The Burden of Purpose

The Burden of Purpose_04_05_20

Careless Thoughts

A Bad Memoir of Little Memories

“He who has a why to live for can bear almost anyhow.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

I have found a secret to life …

                And it is there are two places which are the best to speak to someone about hard subjects. The first, the one in which I have used quite a bit in my life, is the car. When you are in the car with someone that is the best time to bring up something which might be difficult to speak about, they can’t run away, and you have to face them head-on. The two of you confined to the world in the car. No one else is real. No one else matters and there is just you and the other person.

                I’ve had many heated debates in my car over the years.

                Equally, the amount of tears have been spilled in there too.

                The second place, which I’m sure we all know, is the dinner table or over some kind of food. I have plenty of heated debates at the dinner table. I even had more lovely talks while sharing a pizza or dinner with someone. A cup of wine, a good meal, with a lovely person, those are the secrets to a good life.

                I found myself one day having lunch with my cousin after church. We went to this little pizza place here in the city I’m living in and talked about life, dreams, and God. It was one of those lunches which seem to stick out in my mind. The topic was near and dear to my heart.

                “I wish I knew my purpose like you do,” he said to me.

                I smirked, knowing almost everyone in my family has seen me as a person who always knew what they wanted in life. It is true. I know what I want, better yet, I know what I was put here for in my life. One might say I know my Purpose. “You don’t truly know what you are asking for,” I said to him.

                I think he was expecting me to tell him how to find a purpose in life, and I wish I could tell him, but I don’t know. As I said, I am someone who has felt a Calling on my life for a long time now. It is something I can remember from my youth. The Calling has always been there.

                (If you are looking for how to find your purpose, sadly, I’m not sure what to tell you. I would say try many things to see what sticks. I would say you are never too old to start looking, but I guess my greatest advice would be to pray and do it a lot. I might write something on the subject later.)

                I guess it would be unfair of me not to tell you the Calling, yes?

                I have always wanted to be an artist. There were three things I wanted to be when I a child, be a sniper, firefighter, and artist. The former two fell away quickly when I saw the power of art in my second-grade class. I couldn’t read or write, but I could draw, and drawing became my everything.

                Even now, I still wish to be an artist. I mean, I am an artist. All the artwork on my walls is made by me, but my creative loves have changed to writing. I long to make a living with writing because it is a Calling placed on me. I can use my story as a writer and a believer to help others.

                It is my purpose in life.

                “What do you mean?” He asked.

                It was something I had been thinking about a lot lately. What does it mean to have a purpose in life?

                It means, as Bukowski said, “If you are going to try, Go all the way.” Bukowski worked in the post office for most of his life before he became a poet. Three to four times a week, he would take the phone off the hook, unplugged the TV, and open the beer bottle getting down to the toil of the pen. He would smoke his mind away while pouring out his soul. He went all the way. He never stopped writing even when life seems like another dull day.

                Then one day, he quit working at the post office and became a poet.

                It is a lovely romance story for an artist, yes? But I don’t believe we all can do it. I’m sure we all can’t live the way Bukowski did or any of those other artists we romanticize in the history books.

                So, what do I mean, and why did I bring up Bukowski? You might already see the hints of what about to say in the story I told you.

                To have a purpose in your life means everything else must fall away. The Burden of Purpose is to wake up every day; knowing everything you do today must be in line with that purpose. The lousy job you have which only paid the bills and the rent means you can eat when you get home. A dead artist, a dead person, has no purpose in life.

                The job can and does allow you to live while you try to figure out a way to fill your purpose. Hell, maybe the situation is your purpose. I would think someone who is a cop or EMT felt they were being Called to help people. I hope so, anyways. I hope they were not merely in it for the money.

(Money, by the way, is not a purpose in life. It is a tool and a tool you must be careful with because it is far too easy to fall in love with it. The money will never give you a purpose for life, unless you are a dragon, of course.)

                Then there the fact you will sacrifice time and money to always move forward in your purpose. If something is keeping you from taking the next step, a job, a lover, a friend, then you should remove it from your life.

                “You want a purpose,” I told him,” but what you do understand is every day you wake up, you are fighting for it. Nothing else matters.”

                I am not saying the family is not a purpose; it is.

                I am no saying being love is not a grand old purpose; it might be one to the greatest purpose in life.

                What I am saying is, are you sure you want to take on the Burden of a Purpose in your life?

                I write between a thousand to four-thousand words a day, except for Sundays, I take it off, which can be a lot of work. I come home after a long day at my warehouse job, sit down at my desk, and started truly working. Now and then, I open Facebook or some other site that will rot my brain out one day and see all you folks off having fun.

                I close the sites, get up, and head for the door. Normally, I only make it to my bedroom door, but sometimes I get to my car. I stop, I don’t go out because I have work to do. I go back up the stairs, unhappy, and get back to writing.

                I say no to friends.

                I don’t pick up phone calls.

                I sleep less because I have to keep writing. I move toward the purpose of my life; every day, every step is heading toward that Calling.

                The Despair of my Burden is the fact I have not reached a point in my life where I am sharing my stories with the world. I share them with a few friends here and there. Sometimes, people online read them, but not to the point where I’m paying my bills with my Calling. (And I may never get there, but I’ll keep trying.)

                Some nights, I laid in the dark, staring at the ceiling in an empty bed. I didn’t find a lover because I didn’t go out to the bars or the parties. The Night is the only thing holding me, and my head is filled with people who are not real, and I wondered if I want to keep carrying this Burden until the grave.

                I look back over my life, wondering if it was all a waste.

                I could have gone to college for a real job. I could have gone into the workforce, making some good money. I could have got a wife, had some children, buy a house in the neighborhood, and get a pool. I would write here and there until I lost the drive for it as my kids got older, making me give up on things for a bit. I would tell myself every day and night when the kids are gone, and I’m retired, then I’ll pick up my writing again.

                I’ll be an artist once more.

                It wouldn’t all be bad. I would smile every day as I kissed my lovely wife. When we go to church as a family, it would be perfect. My kids would ask me to read to them at night; I would, then I would watch them sleep. My purpose might have changed; it might have become them.

                I roll over in my bed on those nights with tearing in my heart. Not because being an ordinary guy with a typical family is the pits of Hell. God, no, I don’t think that at all. The tearing comes because those things above about the American Dream sounds lovely to me. I see it all the time what joys my mom and dad have because they have a family. I wouldn’t mind sharing in those joys.

                The tearing in my heart comes from the fact; I want it all.

                Most of the time, I wake up to the sun rapping on my window, smiling at me. It asks me to come out and play for a bit, but I can’t, I have work to do. So, I sit back down at the desk to write some more.

                The Burden of Purpose is a simple one; are you willing to give up everything for it? Whatever that purpose may be, and if you believe for a second, you can’t give up what is Called for the Purpose, then I wouldn’t ask for it.

                 The Despair of Purpose is a horrible one; you have a purpose, but you don’t follow it, and you fear you will die, never carrying it out. You would fail in your purpose in life. You keep trying no matter what because it is better to have tried and failed than never to have tried at all. And yet, the fear is still there, I know, I have felt for a long time.

If you are not willing to face these hardships when asking for a Purpose, then my advice to you is don’t ask. Life would be better without it; trust me.

With the tip of the hat,

Chase

P.S. I do believe God has made us all for purpose. The baseline purpose we are Called to do is believe in God, follow His Word, and Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. What I’m talking about is asking for something else to do in this life. To ask the Lord for a Grand Purpose or in truth, asking for more toil in this life.