what does it mean to be “living life”?
I used to sit at work and read and think “I’m not really living my life. I shouldn’t be reading — I should be doing the things I’m reading about.”
Now I live on a sailboat and I feel I’m no longer living at all. Some days there is a semblance of life. Some days we go diving and spearfishing and cook and eat fish. We caught a lionfish the other day. It was delicious. I felt alive then.
But now it’s been 3 days since I’ve last been able to move my body off the boat or do anything other than sail, motor and anchor.
And most of the sailing is very boring. There is nothing to look at. But you have to still pay attention. It’s like the longest meditation retreat ever but it’s not just peace and quiet it’s stressful.
Anchoring is very stressful. Depends on the difficulty of the bay but today it was difficult and yesterday the other bay we were at was packed and was stressful too.
I’m sure this isn’t living life. Living life doesn’t consist of sitting 24hours a day wondering how you can live life.
Now when I read I think I’m getting closer to “living life” because it’s an activity I enjoy.
I still think that the truest form of living life does not involve books though.
When I ask “what does it mean to be living?” I think what I’m really asking is “what can I do to enjoy life?”
I want to smile and laugh.
But when I’m idle but unable to read I feel unable to smile or laugh. The world’s unsolvable problems make me feel bad. And no small action of good deed is purely good. It always negatively impacts somebody.
Except the tiniest little gestures. Maybe. I took a spike out of a kitten today. One of those spiky plants that stick to kitten’s tails.
The smallest benign act.
But I think I should be bringing that kitten some water. It looked dirty and my friend said kittens are only dirty if they are dehydrated.
And all the time I think about all the indigenous people who are coerced to live in civilization. I think about that all the time. About how we marched into their perfectly sustainable lives and gave them desires for the unsustainable. We are like snakes.
Some of them stubbornly fight for their right to continue their way of life and what happens to them? Deforestation. Lithium mining.
My kindle has lithium in it. Our boat has lithium in it.
Everything I touch makes me feel sad and guilty.
I feel I shouldn’t even be in Greece. I am here eating food at restaurants and doing nothing with my time while the local people work hard for their money and they get paid nothing. We are many people’s only industry but it feels wrong. They should be paid more for what they do. A Greek person should be paid as much as a German for the same work. Somehow that needs to get sorted out without tourists being the only industry. These bays should be filled with Greek boat owners. I’m a wealthugee clogging up the space like every other tourist. I think people should stop traveling. What pests people are. Invasive species unto our own species.
What does it mean to live my life when I feel I cannot help - that no one can help — the people and animals I care about?
It’s beyond any individual. And I don’t know how to gather enough individuals to make a change. I don’t think people want this change. That’s the problem with democracy. The majority of people will choose to bully the minority if it means comfort for themselves. I don’t believe in democracy one bit. I don’t trust people to do nice things.
What does it mean to live my life if the closest I get is diving and fishing and reading about people living their lives? And how sad it is to need to fish sometimes to eat. When we have no more food and we have to fish to eat and how sad it is to see a fish die for the first time in your hands and how sad it is to be desensitized by the second or third time. Why do I take spikes out of kittens and wish them into fish? Why is one more worthy of gentleness than the other?
All these questions weigh me down.
I feel sad.
And of course I’m thinking a lot but too much? Is any of what I’m saying untrue?
If you had as much time as me to think you would think these things too. And we would say you are overthinking but this is just the right quantity of thinking needed to arrive at the truth. Maybe even more thinking is needed for an action plan.
But anyway, sitting all day on a boat going from a pointless point A to a pointless point B on the ocean gives you nothing to do if not think.