Finding Harmony in the Balance

January 27, 2014

It seems like an endless, vicious circle. I am depressed because I’m not doing anything very productive, and I don’t have the drive to do anything productive because I’m depressed. It is a very uncomfortable and hopeless state I find myself in lately.
My life has become a stagnant pond, I do very little beyond the essentials. Life has lost its luster, and I just can’t muster the resolve to do anything about it. I know that I am my biggest problem. My negativity and fear cause me to avoid anything new. But it feels so impossible to change myself. And I’m sure it’s because I keep saying it feels so impossible. Doing is scary, so instead I think about doing, and more so I think about all the things I don’t do but wish I did or could. Truthfully, I wonder if I don’t have a chemical imbalance. But I may just be downright lazy and afraid.
It’s like I am constantly looking for permission to be less than my best. Like I want someone to just say, “It’s okay Shane, if you just settle and don’t try anymore. Don’t feel bad about it.”
I don’t want to feel this way, like life is hopeless and I might as well just quit before trying.
So, I have no idea what I want to do…but I know I need to find some kind of purpose in life to work toward. It may not happen today or for months, but I need to actively try to discover a purpose to pursue.

March 5, 2025

Reading this post initially was very discouraging. It made me sad to think that eleven years ago I was struggling with something that to this day still is a major problem for me so often. However, when I try to adjust my perspective a bit, I realize that I don’t have to be depressed by the fact that I still feel this feeling. Instead, I can look at this exact feeling as an alarm bell going off within my body that is trying to tell me I am not living in alignment with my purpose, which I think I now understand at least a little more clearly than 2014 me did.

Despite being an agnostic who fell away from Christianity in my 20s, I have a strong resonance with the idea of humans being created in God’s image in the way Genesis states. What this means to me is that we are here to participate in creation, by creating. We are designed in such a way that our wills can bring forth reality using all our cognitive functions combined with the miraculous bodies which our consciousness dwells within. We can literally do magic. We can cast spells with our words and bring forth something from nothing, in the same way that God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.

The best periods of my life, when I felt most attuned and aligned with my True Self were times when I was actively creating, through my art, making music, drawing, writing, through my life, through my relationships, having kids, building a house, etc. These moments of creation are what give my life meaning because they are the unique expressions of my life experiences and memories and imagination all blending together within me and being expressed in new ways to bring something forth into reality that didn’t exist before.

Conversely, some of the worst times in my life were those in which I stopped creating, when the well seemed to run dry. I found myself in consumption mode, as many in our materialistic consumerist society do. Day in and day out I consumed content, information, media, things, while creating and producing very little. This leads to an oversaturation of other people’s voices, beliefs, and opinions crowding out the still small voice within that guides me to my True Self in each moment if I have ears to hear it.

So today I resolve to create every day. I resolve to stop endlessly and mindlessly consuming. I must not cease consuming, because it is part of the process to some extent. I need raw materials in order to create and the experiences of life serve as wonderful clay to craft the sculpture that is my future self. But the necessary amount of consumption is vital, keeping it limited and intentional so as not to drown out my inner voice with a chaotic cacophony of noise that leaves me sitting paralyzed by anxiety because I cannot hear the True Self and thus forget that I am made in God’s image, and that I am cocreating reality.