Timaeus

I just recently finished “What is the What” by Dave Eggers.

For anyone who has not read it, please do. It is such a must read. The story is of a Sudanese refugee who orally told his life account to Eggers who used it to create his fictional work. It is so very touching (it made me start to cry on the subway no fewer than twice and made me feel guilty about my lap-of-luxury-life always.)

I think the book has helped me make some realizations about why I feel so unsettled in my life. I do not have to struggle every day to keep myself alive. I know I will eat, I know I will have a place to sleep. I know no one is out trying to kill me and my loved ones. I have not had to witness my home, my family, and my country flung into chaotic despair. My human struggle is not about survival.

When you are past attempting to survive you are in a position to thrive.

And how should I thrive?

How do I prove my “thriving” in this society? There is something in my competitive nature that makes me want to “win” by society’s rules. Americans generally find the thriving through material possessions and in that excess I am disgusted. Yet still I feel the pull.

There is something very sick to it, and I hate to sound like I am not thankful for all my good fortune, but I would make such a good survivor. I would live, I would plow on through. I feel like I would know how to do that- emotionally and physically. I feel like it makes sense to me.

Work, work, work- What are you working for?

I am working to keep myself alive.

That makes sense.

Work, work, work- What are you working for?

Paying the bills, pretty little things, a lovely couch.

There is something phony about it. I feel like it is almost lying about our mortality in a way.

Perhaps it all comes down to guilt. If I was “surviving” I would feel less guilty about my current state of discontent. If people were getting plucked left and right I would at least have an excuse to feel unsatisfied with the state of affairs.

I feel like I always have to end my writings in “I really am happy…really…not kidding…” because I am.

It’s in the board strokes that I find the forlorn. I find it in a soul which longs to be part of the universe however trapped in a body belonging to the earth. And in that aren’t we all in the same struggle?

In any case, read the book.