an answer

I have come to a conclusion after three years in this hole.

By the way, I do seem to be getting out. Things aren't nearly as dark as they once were. Could just be my eyes adjusting to the lighting, but I feel as though I'm climbing, or else the hole is filling with water. While this was quite unpleasant at first, once I untied the rocks from my feet and started floating at the surface, things began to look decidedly up.


The hole certainly hasn't been filling fast, and a couple droughts have led to some dreaded receding, throwing previous hole departing forecasts out the window. But it fills none the less, and my brita filter keeps it ever tasty.

"So what's the conclusion?" you say. It's rather simple and something I knew before I so faithfully decided to jump in my hole. But there's knowing something and then there's knowing something.

It's as simple as this. There is something more important than my immediate happiness. Not only that, but my immediate productivity doesn't even matter. It appears to be better just to struggle through this self focused hell than to actually accomplish something good or meaningful.

These two things seem to contradict one another. If there is something more important than my immediate happiness, wouldn't that mean I shouldn't be focusing on my self? Yet, without hordes of time spent trying to clear my own head I become completely worthless and hopeless.

Dreaming seems to be the key to bringing me to life, and dreaming requires a ton of freedom. Most of that freedom is found in time to think and relief of responsibility.

There have been tasks that I've been working on forever which could have been done in a day during a different season in my life. Now, an attempt to place that kind of focus on a task immediately leads to shutdown. Nothing is done.

My productivity and happiness don't matter. Which is to say I don't matter. More likely, I don't matter the way I think I do. There's something else going on that I don't see. That's all that matters.