Purpose.
You know, I think that’s what all of us really search for and desire. Some sort of purpose in our lives. It’s ingrained from when we are kids to desire this — you go to college to find what you want to do and get a good job so you can support yourself. It’s all about the making something of yourself, doing something with your life.
I’ll be the first to admit that living life is about doing life. Experience is best when you’re in the driver’s seat, gunning head on into life. But my question is, what in life should we be doing?
I refuse to believe that what I should be doing is going to school, stressing, getting a job, stressing some more, stress over bills, stress over jobs, stress over families, stress over men, stress over politics–good god! Life’s single most gratifying experience cannot be stress! Yet that’s all I feel that we, at least here in the US of A, seem to strive for.
I sit here, in my office. What I do is interesting, on a very low mental level, yes, but honestly, it’s not what I want to do with the rest of my life. I wouldn’t mind it all that much, as I’ve got some serious amount of flexibility here, with this job and money’s good…but I hate the thought that because it’s a better job than most, I’d try to stay here all my life, instead of doing what makes me happy. And I’m a firm believer, after four years of college hell, and a year of recuperating, that a person MUST do what makes them happy. Otherwise, this whole thing called life isn’t worth buttons.
Of course, knowing ‘what makes me happy’ is another can of worms altogether. Because no one is born knowing, as far as I can tell. Unfortunately, it takes many thwacks on the head and bites in the ass before we realize, ‘hey man, that sucked. I shouldn’t do that anymore.’ We humans are awfully thick-headed when we want to be. As it is, I’m only just now realizing what it is that makes me happy. That I wouldn’t mind doing with my life. It’s only now that I can see the progression from ‘something I’m good at’ and ‘something I happen to do’ to ‘something I relish the thought of doing’. In High school, I was good at science. It was intriguing. Still is, when it’s not trying to kill me. So I went to college thinking I’d do science. I was good at it. It was decent money. Respectable. Sounds like a plan. And then a brick smacked me when I stumbled into Rob and the Animation department. Now came the ‘something I happen to do’, a.k.a. art — I never ever even REMOTELY contemplated EVER doing ANYTHING related in any type of way to art as a professional thing. Heck, I didn’t draw all that well, but I had a knack for it…for whatever reason, I pick up fast on things. I blame Karine for my foray into art–whether she knew it or not, that single image of Kanthara, way back in 96, sparked something in me. I had drawn horses and unicorns before. I knew I could draw. It wasn’t that I didn’t know…I just didn’t care. It was just something I happened to do. But after seeing Karine’s stuff and then, that something was all ignited…well, that little bit of me that balked at things logical and academic started stirring. Now it didn’t kick me in the gut so to speak until college, a few years later, when I met Rob and did my very first animated film. And it wasn’t until 2000 that the little spark became a full blaze of glory. I felt the creative juices. And they came right when my life was at its worst. I could see creation. It’s an incredible thing.
But with that blaze, came a lessening…I’ve always felt that the minute I started to love art, was the minute I lost my scientific ability. It didn’t click like it used to. It was harder. I didn’t see it as well. I needed a visual look–a hands on experience before I understood what the hell was happening. I suppose I psyched myself out, perhaps, what with my sudden ‘hey, is science really the end all and be all of my life?’ and the ‘hey, look! Life’s kicking me in the ass! Ahh! Depression!’ situations. I was woefully confused and I found that no one can really offer good advice when you’re in those sort of situations. It’s tough to have on a mask…it cracks ever so slightly until one day it crumbles and you have to start picking up the pieces and come to grips with who you are now. That’s when whatever your parents filled you with when you’re going up becomes the single most precious lifeline you can ask for. If I hadn’t believed in a God then, well, let’s just say, I might still be a nasty tempered biatch.
Of course, my thoughts on God and such have drastically changed over the last few years, but that’s another KToWD.
Back to purpose. After dragging yourself from you own self made hellhole, you’re not the same. I know I was different. Less naive. Less forgiving. More cynical. Less tolerant of the BS. And you can see clearer. And you’re older. You feel older. And what was important before, isn’t important anymore. And the one big gunshot wound that seemed to have a hard time healing…the fact that I hadn’t the foggiest what I was doing with my life. Or why I was doing. Or not doing it. That truth looms large. Then comes the isolation. You’re annoyed, confused and everybody seems trivial. Their thoughts are trivial. Their petty actions are trivial. Because you’ve been through hell and back and they’re still stuck on the fact that they have a zit. My purpose…what I was to do in life eluded me.
Oh it gets better. Cuz that’s when the breakdown occurs. It’s pointless. You get sick and tired of the pointlessness of what you’re doing. Because you realize, that in reality, it means NOTHING. It’s this smoke screen that has an illusion of absolute importance, and it pisses you off that so much stock is placed in something so absolutely worthless.
You know then that it’s not how learned you are that makes the difference–it’s what you do with what you know.
And then you ask, ‘what do I know?’
Even more importantly — ‘what do I do, with what I know?’
It gets even more simple then — ‘what do I do, now?’
Knowledge is great. I’m not knocking it. Common sense is better. And I’ve found that common sense gives more enlightenment than all the knowledge in the world. It was common sense that lead me towards my purpose, you see.
I went through a phase and said, enough. I’m going out of my mind and I don’t want this life anymore. I didn’t go back to school. I had to think. I had to understand what was happening to my carefully crafted, easily destroyed and barely rebuilt life. ‘What do I do, now?’ was the question that echoed over and over in my mind.
The first thing I understood, was that, to change the state of things, I had to remove myself from the most obvious problem. So I switched schools. Went back to the basics of learning, with teachers that loved what they did and existed to teach and were happy.
I think that was want caught my attention the most. They were happy. I hadn’t been happy in a very long time, no matter what I’d tried to tell myself and everyone else.
As I watched them, I let them teach me. I let myself be taught. I was in high school again and it wasn’t easy, but it was…satisfying. Comforting, like the arms of a lover. I felt at home. I smiled again.
Then, I was able to start seeing, truly.
Purpose always hits out of the blue and starts with something small and often non-related to the plans you have. Back at LMU, I was hanging out with Tony, when the idea for 12th circle came along. I really just wanted to draw then. Even earlier than that, I had talked to Erin about an idea I had, sparked by watched the awesomness that was the Matrix. A few years ago, I had a rather grand business idea, that my father stared at me and said ‘that’s incredible’. You see purpose was there even then, but I didn’t see it until now, here in 2003. I’m older and a little wiser, now. I can see a bit better than before.
Every time the ideas flow, I experience euphoria. Completeness and this serene feeling passes over me and washes away the stress, the emotions that have plagued me. They are single moments of perfection, that I would love to experience always. For me, art is a means to an end. Science is a means to an end.
The end is Birth.
Cheers and noodles,
TP