Back to the Basics.....Again and again and again

I have a deep respect for both of my parents. They raised me to the best of their abilities, and I have never wanted for food or shelter or really anything of significance. My parents are hard working, upstanding members of their community. True, they do have more than a little bit of a penchant for wine, but it is not anywhere close to a problem, it is more of an entertaining quirk. I respect my parents, but I in no way want to be like them. Because it is my belief that at their core, they are incredibly unhappy, unfulfilled people. They have a great family, lucrative jobs, and a nice house. But beneath their apparent success, they are unfulfilled. I believe that this is due to their lack of values. I don’t mean to say that my parents care about nothing, but to say that they are without something solid to care and pursue. If you know them you would say that from their conversation they highly value travel, and the experiences that it entails. While I do think that travel is very important in creating a well rounded individual, it cannot by any means stand up as a life value. Travel is enjoyable, but it has no deeper value. The well of travel will eventually run dry, as will the well of money, and physical experiences. All of these have nothing beyond them, they have a limited depth and breadth. My parents are unhappy because the have nothing that they can look to and value and pursue that goes deeper. They are quite literally without hope. They do not, by choice or habit look beyond the veil that is our life on this planet. It is my belief that simply living life day by day and not looking beyond it and through it and past it is an almost intolerable existence. I think that the reason so many people are taking anti-depressants and finding misery in everything is that they are looking to the world around them as a way to be fulfilled. My parents are the same, it is just that they have become so comfortable in their misery that they don’t even know what it is anymore.

It is for these reasons that while I respect and love my parents, I refuse to become like them. Life in all of its tactile pleasure cannot be all that there is. I value something outside of myself, something more and better and millions of times more pure than myself. God and Faith are the values through which I choose to perceive my existence. To me, they are where the rabbit hole leads, their well does not run dry. And even though at this point in my life I find it increasingly difficult to follow and live life with them, they have become as much a part of me as my heart or my bones. They are almost a physical part of my existence. Without God and faith I could not understand or bare the world around me. It is through God that I can see some sanity, and beauty in all of the pain and suffering around me. It is my hope that as my life progresses I will be able to more and more live life though my values, finding more depth and meaning and walking further and further away from the values that I currently so strongly cling to.

I know that everything I have written has been said before a thousand times in and as many different languages, each time holding up something similar as the real thing to value and pursue. I had to say this like I sometimes have to say the pledge of allegiance. Because it is the statement and mantra of who I am and what I believe and feel.