Human Hunger

It's amazing that humans have such a will to live based on activity in their lives. You always hear that whenever you get older, the people who keep working (even just part time), as opposed to those who retire and sit around, live longer. During this snow, with everything shut down, I kind of shut down too. It was miserable. I was miserable, getting the worst sleep ever and feeling anxious and stressed. I think it was because I didn't HAVE to do anything, so I didn't do anything. For 11 days, I haven't done anything. Then, right on cue with having to go back to school today, here I am, up at 6:30 this morning for no good reason, working on homework, eating breakfast, paying bills, cleaning, planning on working out, and I feel SO much better. I've already known that humans are only focused on their comfort of living, and the reason we're all so sick and have so many problems is because we're not focused on surviving any more. It's why there's no "depression" in African tribes.

I've been trying to go without for a while, not because I need to, but because I find the more "comfortable" I am, the more depressed I become. I think the closer you are to survival, the better you feel. So, though I've had money to fix my car heater, I just haven't. The other night, I drove for an hour and a half in the snow and it was FREEZING. I wore two pairs of pants, three shirts, two coats, and a few blankets, but it was still pretty cold. The next day, driving home, I was crying thinking about Duane and all my friends that are important to me, and I noticed I wasn't so cold, so I guess crying gets your blood flowing. In fact, I had to roll my window down.

I'm getting off topic. The point is that doing without BY CHOICE makes me feel better. I think the "by choice" part is important. Because I've done without before because I've had to do without and that in itself is a different kind of depression. So, I still have some money from when I was a bond trader, which is nice, but none of them understood this way I try to live. They kept trying to tell me to get a nicer car...so I could be in debt like them, I guess. You want to have the nice job and go to fancy dinners making money from other people's money, so you have to act the part. Get a house, a nice car, and a family you can't stand to be around. It was funny because, for a while, they had me believing that same thing, and no matter what kind of nice clothes I bought, it didn't make me feel better. I'm so glad I realized before I was too deep that I needed to get out of there.

Again, I think I'm straying a bit from my point. Or maybe I've stated my point already and I'm climbing out onto it's branches. So, I'll stop fighting it and go off onto another one. I think that American society (along with a few Asian cultures, and more I'm not aware of) encourage people to chase the carrot because that's a form of consistent need to replace our fighting for survival. So people try to get the best paying job to go into debt for the bigger house and the nicer car, all to realize that those things don't make them happy because they're replacing a natural need with an unnatural one. So, after figuring that out, it's hard to want to work at anything I'm not interested in. Because I realize that, the more I can do without, the less I have to buy into that system.

So what then do I replace my natural urge to survive with? How do I continue to live? It's nearly impossible NOT to live these days. You can get arrested for trying to kill yourself. Placed in a place that prevents those sorts of things. So, what should *I* do? I guess I'll keep looking. Maybe that can be my thing I do. Look for my purpose. As I said in the beginning of this entry, you have to have SOMETHING to work towards or your body can shut down. Maybe not at such a young age, but still. I had intended for this entry to sound hopeful. I was trying to imply that humans need a purpose to live, which is kind of beautiful, but breaking it down like this makes it sound kind of pointless. But, I suppose it's okay that there's no point. That's the reason I've never killed myself. Any time I wanted to when I was an angsty teen, I just thought, "Well, I'm going to die eventually one day anyway, might as well see how good or bad things can get before I do."