Taipawa—I think my personality is a lot like yours and I'm a whole lot older so my experience may be instructive—or not.
My normal tendency was always to live in my head. It still is. In part, this was because I was uncomfortable with people, perhaps shy or more likely, alienated.
I'm no longer shy and I talk to people more. I have a lot of experiences behind me. I've been happily married for decades. I have friends, many of whom have been friends since my childhood. I started a company and earned some decent money. Both before and after, I held fairly unimpressive jobs and even had some tough times of unemployment.
I've concluded that alienation played a big part in whatever indifference I felt towards life and the world. I was unimpressed by authorities—in business and in government. I've concluded that our systems remove our agency as human beings. They take us over. That's the nature of corporations and governments. They try to make all our decisions and demand that we fulfill the functions that they decide are proper and necessary.
People—and all living creatures—need agency. We need to make our own decisions and take actions of our own choosing. We cannot live as servants of institutions that allegedly are created to serve us.
I think that these institutions are complete failures. Corporations and governments are literally destroying the biosphere—destroying the planet that young people like you will need to live on, for decades. Even now, as we all CAN SEE climate collapse, with our homes and neighborhoods covered with toxic orange smoke, the authorities continue to fail at the most basic responsibility.
Corporations and governments everywhere are unable to pass along a habitable Earth to the next generation. You can have no failure more severe than that.
Who wouldn't feel ennui at the prospect of living our a lifetime on a planet that is being destroyed, serving the rules and norms of the institutions that are destroying everything? It makes perfect sense to me that millions of young people in China today are laying flat, not getting up in the morning. If they can't live as human beings, why get up? To serve the machine?
But there IS a way to live, and to live a meaningful life, a life that matters. And that is a life of truly human relationships. Do as little as possible for employers, especially large corporations. Minimize your interactions with bureaucrats, both corporate and governmental.
Spend time with people. Go out and have coffee and talk. Ask people what they like to do, what interests them. Don't spend time talking about jobs. Jobs are what most people are required to do. Jobs are mostly lifeless.
Life is in hobbies. Life is in the arts. Life is in self-expression. Life is in human interaction. Life is in comparing notes of experiences. THAT is where life is. That's how the ennui can end.
I'm old. I'm dedicating the rest of my life to releasing the humanity in people, encouraging a sense of community, not only between people who normally interact, but between people who might normally never speak to each other. And I'm encouraging people to take control of the issues that affect us all, especially saving the biosphere, the climate. Because THAT is life. And that is up to us. The authorities won't help. They can't help. They have a long consistent record of failure.
If you draw or paint or perform or write—that's life. That's self-expression and that's a flow activity. Work isn't life. Work is often a contrived way to live, a waste of your time, of your life. If you can find a job that contributes to the world, that's great—and rare. But, for now, in this deeply flawed society, you will probably need to waste some of your life. Don't let that be your focus.
Make LIVING your priority. Your life and the the lives of other ordinary people are what's important. Connecting is important. Expressing yourself is important.
And you must exercise AGENCY, that is, you must be yourself and ACT as yourself. Don't be guided by authorities—minimize their impact on your life.
I want to change things. I believe that ordinary people can do this. I believe that ONLY ordinary people like you and me and billions of others can do this. I can defy evil and embrace kindness. All of us can. Every day is an opportunity to set an example with your life, of what a person can be and do.
Time alone to think is important and valuable. Don't give that up. But also go out into the world, talk to people, experience things, and make your mark. I think the world needs you. I think the world needs the good, and the humanity that lies inside all of us.
Good luck. I'm pulling for you!
EarthRebirth Team
A Climate Declaration
5 Minutes to Save the Earth
