Existential Questions

I was thinking about the word “careless” yesterday, trying it out. These days, we mostly use it as a synonym for negligent, not paying attention. Not taking care.

But the first definition for the word is “to not have a care.” We would use carefree these days, but whatever. I’m not using either of these to describe myself, but I thought about it.

I’m calling this apathy, but that’s not really right. I just can’t think of anything to do, and while I’m sure this is a common feeling for people my age who retire from their main careers, this wasn’t supposed to happen to me. I’d made plans.

So what we have is a small, limited life, pretty much confined to intellectual pursuits or passive entertainment. There’s no social life, obviously, and I can’t even get outside to walk around for an hour or so, just to get the juices flowing. My brain doesn’t seem very creative if my legs don’t move at some point.

I really can’t describe how much I’ve learned over this forced stillness. I talk about it a little and make jokes, but for some reason this frankly boring stuff is what I seem to like now. Do I need to understand the importance of Homo heidelbergensis? Apparently.

Also a lot about quantum physics, but really just enough to sort of understand news stories. I read something somewhere, I can’t recall, that sparked some interest in some king or event in medieval England — a subject I had no interest in or awareness of, really — and I just dove into the weeds. When I finally came up for air, after one more go at the Norman Conquest, I had a solid sense of English history from the misty pre-Roman days to the Age of Discovery.

What do I do with this? No idea. Maybe I’ll get into historical dramas and it’ll come in handy.

And I’m very interested in pre-history, before we started writing all this stuff down. I’m fascinated by human migration (we like to move), but also in evolutionary biology and overall just the history of us.

But again, I’m having trouble seeing a path. Learning for its own sake is all the reason anyone needs, but for a long time everything I learned was fodder for repackaging and presenting to readers. Not only are my outlets limited (hi everyone!), but it’s really hard now. It just is.

I’m having trouble visualizing the ends of things. I start a project with no plan at all, art or animation or writing, and it just withers. The one thing I was able to complete, a couple of years ago, was a play I wanted to write, and I outlined the shit out of that. “Do this, then do this.” I don’t really write that way but it may be something I need to change.

I made the above animation to (1) send to my grandson, and (2) just try out animating really primitive drawings. It was fun. But it’s just cute, and it takes forever, and at some point I won’t want to just entertain myself.

I can’t be a one-person animation studio, and I have no ideas. So while I love learning new skills, and I’m very confident in what I can do now, I don’t know what to do with it.

If I’m gonna figure out what to do for the rest of my time here, I feel like I should get started. I’ve ruled out learning a new language, or trying to master calculus, because, once again, why.

The underlying problem is bad. The consequences might be interesting if I can figure it out. Writing has to be a part, I think. Just writing this has given me ideas. Your email box might get busy (sorry!).

C