The Meaning In Life...

I did a little bit of gardening yesterday. The leaves from my tulips and daffodils are about spent so it's time to trim them back. There were weeds to be pulled and flowers to be watered. While I was pulling weeds from the side yard I thought about trying to make a blog of it all. Find some meaning in pulling weeds.

Because, as you all know, I am not a fan of gardening. I like having a garden but that actual act of gardening is not my favorite. It's never ending. For instance, I pulled weeds in the side yard yesterday and if I were to go out there today and look I'd find more. It's a chore that only really shows when you don't do it. Like if I ignored the weed pulling for months you'd really notice, but if I told you I pulled weeds yesterday you'd be like...Oh. Okay.

The other reason I was trying to find some meaning in weed pulling is because I'm human. We LOVE to find meaning in things. There's a reason for everything. You might not see it just yet, but there's a reason! It's why people are religious. Or superstitious. Or both, which really...come on, they are the same right?

But anyway...it's why we find faces in things that don't have faces. It's why we see meaning in random patterns. It's why we think the song on the radio is a message from the universe.

We are all trying to find meaning all of the time.

But sometimes, it's just pulling weeds.

And that's okay too.

There is an awful lot in life that doesn't really have deeper meaning. It's just the living it part. So much of life is just that part. I make breakfast, I make smoothies, I tidy up the kitchen, I scoop litter, I do chores, this is my schedule almost every day of the week...none of that is earth shattering. But if I stopped doing any of it (and Brent didn't automatically start doing it) it wouldn't be long before the ramifications of skipping them would be apparent. Nothing with deep meaning, but still necessary.

A few years ago I wondered if reality tv had broken something in our brains. That we all felt like we should be doing something BIGGER, GRANDER, more TV ready at least. That maybe in the past people just lived their lives and were fine with their lives the way they lived them because there wasn't this image of "regular people" on TV doing outrageous things. Like a smaller life was what was expected so we didn't all run around looking for deeper meaning in pulling weeds.

Or maybe not. Probably people in the past had the same drive. I mean churches have been around forever basically right? So that search for more is a drive in us that isn't new. Someone somewhere started all of it in motion. Asked the question, does this rock look like a face to you? What do you think that means? The drive for deeper meaning.

None of us want to be on our deathbeds and feel like we didn't figure it out. Whatever it is. We want to understand why we are here, what our purpose in this world is, and why the fuck we have to pull weeds.

Okay, maybe that last one is just me.

But I think sometimes we just aren't going to know. Like you might have actually had a really big purpose in life, and you've already fulfilled it, and you never even noticed. Like that day that you absentmindedly sat at the light when it turned green so you didn't pull into the intersection and get sideswiped by the car that sped through their red light. Maybe your purpose was fulfilled that day. Maybe by not hitting you the person speeding through the red light didn't learn not to run lights and later ran a red light and sideswiped a car killing the next potential Hitler. I mean, wow, what a great purpose, and you'd never know!

And that's the big takeaway. You just have to live your life and not worry about your purpose. Just live in such a way that when people think about you they smile. Or gag at the dental instrument they've just seen in the middle of the street, whatever... Basically, just live. Don't worry about deeper meanings or purposes. Just live.

And if you're lucky you'll come up with a blog out of nothing but weeds.

Or at least it worked for me.