Do Something

I have spent the past eight months wasting away my life doing absolutely nothing.

Obviously I don't mean I've sat in a chair facing a wall for eight months. Because even then you could say, technically speaking, I have been doing something, I've been staring at a wall.

No, you understand that to mean I've been doing nothing worth noting, nothing of value, nothing important.

Which is good, because that's the way I understand that.

My baby Priest hit level 72 today. I've spent about four weeks on that Priest. I suppose asking yourself such questions as "when are you ever going to do anything?" are natural after such events.

Asking yourself the question is one thing, but answering it is quite another.

The last couple of days I spent an hour trying to play some Debussy piece, Garden in the Rain or something like that. That came about because I was tired of playing my old standard, the Sarabande from Pour le Piano, which was the last piece my piano teacher taught me that I was really good at playing. He taught me that piece about five years ago now. Playing the piece doesn't make me any better at it, I just play it because I can.

I started playing that piece because I was tired of practicing the Chopin Piano Sonata I had thrown 20 hours at and still could barely do anything. I mean I got the first page down, but just when it started to get hard at the bottom of the page is where it would all fall apart and I'd have to slow it way down and practicing it slow for a few hours wouldn't do anything.

All of which comes to the point, would practicing the piano be considered "doing something?" When you come right down to it I could probably practice that song for 100 hours and still not have it down due to lack of natural ability. And then even if I got it down, what's the point? I wouldn't be able to play it in church, and it's not like I get any other opportunities to perform anywhere. And even if I did play it for church, what would be the reason for playing such a challenging piece in church? So people could point and ooh and aah over my skills? (Wait, am I supposed to use the term MAD SKILLZ here?)

Is it just a performance? A hollow, empty performance on a stage? Would that be accomplish anything more than sitting at home playing computer games?

Of course, you could get that same feeling anywhere. Back when I used to work in Traffic Studies, I distinctly remember the feeling that I was just sitting there trading my time for money. I was giving away pieces of my life I could never get back just so I could afford to do something with the pieces I had left. (All of which made me resolve to be very careful with that money. For example: is that fancy new mouse worth five hours of vacuuming floors? You know what, I think I can make do with what I have.)

I even got that feeling in college sometimes. Great, guys, so I can tell you the defendants in a major court case from 32 years ago. And the reason I spent an hour learning about this is... what, exactly? Is this valuable information?

So, as I get back to thinking about my completely useless computer game, that feeling still persists--I need to start doing something with my life. But what out there would define something?

There was something, once, that left me feeling fulfilled every time I went. It was going to the soup kitchen to feed the homeless people. Gave me energy that would last the rest of the month, until the next time I went back.

But community service, unfortunately, isn't something you can just pick up and do, like you would a computer game. Plus, people want background checks now and volunteer registration. Surely there's something of value you can just pick up and do, no?

Perhaps something to do with people? Oh, but I barely know anyone around here. And I'm too shy to go ask those few people if they want to do anything. And I'd be afraid of telling them about how lonely I am and how I just want to be around someone all the time who understands me--or at least someone who would listen--and they'd end up feeling like I was following them around like a leech. I mean many people are lonely--perhaps I could say most people are lonely--but that doesn't make it any easier to walk up to someone and say "hey, I'm lonely, you're lonely, let's hang out." "Well, wait, what would we do?" "Ha, that's a funny question, I just wrote an entire post about that."