THE BLIND ALLEY OF PASSION

At 35, my current age I still find myself pondering my passion. My purpose in life, my reason to live. That thing that I'm "supposed" to be chasing that gets me out of bed in the morning that fills my time until I'm no longer living. You know, "that" thing. (I hope my quotation marks are in the "right" places.)

If you're like me, a fellow human, then I'm sure you've pondered this before or ponder it still. WHAT THE FUCK AM I DOING HERE!? WITH THIS LIFE!? NOW!? or something like that. I think about it often, almost constantly to be honest, but recently I've come to some (almost) conclusions.
I'm "almost" (quotations!?) certain that passion is whatever we want it to be and it can change. It can be your job,  but doesn't have to be. It can be your hobbies, but doesn't have to be. I think it would be nice if it was, but doesn't "have" to be.
I battle with myself pretty regularly about what I "like" and what I "love". Sometimes I love the things I like and like the things I love.  Make sense? I don't really think so either, but maybe you at least understand. Maybe? 

Ok, basically what my thought process is for example: I like/love poetry.
I:
Like to write it
Read and perform it
Sometimes I even like to read it
When I write it, it's when the muse strikes me with creativity and INSPIRATION! then boom! I open my notepad app on my phone and type away until I'm satisfied. If I think it's "done" I will read it at the next open mic I attend.
So, is this like or love?
Like I said I battle between these two ideas of like and love.  

The difference now is that I'm beginning to believe that it really doesn't matter. Like and love seem to depend on my mood, or my surroundings, or the content, company,  etc
The list of variables goes on. It's pretty fluid. So, I think "passion" is a matter of perception and drive.
Perception in the form of how the "thing" makes you feel for however long it makes you feel it.
Like, if something feels bag, E.G. being poked in the eye, you'll want it less. Unless you're into that sort of thing.

 
Or

E.G. something feels good like reading a poem in front of a crowd and getting some kind of enjoyment, catharsis, release of emotions, etc out of it. Then I tend to do that more often.  But, I have noticed that even though I love/like doing this I may stop doing it for days, weeks or months.
I always ask myself "why?"
Then get into the "love/like" debate with myself and end up back in that place. Essentially a place of unknowing which really becomes a stagnant place. I become stuck with not knowing which is right, or good, or real, etc.
That doesn't seem to be useful at all. In fact it causes stress and anxiety.
What I think is true about passion is that it can and maybe should remain in a flux-like state, if that even makes sense. Poetry can be my passion today, but maybe not tomorrow,  but then it can be again in a few days, weeks, or months. You get it, right?
So, I've been playing with the idea of:
1. Letting my love/likes come and go as they see fit and
2. Letting the things that I like to do become the things that I LIKE to do.
Make sense?  (Contact me if not, I'm serious.) 

Now, about drive.
Drive is the part that I find myself getting hung up on. The actual "action" of a thing. Sometimes I get stagnant as I stated before, but also sometimes I think of a thing I really like/love but then simply talk myself out of it based on little rules I have in my head. By "rules" I mean the things were told we can't do, or shouldn't do, or aren't fit to be like/loves. Now, I'm not talking about anything that will harm another person, so if you were thinking that I'm sorry that's not what I meant and please don't hurt anyone and if you think you should, seek help.
What I mean is the things that I like to do that are the things I do when I'm procrastinating and avoiding the "thing" I'm supposed to do like work, as I'm my job, or a task or chore. 

Ok, for example:
I love making fire. I'm a Pyro and have been since I was a kid. Yeah I know it can be a little or A LOT unsafe but hear me out.
IN A CONTROLLED ENVIRONMENT like a fire pit, pot-belly stove or in a place far from the places that can burn down, I will make a fire.
I like setting it up and watching it burn.  Building it bigger and hotter and putting things in to watch burn like toys or fireworks or whatever lol
But is this a passion? Honestly I do not know for sure, but that's probably clear to you by now. I know that I really don't know, but I think no one else really does either. I think those little things that creep up in my mind and seem to take up my attention ARE the things I should do when they pop up. This to me in-of-itself seems to be PASSION. 

