I’ve recently been going through a lot of mental stuff. I attribute a part of it to work. There’s a lot of things that’s to be said regarding my workplace, but the first thing that comes to mind is the fact that I don’t have a schedule that aligns with the people in my social circles. I could have had a schedule that came close to it, but management decided that it wasn’t worth having that schedule available. So, I’ve been having odd days off and meeting people not quite my age. It’s interesting to get different perspectives and see how some people who are in a different phase of their life view people my age. But, once I’m away from these people, a part of me goes back to trying to claw my way toward something. That’s where another part comes into play.

It feels like I’m aimless again. Maybe it’s because I’m currently questioning the meaning of what I’m doing and whether it has any value or not. You all know the rabbit holes those questions go into. I wish that I could say that I know how to go about getting those answers intelligently, but the truth is that all of the things that I know aren’t just loose bits of information suspended in my brain somewhere. There’s not much connection between them going on and no further conclusions being made unless they’re being challenged. Otherwise, I’m groping around in the darkness trying to find anything to grasp onto.

Another factor is the simple fact that time is passing. This isn’t something that I normally believe is an issue, as I feel like I’ve embraced being older than my first years of being aware of consciousness. But, something that I’ve been wrestling with is if I want to attempt to have children or not. When I was a teenager, I thought that I would have kids. In fact, I might even say that I wanted to have kids. But as I entered my young adult life, the idea became more and more distant. I had no idea what I was going to do after college. I didn’t quite know how to take care of myself. I still didn’t know who I was, because I was still trying to fit in with people rather than trying to be happy with myself. After my failures, my parents were loving and gracious enough to still take me in and provide care for me. But after moving out again and beginning work on making enough money to be independent (a still incomplete goal), the thought of having children was so far from me, almost appalling. I was making what was considered a very low income and still heavily depending on my family for help. How could I bring a child into the world in such terms?

Some people who I speak with regarding this mention that children will find a way to adapt to this. I agree that they will. After all, children and younger people in general find ways to adapt to their environment and situations. There’s two things that I bring up. The first being that I don’t want to spend all day at a job that I don’t want to be at, then possibly bring that misery back home to my child. The second is that the idea of bringing a child into the world and having them exposed to the possibility of their basic necessities not being met, well that just doesn’t sit well with me. 

When this counter argument comes up, two arguments come up. The first is that no one is ever 100% prepared for a child. In which case, I agree. But to go into parenthood knowing that you haven’t done the most that you can to set up the success of your child seems irresponsible. The second argument is the question of whether or not we should even try anything if we can’t guarantee success. And to that, I say of course not. But, the purpose of intelligence is to mitigate failure and facilitate success as much as we can. And in this specific situation, with the knowledge I have, successfully hitting the mark of raising a happy and sound child is low and the possibility of failure is too high.

Again, does this mean we shouldn’t try? Of course not - success isn’t guaranteed in anything and even things proven to be without a doubt correct have been proven wrong. But, because this has to do with the well being of another human, one that is partly me (and perhaps it’s narcissistic for it to matter more to me because of this reason), I think it’s irresponsible to 

I find that the people who have this line of logic become angry when I bring up these points. I’m not sure of the reason why they’re angry. Maybe it’s the way that I present my arguments - a lot of people find that I’m aggressive, condescending, and pessimistic. Maybe it’s because they see a version of myself that they believe can put good in the world. Maybe it’s because they had children hoping that it would fix them, but it didn’t quite go as well as they planned and now this young person is invalidating their decisions in life. Maybe it’s all of those things and more. I don’t know, but I know that I’m trying to be as responsible as I can, to myself and the people around me who exist, don’t exist, and will exist.

What an absolute nightmare of a tangent. 

This is all to say that I’m still alive, still trying to figure things out, the things mentioned here being just a few things that have been rattling around in my head. And my writing will continue, otherwise I’ll be empty, as is evidenced by the past decades full of writing absences.