Layers of Existence

An Update and Examination of Life to Find Its Purpose

Talofa reader,

This newsletters going to be a bit different. A bit “looser” than previous newsletters, a bit more personal and conversational, both an update and examination of life to this point.

It's not lost on me I haven't written anything in a little while.

I didn't even realise I'd come to a full year of this newsletter- like months ago!

If how I celebrate my own birthday is anything to go by, completely missing the anniversary of starting my newsletter, is pretty much “on brand” for me.

This is newsletter #36, and I haven't packed this little project in just yet.

I remember this exact cross-road from my last writing project. I started it on LinkedIn as well. I told myself I was going to do a post on my blog regularly, and share it like I do on LinkedIn, like I do today.

Like all exciting new projects, they start with a hiss and a roar and they go for some time, even long enough to get some feedback on things. Inevitably "life happens" or so the saying goes, because I think that's just a convenient, non-looking-too-deeply way of letting something go that wasn't a failure of execution as it was a failure of heart.

What affects the heart?

For me, it's everything horrible going on in the world, it's knowing too much about how things are, the "reality" of life, and having no way of alleviating that pain, other than trying to distract myself with work, new projects or something more isolating so the pain in my head stops flowing to my heart.

When your heart’s impacted, you just don’t feel the same way about things after that.

Be, Yourself?

That's usually my problem right there.

I know the world is messy, I know it's ugly, and it's not personal, it just "is", but I let it get to me.

When my last project fell through, it wasn't because I realised I didn't like writing, or that I wasn't good at it, or didn't enjoy and gain from it. No, it was because I'd started being influenced by the likes and the comments, and I stopped just writing what was in my head and became more aware of how I "should" write, instead of just writing.

Sure, spell check and proofread shit, but writing to impress people, or to keep them happy or comfortable reading what you write is infinitely more work, and so much less rewarding- and for what? So people can like the writing of someone you're trying to be i.e. not you?

I'm not saying that's where this newsletter is going, although I am not completely cured of lapses in willpower. These days when I sense I'm "should" writing instead of just writing, I just stop writing.

I have 30-40 pieces of writing in my drafts from this year alone that I haven't published because somewhere in the process of writing them, they started feeling like "should" writing.

How do I know it's "should" writing?

For one, because I remember how hard it was just trying to stay on topic, the style would swing wildly at times and whenever I would leave and came back to it, I ended up deleting a whole lot of it because it just didn't sound like me!

What is the actual point of putting out anything if it's not "you"?! To have your facade praised or criticised?

If it were praised, I could never feel like it was me being recognised and if criticised, the benefit of that feedback would be pointless because that's not really how I feel or see that issue!

That's what's funny about my "real" writing- as much as I want to write something concise and well-researched, like an investigative journalist, I'm more comfortable shooting from the hip and synthesising the knowledge and information that's floating around my short and long term memory banks.

This newsletter is actually meant to be an update…

A "hello, I'm still here just been really busy."

“With what exactly?”, you ask, and that would be a great question.

What have I been busying myself with?

It’s The Same Question, Every Year

Without having to write the equivalent of a short novel, detailing the minutiae of my life's events- the high level overview is:

full-time work that sees quite a bit of travel domestic and international, coursework and exams to sit for work, creating and running my charity's tech workshops, helping my retirement age parents with several important projects, trying to get back to regular gym and BJJ training and scheduling quality time in with family, driving to stay in touch with good friends, seeing my therapist regularly, getting run-down¹ sick a couple of times, all while taking my wife and 9 month old son along for the ride.

I forgot to mention the side projects and extra curricular learning you see documented on my blog, or the Pasifika Tech Network that's dying a slow death and a YouTube channel, battling for its place in the schedule.

Why am I so busy²?

That's a good question, because I can't think of a time when I didn't have "lots on dot com".

I try to answer this question every year like clockwork, because just like how I'm doing now, I will get to a point in my life's year³ where I'll wake up to my reality and ask myself this question:

What am I doing with my life?

Because I've been "busy" since my 20’s and now in my 40’s, I'm still busy?

