Why aren’t I out there fighting? Why aren’t I raising hell and forcing people to open their eyes? Where is the Dave so many people met all those years ago?

The answer is, quite simply, I don’t have a cohesive philosophy anymore. I used to define who I was with what I did, then with who I surrounded myself with, then I centered my life around someone. With that gone nothing major enough has stepped up to take the role so, FSM forbid, I’m going to have to decide consciously. I’ve been trying and I’ve been failing.

My day consists of being torn between a half-dozen conflicting directions and I’m no closer to picking one or two than I was months ago. If there were a way of getting a transcription of my thoughts for just this morning’s drive up to Peace River alone I could probably point to a dozen changes in direction. I’m finding this to be paralyzing.

I don’t know where I want to end up, do I want to stay a downtown dweller and live a lifestyle I dreamed of for so many years and be the proto-geek with the close social circle that manages to hack on some really cool projects? Or do I run with the idea of fucking off to the sticks, eschewing society and risking being labeled “one of those crazy tinfoil-hat wearing survivalists”, working towards a goal of self-sufficiency (which has great tie-ins with anti-globalisation, the green movement, as well the insane lifestyle hack required to run such an acreage)? Is my desire to leave the modern society due to the city I live in? Do I just need to get the fuck out of dodge? Go find somewhere less self-destructive to live the downtown proto-geek dream? Perhaps, but there are a number of shackles I’d need to cast off before I can leave, and having done that I don’t know where I’d go. I waffle between living it up now, enjoying what’s left of my twenties and really seizing what moments I can, and being as responsible and buttoned down as possible, to become financially stable and prepped to buy a house somewhere. Obviously I need to find some sort of middle ground, this isn’t an either-or problem here.

It’s pathetic, I know, but it’s easier for me to take a huge, stupid plunge when I’m doing it for someone instead of myself. That’s not to say I’m looking for someone to do something stupid for. I’m hoping living the next year on my own will help me settle on a direction. Perhaps I can find the compromise of all of the above and in doing so will arrive at my unified philosophy.

I know I already answered the question above, but with all that in mind the real answer to the question, why aren’t I fighting the good fight out there? Because I’m too broken upstairs to fight anything but myself right now. And until I’ve got that licked, until I’ve got my shit settled, who the hell am I to tell anyone else what to do?

I know this is disjointed, I started writing it last night, thought about it on the drive this morning, have and edited and deleted and inserted off and on all evening. I know I said this would take a long while to explain, it’s taken quite some time to get just the above written down. I don’t even know that this does the thought process justice, but I’m going to post anyways. I get the feeling I’m not going to get to sleep anytime soon anyways, perhaps I can get a start on part 2.