What Am I Doing and How Did I Get Here?

One year ago, I was unemployed. I had only moved into my first rental apartment the previous January. Before that, I was also homeless. My legal address was “undefined” up to then. Now, I’m sitting in my own apartment — that I own — thinking about an event I am hosting tomorrow: the launch of my business. Most people coming are my friends. Even my cofounder is someone I befriended through my writing group. Which was started with my coworkers at a job I made a name for myself within. Obviously, none of my accomplishments were in isolation. There were other people involved. Good people who deserve as much credit as I give myself. However, at this moment, I am thinking about me.

I’ve done so much. But how did I get here? And what am I doing? I’m apprehensive about this apartment I bought because it needs work. Small things, it’s perfectly livable as it is. I’m apprehensive about this launch event tomorrow because I want something more grand, more profound. Perhaps I want everything to be more grand and more profound. I want to build entire worlds, not mere communities. Even if I’m perfectly aware that everything must have a beginning.

I wrote my last story about many thoughts that have been running through my mind. For once, I feel like sharing about my personal life in spite of my last post: there is someone who has caught my interest, for better or worse, and I’m bothered by many things that arise therefrom. For example, how is it possible for me to like someone who isn’t an artist? It should be simple: that someone is who they are, artist or not. Yet I ask myself how I can relate to such a person or build anything without that shared foundation. It makes me think about how I perceive other people in general.

There are no people in my life who enjoy the same things as me. There is not one person to whom I can say, “Hey, there’s this event, let’s go,” and know with certainty that I will receive a whole-hearted, “Yes.” I spend my days attending gallery openings in Icelandic. My friends who enjoy art do not enjoy Icelandic. My friends who enjoy Icelandic do not enjoy art. I spend my days wandering, drifting around this small city. Yes, there are people I can ask to wander with me, but they don’t have the same interest in that wandering. Or, maybe this is my projection of me not having anyone in particular with whom I would want to wander. Though there is the aforementioned interest-catcher whom I would not dare invite.

I was “elected” within my company for a two-year position as one of two union representatives. I will be paid to take courses and serve the general interest of employees as far as the union is related (which is very significant in Iceland). My reading group is growing, slowly. The writing group is expanding. Everything else is looking great. I’m trying my hardest to make peace with my job, though that remains a point of contention. Regardless, my life seems to be going quite well.

So why am I asking myself what I’m doing and how I got here? What is missing? There is a common thread with all these ideas floating around. The questions. The mysterious individual. The things I am writing, both consciously and subconsciously. This very blog post. Something connects them all, and that “thing” is the root of my concern.

I want to place it as a feeling of outside-ness — some type of disconnect from the world around me. When I ask myself what I find meaningful, the answer is art and discussion. I truly enjoy speaking to people about things such as life in general, who we are, our desires and wishes, passions and interests. I also enjoy art and everything that entails. Thus, I build communities. I bring people together using my own interests as the foundations. However, as I said, a community is not enough. I want to build a world.

What bothers me is other people. When people live their lives, unhappy, I want to grab them by the shoulders and shake sense into them. I want to look them in the eyes and say, “If you want to do something, then do it. Change the world if you want, you are capable of that. And if you don’t think you can do something, then let me help you, and we will do it together.” I have found great meaning in helping or inspiring other people to pursue their dreams. I’ve been able to do it a number of times, and it is the most rewarding experience. But most people don’t even know what they want to do. For whatever reason, that disappoints me. I am drawn to passion.

A friend asked me how I have the energy for everything I do, and I said that I know I’ve found my passion because what I do gives me energy as opposed to taking energy. So when someone says they’re still figuring out what they truly want, I’m at an impasse. My ability to see into their soul is halted. There is absolutely nothing wrong with not knowing what you want to do. I suppose what bothers me is the lack of the search: when people would instead drift through life.

Here is an excerpt (technically two) from an unfinished piece:

I ask the clouds why they have come and answer they with rain…

…I stood and watched the stars extinguish. I sat and watched the forest burn. Life takes place around me. Stead am I on Earth. To the grass that separates us, I ask what is their purpose. “To grow,” says the grass and silences thus. And thus am I alone.

I got to where I am in life by being unsatisfied with the world. I’m well aware of my privileges, but I don’t care. Anyone can do anything, that is my firm belief. Anything that was handed to me, I took action to “deserve.” I’m proud of those actions, such as how I spoke to the Russian government, once as part of a diplomatic delegation in Istanbul, and once to the State Duma. Similarly, how I’ve built all these communities in Iceland.

Tomorrow is the launch event for my “business”: an artist collective. We are hosting a poetry night at a bookstore downtown. I’m not excited, and I don’t understand why. I’m sitting in my own apartment, and I’m not happy to be here, and I don’t understand why. Not entirely, anyway. I should accept that each achievement is but one step in the direction I want life to take, but it doesn’t feel like enough. What I truly want is to change the world. That alone would be enough for me: to make the earth a place suitable for human life. And so I spread my ideas, run my groups, maintain my social life, make my art, write my poems and stories, publish my books, host this blog, and help whomever I can to live a meaningful life.

The beauty of it all is knowing that some things will fail. And each day will feel different. People will come and go, groups will start and stop, opportunities will grow and shrink. The only consistency, the only guarantee in this world, is the self: me (to you: you). I will change the world; that is my goal in this life. What that looks like, I have no clue, though I have plenty of ideas.

My concluding thought is that when you find someone interesting, get to know them. We are all living in our own worlds, and human connection is that which connects them. The only thing that matters in this life is other people. So value them. I would like to think I’ve done well for myself, but I would have accomplished absolutely nothing without the other people in my own world.