Vision Quest

I often find myself feeling at a loss. Not lost. At a loss. Sort of at a loose end. Like there’s something I should be doing right now, but I have no idea what it is.

I feel aimless, drifting. It’s a strange feeling – and one that, counter intuitively, sees me reacting to it by not doing anything. When I feel like this, even though I have plenty of work to be going on with, I can’t seem to motivate myself to do any of it. This feeling of listlessness has plagued me for years. Sometimes, if I’m not careful, it gets worse and starts to drag me into a solid funk. Then I can spend weeks being completely ineffectual and hating myself for it.

My current Zen kick is helping with this a little bit. It’s giving me some techniques for coping with it before I start to feel like I’m completely adrift. I can see what I’m feeling – face it head on, remind myself that I don’t actually have or need an aim in life, I just need to focus on what I’m doing right now. Then I can do something simple and useful, like the dishes, and try to be fully in the moment. It’s not getting to the root of the problem, but at least it’s helping to mitigate the symptoms.

From a Buddhist perspective, it’s coming back to wanting and grasping – I feel lost because I want some form of direction and purpose that I don’t have. That, to be honest, I’ve never had. This wanting and grasping is the cause of this particular suffering, and I can try to pull myself out of it by focusing on what I have and being satisfied with that.

At least, that’s the idea.

In practice, this is something that comes back over and over again. It’s kind of like the symptoms of an undiagnosed food intolerance. I don’t know what I’m eating that triggers it, so I keep on triggering it.

As I was doing the dishes the other night after a bout of listlessness and trying to focus on the here-and-now, it occurred to me that I might need a Spirit Quest. The Ojibway believed that all men needed to go on a Spirit Quest to find their purpose in life. Women could go on one if they wanted to, but if they had children they didn’t need a Spirit Quest as they already had a purpose – keeping the next generation alive and helping them become useful members of society.

I do sometimes wonder if I’d feel less at a loose end if I wasn’t a childless spinster. Although I’ve never wanted to get married and have children, part of me really wouldn’t mind skipping to the bit where I’ve been married for 15 years and have six kids to take care of. I feel as if I should be taking care of someone other than myself – contributing something to the future generations. Something like, maybe, future generations.

And yet, at the same time, the whole finding-someone-settling-down-and-popping-out-babies thing just really isn’t me. I’m not the marrying or childbearing kind. If I was, I would have done something about my childless spinsterhood long ago. So, perhaps I need a Spirit Quest to find out what my purpose is, since I didn’t opt for the ready-made variety.

Or maybe I need to stop thinking I have a purpose in life beyond living. Is life a journey or a dance? The latter doesn’t have to go anywhere. If I can just accept that, I might feel less at a loss.