Long time no hear…

 

A few weeks have turned into months, and those months into years. Time has flown by in a whirl, and I am in a different location since my last update. Physically, mentally, wholly. As happy and content as I am, with financial stability, a lucky prospect of enjoying my job and my coworkers, and living in a quiet little town outside the big city, I still manage to find myself questioning the purpose of it all. I still manage to feel unfulfilled, perhaps even starving, for more mental stimulation. 

Life after academia is truly different. While I am still in the education field, I feel my learning has stagnated a significant amount. Although student life was all I previously had, I can’t imagine I would feel happy going back. I would still be faced with the inexorable feelings of the absurdity of the human experience. Am I merely just surviving to live, or living to survive? What is the bigger purpose of this all? It seems like a slow descent into madness, unto death. The possibilty of suicide and the absurdity of life often jogs through my mind, wondering if my students yet think of these things. I can’t say I did as a young student, but it was a big topic of debate in the university atmosphere. What is the answer to all this madness? What is the purpose of the human experience? To suffer, revolt, and descend into the darkness? 

Camus says to revolt; Arendt believes certain revolutions were not necessarily revolutionary enough. 

Four years ago, I had written the following in this very blog:

“No one wants to be alone. You just don’t make the effort to meet people.”

There’s a rumination that loneliness is a payment of sorts, to atone for a certain frame of mind. For some the physical desire to be held or kissed is, for a long time, more urgent that the desire for good conversation. So they end up in relationships with people who they don’t say much to, but because perhaps they like the shape of their shoulders or the color of their spectacular eyes.

Now, while I do hold the same sentiment, my personal outlook has changed. Indeed, moving to the other side of the world has had a large hand in it. And travelling alone prior, for academia, got me on the right foot to start. Now the struggle remains fulfilling connections. At a base level, human communication and presence is a must for a social existence. But, with the appearance of Covid-19, we are faced with a strange outcome. Not only is meaningful connection stifled, but it is also blocked away by isolation and quarantine. It is an absurd situation.

So now I am faced with the dilemma: to continue in this situation that seems to be growing more and more stagnant as the weeks pass, yet in all aspects seems to fulfill and go beyond the basics of a human’s standard of living, or to take a leap of faith, once again? As I did, only 6 months ago? Now I have the fear that it will be impossibly hard to stay still in one place. The cabin fever has grown, and I fear an impending country fever, that very well may grow into a shattering earth fever. The multiple meanings possible here are all realized and intended. I fear them all.