something more (an accordion at 2 am)

2003-06-19 - 12:38 a.m.

i'm having a crisis of the soul. actually, i suppose that we all are, in our own ways, every single day. this is my soul crisis for today, and for the next 8 days following: i want to believe in the goodness of people. i want to love people, all people, and be happy with them and work to give them joys and love. i want, i want to believe that we are all good, and fragile and beautiful, and that there is some sort of purpose to our lives, and that my own life has its own unique and blindingly beautiful purpose.

i want to believe in these things. just like i want to believe in soul mates and true love and magic. just because you've never seen a million dollars doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. i want to not force myself to believe, i want to just know, inherently, and smile with wisdom and light. i want to help those in need of light find a path through the darkness.

this is what i desperately wish. and sometimes, on very good days, i can get a taste of that which i long for, and in that small fraction of time i'm not faking it or forcing it, it's just there. but the rest of the time is so very hard.

for starters, it's hard to drive and be filled with inner peace and light. i won't be on the road five minutes before someone cuts me off or doesn't use a turn signal or goes too slow or has a stupid bumper sticker or rides my ass and i'm frothing with rage and all i want in the world is to rear-end somebody just to prove a meaningless point. i try, i really do try to drive and be filled with peace and light at the same time. but i have yet to find a way to sustain any sort of peace while on the open roads of america.

and speaking of other people affecting myself and the world, my good friend lane had her car broken into on the ol' college campus last weekend. her stereo was stolen. we talked about it on the phone, and she said that it wasn't so much the actual taking of the stereo as upset over the car being broken into. 'my car is my baby, y'know?' she said. 'i know. it's like, i always thought i was invincible in my car,' i said. and i'm trying, i'm trying so hard not to blame the rest of the world, but i find myself doing just that. i find myself hating strangers and people in general and the world at large for fucking with me and my friends. i wonder what happened, why we deserved this. i truly wish that i had some spiritual guidance on this one, because no matter how much i mull it over in my mind, i never come up with anything except for hate and blind rage to seal up the crack in my armor, in my heart. i don't want to hate people, but i do, and i'm so bitter, and i can't seem to let it go. i wish i knew how to let it go.

then there's the job thing. quitting the bookstore was so freeing and great, but now i'm back to square one and doing the job-hunt all over again. and part of me wants something ten thousand times better than the last job. actually, all of me wants that, but only part of me expects that to happen. the other part of me is flailing wildly about for just some job, any job, to cling onto. for someone who enjoys unemployment so much, i'm damn frightened of not having one.

i just become bitter so easily, and i so badly want meaningful work, something that adds to my soul, not subtracts. but i'm terrified, because i don't have the slightest idea of how to go about getting any of it.

what i really feel i need right now is a spiritual quest, a journey to find myself, my purpose, and my place in the world. i need to exorcise my own demons before i can bring light to others. the faeries told me that, though deep down i think i knew it already. but i don't even know where i'd go for that, whom i'd seek out to teach me, where my sense of past and present converge. india, tibet, arizona, the northeast, the northwest, paris, transylvania, anywhere, everywhere? i have no bloody idea. and i don't want to blow all my savings on some fabulous trip to the moon only to have a rotten time and find out that it was jupiter that i needed to go to all along. i can't afford to simply go down a spiritual checklist, crossing things and events and places off as i achieve them.

but staying in one place isn't doing me any good either. and i can make this move count, or i can just pick up one more job that pays better but has zero soul benefits. arrrg, i'm pulling my existential hair out in frustration.

i want, more than anything, to be a light-bearer. i can stand not being great if i can only just bring light to those in need. however, first i must find the light for myself, and that is no small task. and since we are in short supply of teachers, the search is taking its toll and its time.
something more than desire must sustain this quest.