i.
From a very young age, my tummy reigned over every aspect of my being. I am an anxious breed. When my (oft unreasonable) parameters for acceptable events and behaviors are breached, my traitorous subconscious sends a signal to my stomach, which promptly ties itself into an ornery knot.
It just so happens that one such immovable parameter is the approval of others and compliance with expectation. Très boring, I know. More than that, such a drive for blind social acceptance is dangerous and a predilection which must be monitored closely (to avoid, oh, I don’t know, joining the Nazi party and other such oopsies).
It is partially due to this that I decided to move away from where I am from and find out who I might become and what tools I might employ without the push and pull of lifelong ties to mould and impress on my personality.
ii.
When people first came to be, as it is with other animals still, there was no work and play, there was only survive. For a lion, to hunt is not to go to work and to lie in the sun is not to play; rather to hunt and to lie are both to live and survive. So it was at first with man. To hunt or to till the land was to do what had to be done to continue living.
I recently read a book which stated convincingly (though admittedly with no supporting research) that the number of hours we require ourselves to be at work is a new concept and a fabrication of the Industrial era, namely a need for bodies to enslave themselves to the timeclock of vast commodity-bearing machines so that these machines could create Stuff so that our Economy could be Ever Expanding. Similarly, this book pointed out that the marriage of “purpose” and “occupation” is newer still than even our workdays. Defining our selves and our worth by our Job is entirely unnatural and, most often, quite detrimental to our content.
iii.
From a very young age, I had ideas about what I would like to Do. From three to present I have had at least fleeting dreams of being a butcher (odd for a future vegetarian, yes), chemist, marine biologist, architect, writer, teacher, actor, stage manager, editor, research scientist, blogger, housewife, engineer, auto mechanic, electrician, foley artist, sound engineer, and inventor.
But what I was really saying was that I wanted to feed people, or mix concoctions, or swim with dolphins, or gain recognition, or feel, or write, or stay in my pjs all day, or build, or draw, or change the world, or create things, or make music, or experiment, or philosophize, or hunt down information, or save the world, or some combination thereof.
iv.
And so I moved. I moved to a place where I was unknown. And I secured a ho-hum eight-to-five day job, doing none of the aforementioned things, just to prove to myself that I could stand it. And nearly three years later, through a quitting spell and a subsequent call to return after sabbatical, I am still here. And the truth is that staying terrifies me, even more so than leaving (this from a stomach knot who hates change). Because if I am what I Do, then I am nothing.
But despite my Job, the move has allowed me mould myself and to think. And in doing so, after twenty-five years of yearning for Balance and Content, it seems I have found what might create it.
It seems I might be quite happy with a simple life: with a clean house and a garden and a dog and a boy and a kid and hobbies and lots of good books and stimulating conversation with friends over potluck dinner parties. And, understanding the need to find a place that is intersected by our current society and the extent of my desire to remain a part of it, also some Job cobbled together out of several flexible-hour-ed, self-employed gigs. This is the very picture of my Contented life. Of my Balanced life.
But not of a successful life.
What is success? Who defines it and to what end? What would my successful life be, and would it come at the expense of balance and content?
v.
Because the fact remains that I am ashamed to show my face near my old life. That my pace now seems sluggish and lazy compared to what I was before.
The fact remains that this weekend when we took the boy’s mother to see a show, as with every time I see a professional production, the sound of the orchestra tuning and the sheer sight of such a large theater made some part of me yearn to be a part of something so big. The manic ups and downs of the kind of hyper-reality one must live to immerse herself in such toiling called to me like a siren, pulling me toward the romance of such a hectic life.
And when I opened the program to see an acquaintance of mine playing the lead role, I felt threefold more foolish. I considered all the people I know of whom the mere passing thought makes me feel small. Those who Do big things. Those who get up onstage in front of thousands upon thousands of people. Or create a nonprofit in a third world country. Or are piloting new alternative energy devices. Or work in the capitol building of this vast country. Or are in labs testing drugs to battle disease. Or just finished their novel to acclaim, or are preparing for the red carpet opening of their latest film, or have just penned the last note of their opus.
I am both blessed and cursed to be in the company of such talent.
I tell you, I have no desire in the world to keep up with Mrs. Jones’ wardrobe or credit limit, but I would tackle her to the ground for a chance to get my hands on that CV. It is so painted with drama and intrigue and heaps of stories worth telling which never, ever fall short of expectation. And no story worth telling ever began, “She was content and balanced. And so she remained.”
And I just don’t know how to quash the part of me that believes to the core that you’re nothing if you aren’t struggling against something. And it is not enough to fight the silent battles people fight every day. Battles like not shaking the baby at four a.m. while running on less sleep than ever before, or working well into your seventies to help your family survive. These are the silent battles (and truth be told, some of the biggest), and I wish I could say that it would be Enough to fight the silent battles that my own Content life would bring. I wish. But some part of me dismisses the mundane struggles and insists that I must fight something loud and something epic. I don’t even know how to WANT to kill this value that’s been so ingrained as a virtue. I don’t know how to be content with Content.
And no matter how many times I sit myself down sternly and explain to myself that a constant drive for MORE recognition and MORE excitement and MORE knowledge FASTER is no different than the insatiable hunger for MORE STUFF that has so robbed us of our time and joy and undermined our values, family, and environment, my thick, daft stomach just can’t accept it and every time I ruminate on a simple life, the knots return.
vi.
Last night I watched The Third Man in which Orson Welles’ character states jovially:
In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love; they had five hundred years of democracy and peace and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.
It’s the same principle, applied to individual life in the stead of a full fledged society, and the question still stands…which would you choose?
