Pony Train #3: Doing what I want
the_nita asked me what do I want to do.
I want to be happy. It comes down to knowing, in the end, that I have had a positive impact on people around me and contributed meaningfully to making the world a better place for the beings in it. This is the underlying motive behind making art as much as it is the underlying motive behind choosing *counselling*, of all things, and working with sex offenders in particular, as an alternative to simply slugging it out in the daily salt mines for salary as my primary raison d'etre.
I want to have satisfying relationships in which there is something of value transacted in all directions. These will contribute to my (and hopefully others') happiness, in theory.
I don't think "happiness" is a permanent feature of my emotional landscape. Healthy emotional life has its ups and downs. But aiming for happiness as a meta-state and the overall position from which I operate seems like a good and worthy target. [Edit: Understanding that what defines "happiness" for myself will change with time means that "building happiness" is an exercise that also changes over time, as the materials and designs evolve as a natural life process.] I want to do things that are meaningful, interactive, and produce experiences which all participants, by and large, value. This is why I find I love directing, and why Liaisons is going to be a tough act to follow; the impact for several of us in the work we did there was pretty profound. R&GaD as a first experience was huge for me, but I think there were more universal challenges for many of the ensemble in Liaisons, and that kind of energy as we're all searching for meaning feeds on itself in powerful ways.
I want to help others find happiness in whatever small ways they can connect with the idea. Sometimes the best we can do is finding glimpses of hope, moments of peace. Helping reconnect mind and body (and spirit, for those so inclined towards including the ephemeral components) seems a good avenue for that.
I want more immediate things, like a house of my own and paying employment and to have a year in which I need do nothing more than finish the damned Magnum Opus Cloak, but these are transitory and material things that may or may not actually move me into or keep me within the sphere of grounded happiness which I want to create as my go-to and grounding place.
In the end, when I cut to the chase, I am already doing what I want. I couldn't be doing this without a lot of help, and some days the strain is palpable on many fronts, but overall this feels right, like I'm doing what I should be doing AND what I want to be doing. So to shorten this and drag it back around to 'nita's question about "what do I want to be doing," I think the answer is, exactly what I'm doing right now.
Minus the whole needing-to-pee-before-the-clients-show-up thing, maybe.
I want to be happy. It comes down to knowing, in the end, that I have had a positive impact on people around me and contributed meaningfully to making the world a better place for the beings in it. This is the underlying motive behind making art as much as it is the underlying motive behind choosing *counselling*, of all things, and working with sex offenders in particular, as an alternative to simply slugging it out in the daily salt mines for salary as my primary raison d'etre.
I want to have satisfying relationships in which there is something of value transacted in all directions. These will contribute to my (and hopefully others') happiness, in theory.
I don't think "happiness" is a permanent feature of my emotional landscape. Healthy emotional life has its ups and downs. But aiming for happiness as a meta-state and the overall position from which I operate seems like a good and worthy target. [Edit: Understanding that what defines "happiness" for myself will change with time means that "building happiness" is an exercise that also changes over time, as the materials and designs evolve as a natural life process.] I want to do things that are meaningful, interactive, and produce experiences which all participants, by and large, value. This is why I find I love directing, and why Liaisons is going to be a tough act to follow; the impact for several of us in the work we did there was pretty profound. R&GaD as a first experience was huge for me, but I think there were more universal challenges for many of the ensemble in Liaisons, and that kind of energy as we're all searching for meaning feeds on itself in powerful ways.
I want to help others find happiness in whatever small ways they can connect with the idea. Sometimes the best we can do is finding glimpses of hope, moments of peace. Helping reconnect mind and body (and spirit, for those so inclined towards including the ephemeral components) seems a good avenue for that.
I want more immediate things, like a house of my own and paying employment and to have a year in which I need do nothing more than finish the damned Magnum Opus Cloak, but these are transitory and material things that may or may not actually move me into or keep me within the sphere of grounded happiness which I want to create as my go-to and grounding place.
In the end, when I cut to the chase, I am already doing what I want. I couldn't be doing this without a lot of help, and some days the strain is palpable on many fronts, but overall this feels right, like I'm doing what I should be doing AND what I want to be doing. So to shorten this and drag it back around to 'nita's question about "what do I want to be doing," I think the answer is, exactly what I'm doing right now.
Minus the whole needing-to-pee-before-the-clients-show-up thing, maybe.