce; faced with limitless options, I'm unable to settle on anything.  A year ago, that indecision was the root of my discontent.  Today, I do not see it as a problem at all.

Up until now, I have been writing in the hopes of unlocking this mystery.  Now that I've succeeded, I'm not sure what I will write about.  Fascinating as the topic of myself is, I don't have anything else to learn about it.  I don't mean to give the impression that I'm less narcissistic than before -- probably the opposite is true -- but I no longer need to ask those questions.  I am satisfied.

You probably aren't.  This has been a pretty vague post, and though I'm not sorry, I understand if you're frustrated or annoyed.  I can't share with you all of the details of my journey into self-knowledge.  I could share with you the meaning of life, but if you don't already know it, it would only make you unhappy.

Last year, I had a vision as I went on a walk.  A grand vision, with multiple futures laid out for me on various paths, some shining, some murky, all of them long and most of them fascinating.  It was a beautiful, romantic image, and it was completely ridiculous.  There are no more visions.  But neither are there any more walks.  One thing is scarce, and that is my time.  I won't walk.  I will run.  Try to keep up!