Brain: God,
what are you doing with your life!? You’re so lame!
Me: I’m
trying to figure it out, I’m just not sure okay?
Brain: You
can’t even eat baked beans without getting them on your face, how do you even
function in life??
Me: Baked
beans! Wha—What does that even have to do with anything??!
Brain:
Whatever. It’s true. Loser.
So here I am, back in Australia. Back in
Tasmania thinking, as I always do at the end of big trips, what should I do
with my life? This is a question that comes up a lot for me, including in the
midst of exciting trips and adventures, but then it can often be silenced with
‘Oooh, what’s that over there?! Yes, lets try that new food/hike/activity/sport,
I’m having new experiences and that’s what really matters in life right, yey!!!’
But then you ‘finish’ a trip, categorized in my mind by a relatively stationary
period in a familiar place, often your parents house, in which you see a lot of
family and work to scrape together enough money for another plane ticket, and
suddenly seem to have more time and space in your life and brain to think,
‘what am I really doing here?’
Now, follow me down this rabbit hole for a
minute, in Michael Pollan’s book The Omnivore’s Dilemma (a great book, well
worth a read if I may say so) he points out that with modern growing and
distribution practices removing many limitations of seasonality and
geographical growing suitability, and the fact humans are omnivores which means
a vast swath of things are edible to us and can be considered food, we are faced
with the question, if you can eat almost anything, what should you eat?
Personally, I find that this question has wider application as well. I am very
fortunate to have been born a white, middle-class, post-feminist movement,
woman in western civilization (this also makes the previous question about food
applicable to me, sadly most people in the world do not have the reliable
access to food that allows them to ask themselves that question), to two very
supportive and encouraging parents; as a result of this I have been brought up
with the idea that I can do/achieve/experience pretty much anything as long as
I’m willing to put my mind to it and work really hard, and I genuinely believe
this as I am both privileged and determinedly stubborn when I want to be. While
this is a blessed situation to be in, it still raises the dilemma, if you can
do virtually anything, what should you do?
Peter Parker’s Uncle Ben knew what he was
about, with great power, comes great responsibility (Just kidding, I know
it was originally Voltaire, fascinating man that he was, who said this). I have
the ability to fashion my life into something wonderful and meaningful, hooray!
I’m so fortunate! Many people never get this chance, so don’t fuck it up, gaaahh,
debilitating fear of choosing wrong, wasting opportunity, maybe I should just
eat a lot of ice cream, hide under my covers and feel guilty..... You see the
trouble.
So here I am, trying to remember I’m very
fortunate and also not to panic and also trying to decide on a meaningful
direction for my life. In the interest of full disclosure I should probably let
you know that the answer will not be at the bottom of this post, there will be
no “and then the great epiphany struck and all was clear, and thus... I began”.
So if you’re one of those people that likes a neat and conclusive ending to
things you devote time to reading then you should probably cut your losses now and
stop reading, it ain’t going to happen. Sorry. I’ve spent my entire adult life
and a good portion of my childhood asking myself what I want to do with my life
and regrettably I don’t seem to be the epiphany type. But that’s life,
apparently, I don’t really know, I’m just living it and muddling through,
pretending to be a capable grown up, it’s hit and miss. The best I can do is
voice some ideas I’m currently toying with on the ‘what should I do next’ list,
which include: a ski season in New Zealand (I’ve pretty well locked that one
in, but I’m trying to figure out what to do after that so I don’t have to go
through this bit again if possible), getting my TEFEL (teaching English as a
foreign language) certification and moving to Turkey for a year to teach
English because Istanbul sounds fascinatingly wonderful, moving to the U.K. for
a year on a working holiday visa and hopefully finding work in the industrial hemp
growing industry because I think it can kind of save the world, flying back to
the Seattle, U.S.A. again, getting my motorcycle license, buying a motorcycle
and riding it solo up the coast of British Columbia into Alaska where I would
then stay and work for a summer because I’ve never even driven a motorcycle but
why do things by halves right? Or, moving to Nicaragua for six months because
apparently they’re mad into poetry as a culture and it looks beautiful and
totally different than anything else I’ve done.
Back-burner, secondary ideas
under vague but nagging consideration are moving to Melbourne to get my Masters
degree in international development (maybe?) or attempting to find some kind of
respectable, well paying job that doesn’t make me want to poke my own eyeballs
out and working at that like a responsible adult who wants to save up to buy
land to build a house on so I won’t be a homeless bag lady ranting about the
good old days of Nicaraguan sunsets and Turkish coffee one day. But I might not
be quite mature enough for those options yet....
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