A feeling arrives, however it does, but it does then you feel the need to DO something. TO DO THAT THING. That action, that whatever it is. I say do it. JUST DO IT! (fuck you nike, I'm not even capitalizing your name) JUST DO "IT!" 

IT, whatever it is. Light a fire! stare into the clouds for HOURS! Drive to nowhere with no one for NO REASON because there really isn't a reason and that IS the reason. I think this makes sense. 

OK, basically my thought on the drive, perception, like, love, LIFE all of it is that there is no reason and that is the reason. There is no rhyme or reason or purpose that we do not make up for ourselves. I've watched hours and hours of "inspirational" videos on YouTube and read things and listened to audiobooks, etc and honestly it's all good. None of it is "bad" but it's all kind of confusing and contradictory. Listen to Alan Watts and your life will change. Then listen to Jay Shetty, or Joe Dispenza, etc the list goes on and on. All of these people using their experience to relate and help others which is amazing. I love it. I watch them, I'm inspired and for a little while I float on their ideas and get some action under my feet, but it never lasts. I think it doesn't last because I'm lazy. I am, but i also think it doesn't last because it's not my path. It's not my way. My way is MY WAY and your way is YOUR WAY. I think this is the same for passion as it is for life. It's your world do with it whatever you like. Living to the fullest can be whatever you say it is and it will be. Travel the world or don't. Be happy! or don't. It's your ride.

My passion isn't anything specific right now, but something did happen tonight. I got a bug up my ass to write and here I am. It works if you let it, I think. Again, I'm glad you're reading this is you are, but please understand that I am just like you. I do not know shit and I'm making it up as I go along which is great, but also kinda scary, but still great. 

This way of life and thinking, I feel, makes the dark not so dark and the light much brighter. You and I will be dead very soon. Well, not VERY soon, but soon enough and for sure definitely sooner than we'd like. At least sooner than I'd like, you, I have no idea what you're game is. Maybe you're sprinting towards death. If so I say GODSPEED! and I also say BE CAREFUL! try to live a long time! ah hell. Do you baby!

The Louniverse

NOT LETTING FEAR RUIN YOUR DAY AND YOUR LIFE.

I was just about to go onto Google and begin a search about a feeling that is bothering me. I have health anxiety, I'm a hypochondriac.  So, my leg hurts in a place where I can see there's a vein. For some reason the combination of these two things sends me running to the Internet for answers and reassurance. Two things I RARELY find in a Google search about something that's bothering me either physically or mentally.

Sound familiar?

If so please keep reading. I am writing this for you. You the person reading this and me in the future also reading this. Fear has controlled my life through anxiety for as long as I can remember and today is no different.  I was just about to begin a search online through Yahoo message boards,  Web MD vague "93 possible diagnosis" sections which are always horrifyingly terrible or blogsposts from other sufferers, doctors, YouTube videos, Facebook posts, etc, etc
You know this pattern.
It's starts there and ends with more anxiety,  more questions, more irrational fears, more, more, more
Unrest
Uneasiness
Sleeplessness
Imbalance
The list can go on forever

However, the more I "research" my anxiety the more I realize we all have exactly the same symptoms, fears and follow the same train of thought nearly to the tee minus of course some very tiny individualized nuances of symptoms specific to us.

We get a "feeling" or a "thought" our body begins the process of fight or flight usually, 9 times out of 10 before we even know it and boom we run to the Internet and self diagnosis and worse seemingly convince ourselves of the worst case scenario. 
I don't get aches I get deep vein thrombosis. I get lung cancer, throat cancer, swollen lymph nodes, the silent killer widow maker heart attack! 
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
I'm either fine or having the longest lasting slowest killing heart attack in human medical history.
Right?
We know we're fine but still find ourselves breaking out in sweats. Trembling. Nauseous and scared.

All of it sucks. But it is a choice.

Now I know that sounds weird. Why would ANYONE choose these things. Well, we do and we dont, but we definitely do.