What haven't I figured out?

This is some “hustling backwards” shit!

So, Why So...Busy?

Sure, being busy is not in itself a bad thing, so let's move past that and ask "Why?"…

Why not relax?

Why not hone it down to just a couple of things and focus on doing those really well?

That's a great idea!

Why didn't I think about that before? /s

I started the things I started because I genuinely like doing them e.g. the newsletter⁴, the charity, the tech workshops, the YouTube channel, being married, having a kid. I mean, if anything was going to "go" it would probably be work- but here's the thing, I enjoy most aspects of my job and the opportunity for learning all the things I like in tech, are right there.

Plus the money, people and perks are pretty good as well, I’ll be honest.

I think I'm busy, and I'm doing all the things because, yes I genuinely want these things in my life, but there's a deeper reason, probably one that's harder to admit, but has been there staring me in the face, each and every year I've reached this point and asked this question of myself:

It's because I don't know what my purpose in life is.

Sure, I'm great at a lot of things, and not to brag⁵, but I (and my brothers) always have been. From music, to sport, to school, to making good impressions in society⁶, careers and community work, to finances and modest wealth.

These are great- but the question, for me, remains.

What is my purpose in life?

The Purpose Meaning Of Life is Not 42

I know we don't have to have a purpose in this life, depending on how you look at it, we're not special, some have even described ourselves as nothing more "advanced chimpanzees hurtling through space on a rock".

Does a chimpanzee need a purpose in life?

Maybe that's the human dilemma, smart enough to consider ourselves special enough to have a purpose, but too dumb to know what that is instinctively.

Just to be clear, this isn't an essay on how I'm finding life meaningless- life's full of meanings, there's meanings coming out of our ears.

Just none of them are "my" meanings.

Which isn't wrong, or bad, it's neither here nor there- but it goes some way to tease out the reason for why my life is busy.

Am I filling the void?

Maybe.

Maybe I'm meant to be filling my dance card⁷ with projects and new people and new ideas, and failing projects and shiny new adventures, because I might find my purpose eventually so I might as well keep myself busy for now, right?

Or I find out, right at the end, that I never had a purpose in life- at least then I know, I had some adventures and experiences, and maybe helped others in their purpose in life.

I don't know if my busyness is a deflection of the existence of a void, or a symptom of an as-yet unseen and unrealised deeper issue, but what's great about writing is the processing of your thoughts, especially these obsessive ones like "what's my purpose in life?"...

All the while my little 9 month old bundle of absolute joy sleeps in the cot next to me..

Conclusion

I'm a world of thoughts, and ideas, and meanings and I know I'm curious enough to pull on any thread to see where it goes, or what comes out.

The start of this piece, I was pushing back on external influences, of staying true to yourself.

On examining what that self was, I saw, again, the busyness that is me and has been for as long as I can remember.

I list the contents of my life and lay them out as things in differences of degree, but same in kind. Only to realise, my son is definitely not a difference of degree, and is a different kind altogether.

I've been looking at my "self" all wrong, or at least in the same way this whole time that hasn’t gotten me any further in answering the question- and that looking at him instead, is looking at myself but without the layers I've accumulated over the years.

Without the judgement, mistrust and cynicism baked into my current existence.

I don't judge him, mistrust his intentions or have grand expectations of him, I just want to see him happy- being whatever he wants to be.

I should be so bold as to always remember, to look for and wish the same for myself.

Thanks for reading, see you in the next one.

ia manuia,

Ron.

1. this is where I get run down from lack of sleep, working out, unhealthy eating and my body tells me to get f***ed and I’m out of commission for about 24 hours. Then I’m good.

2. All self-inflicted of course, this is all a choice.

3. Yes, you read that right, the years belong to my “life”, not me.

4. When I'm just writing like this and not the "should" writing.

5. Totally going to sound like bragging.

6. Some bad ones too, but I'm thinking of my family's public persona and reputation in the community and individually.

7. I’m really showing some age with this reference, problem is, the reference isn't from my generation, probably like the WWI WWII era. But I digress.