What Drives Me

"I arise in the morning torn between a desire
to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the
world. This makes it hard to plan the day."
~Elwyn Brooks White
In a world of constant chaos, it is sometimes a wonder that I so willingly continue to trudge forward. At times I feel worn down to the point that all I want is to crawl into my own little hideaway, safely tucked away from civilization and responsibility. Nonetheless, inevitable demands continuously draw at me form every corner and deadlines mercilessly emerge. Dazed and with a rapid beating pulse, I half consciously acquiesce to each commitment until I, somehow, reach the end of my day and collapse late at night…still unavoidably unfinished with the days obligations. However, even through this, I know, oh so clearly, why I press ever onward. I know so vividly why, whatever comes my way, I will continue to do so in the future.
I love life. I love knowing everything that I do is active and living, that what I do is impacting the world, even if only to a slight extent. My world is small, so I am able to see where I affect it and it pleases me to be a part of it all. This is one of my greatest desires, to impact others. I want to stimulate people to action, to dream, imagine, and to think, mostly to think. This is what is inside of me. I have a great inner craving to learn, explore and understand everything that I can. I want to experience life to its fullest. I want to experience pain, joy, fear. I want to experience plain logic. I want to embrace spirituality. I want to indulge in pure selfishness. I want to give selflessly. I want to engage in the taboo. I want to be seen as pure. I want to experience as many feelings and impressions as I am able to. I want to indulge in every excitement I can afford. In everything that I do in my daily routine this awareness is in the back of my mind. I think this as I work. I think this when I am with friends. I think this through my art. I think this with the strangers I meet; and I want to challenge others to do the same. I want others to feel passion and curiosity. This world is so vast and there is so much to do . Somehow, we have been placed in an amazing wonderland and are able to explore it freely. Life lures me with its surprises and discoveries. There is so much here to grasp. If I spent all of my life studying and mastering one single topic, I would still not scratch its surface of information. I could study it every day. I could put all of my time and energy into it and it would still remain a mystery to me. Who can say that life bores them? Who can be displeased? They have only themselves to blame. "The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is strangers, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed. --Albert Einstein"
However, life is not all dreams and mystery. Life is real and harsh. Life is cold and we are not given endless time to explore and discover. No, there is the humdrum routine, monthly bills, children to feed, there is sickness, and the daily grind and then all too soon there is death. Anton Chekhov said that; "Any idiot can face a crisis – it's day to day living that wears you out." This is true. Daily life is a trial. It is tiresome and you are constant cycle of trials. You reach the end of each day too exhausted to explore, too tired to do anything but rest. It is up to us to make the most of the little that we are given, some succeed in this and others do not. It is a matter of how well you play the hand that you are dealt. I choose to remain alert and feed off of every sensation and I am overjoyed with the results.
-the edited version is copyrighted by Branches