An ache or a pain or a feeling, a thought, anxiety, fear,  horror,  panic...
All natural, all normal. 
WE anxious bunch of beautiful little coconuts take these normal short lived human emotions and drag them out and over think ourselves into some of the worst living a human can give to itself.
The truth sucks and it's no excuse but then again it is a condition and it is happening and feeling powerless is just as natural and normal. So, breath. It's fine. You're alive today despite all the above problems and the problems you'll find later tonight when you take your cloths off and see [insert scary body part]

It's ok.

Now, even as I'm typing this my anxiety is hard at work. My anxiety is crafty. It's after all, me. It's knows me like I know me. I can't outsmart it but I can ignore it, right?
Right now it's telling me that everything I've just written is bullshit.  No one wants to read this and basically this is all one big long attempt at reassurance. 
It's just me distracting myself from my feelings by writing this thing to distract you from your feelings all while reassuring me and maybe you.
And maybe that's true.
No. No its not.

I'm writing this because I know what anxiety is. I know how anxiety, health anxiety and all this fear has turned my life into a stagnant cycle of repeating past mistakes, getting stuck in bad unfulfilling situations and not living a life. Plain and simple. 

NOT. LIVING. A. LIFE.
Anxiety is a full time job for me on top of my other full time job.
It distracts me from every single aspect of my life every single minute of every single day for as long as I can remember.
I do not remember NOT being anxious.
Fear takes up nearly all of my energy. All of my mental capacity.  It ruins everything while leaving me just enough to participate in life from the perspective of a free to walk around prisoner's stand point. I can go and do whatever I like just as long as I don't mind the never ending over thinking chatter in my head.  The over sensitized body and the irrational fear encyclopedia chained to my feet wherever I go.
You can't call out of work by telling your boss "you can come into work today because there's just too much on your mind"
You're too busy fighting a battle in your head and cannot interact with the outside world today.
So, sorry family. Sorry job, sorry significant other, friends, and everyone else. 
Sound like your life at all?

Everyday I imagine a knight fighting a dragon. Everyday both the knight and the dragon die.  No one wins. 
Am I the knight or am I the dragon? 
Is the dragon my anxiety?
I think they're both me. They have the same eyes.  The Knight fights to the bitter end every time. He nearly defeats the dragon completely then usually is struck with a fatal blow.  A last gasp of the Dragon who is also fatally wounded and they both go down. Interpret that how you like. I think of it all the time.
Stalemate. No winner, but I feel like I still lose.
I change myself and limit myself and alter my demeanor and emotions as to not wake the beast up but in doing so I become a shadow of my former self. I am barely a person in those moments and that's my everyday.

I let my fear control my entire life.
It's lead me to so many positive outlets that have never truly helped because the fear is the strongest. It outlasts everything in me.
I've learned to meditate, breath, take a minute or ten or twenty or an hour and rest. Eat healthier. Stop smoking cigarettes, lessen my caffeine intake and I can go on forever.
All of this is because those things at one time or another gave me anxiety about my body and I dropped them in order to appease the fear. 

No more.  I'm still going to continue to eat healthy and not smoke cigarettes and not over use caffeine but I'm doing it because it's healthy and I feel good and that's it. If I have coffee I won't think about heart attacks or strokes.
If I eat something not so healthy I won't think about purging myself with water to flush it out of me ASAP because of a myriad of irrational reasons. 
I do things for me now.  Starting today. 
I choose to be happy not because it's going to pay off someday or distract me from the moment or keep the dragon asleep but because I want to be happy. That's it.
It's a choice.
Always was and always will be.
I know it. You know it. Now let's begin a practice. 
Just sit down, take a few deep breaths, close your eyes and feel the surroundings you're in RIGHT NOW.  This is the moment.  This is reality.  This is everything.

I truly hope this blog post has helped at least a little bit.  I hope you related to it and know that you're not alone and that most importantly You. Are. Fine.

I'd love to hear from you!

Sincerely, 

Lou Raio
AKA
The Louniverse