My work is loving the world.

Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird—

equal seekers of sweetness.

 

Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?

Am I no longer young, and still half-perfect?

Let me keep my mind on what matters,

which is my work,

 

which is mostly standing still and learning to

be astonished.

 

—Mary Oliver

I wish I could say I harbor the intelligence and sophistication a person interested in, and curious about, everything has, but I do not. The ideas and occupations that capture my attention are so banal, there are moments when I find myself trying to enjoy them and instead feel the wash of guilt and shame that I’m not training my energy on something “better,” and consequently, that I am not the sort of individual to be naturally drawn toward doing so. It takes real effort. Even extracurricular activities that could flirt with having value—or, whatever—carry some element of the mundane. Personal enrichment is often the accidental but happy byproduct of a goal I set my sights on that had no substance whatsoever.

But I suppose that depends on how the definition of substance, and for that matter, personal enrichment, is being used. Increasingly it feels like to earn the currency of substance, there must be an equitable exchange: A trade-off that would qualify the spent focus and attention as worthwhile. There must be evidence of something having been produced or obtained—perhaps increased knowledge or experience, a material object, or even an anecdote. Personal enrichment is the reward, and the more substance the activity of choice has, the higher it will be. I will, somehow, be a better and more interesting person by the end of it.

As mentioned above, I struggle with this a lot. I do not typically enjoy engaging in pastimes that will give me this type of personal enrichment, and rarely do I want to do them. There is complete sincerity in the statement that I prefer to spend long stretches of time doing nothing but staring into space, or passively observing the world. I am happiest in those pursuits, and the peace they bring is only interrupted when restlessness goads me into finding a way to make their experiences transmutable.

“Faulkner sat on a park bench and watched the world, but he used that to write novels that earned him the Nobel Prize.”

 “Emily Dickinson was a literary recluse who primarily occupied the inner sanctum of her imagination, but she became such a celebrated poet that they’re still making movies and television shows about her.”

And there, I think, is where this anxiety originates: It is born from a preoccupation with legacy. What will I leave behind? It is a quiet but pervasive current of existential dread that motivates our species. Humanity has been around long enough to witness the endurance of greatness tested: How lengthy its reign can be, and how quickly it can crumble. The question that looms, therefore, is not so much how will we be remembered, but will we be?

Many of us won’t, even the most famous among us. I am certain total erasure is my fate. Whatever bequest I make to our species will last a generation or two at best before it is forgotten or rendered useless. If that strikes as bleak, let me give assurance that it’s not. Understanding the perfect and absolute futility of working against impermanence is where I believe true grace is found.

Let me take a moment to clarify I have not acquired that grace. Nothing could be further from the truth. When someone parades their accomplishments, I still feel the wriggle of envy in my stomach. Not because I don’t want good things for that person, but because I want good things for myself as well. I want recognition that signals a lasting contribution or impression made on my behalf. And it is of course preposterous to think good things haven’t happened to me already, but I have yet to kick the addiction of chasing the amorphous ideal of TheLifeFulfilled ™. The greatest trick the devil ever played was convincing us we could have it all.

Because “all” is a mythical concept. It’s a specter of happiness. Frequently I’m called back to Late Fragment, the final poem Raymond Carver wrote as he was dying in a hospital bed:

And did you get what

you wanted from this life, even so?

I did.

And what did you want?

To call myself beloved, to feel myself

beloved on the earth.

Through watching my mind the better part of this last decade, I’ve noticed a shift in how memories are presented to me. They are less and less literal playbacks of events or interactions, and more snippets of emotion that serve as radar to help me navigate my connections to existence. It’s only when I’ve located that essence—when I can recall how it felt to move and be in the world at that specific point in time—that history unfolds itself and I can remember fully, as if everything were working in reverse.

I struggle, as we all struggle, to live in our reality. The confusing and chaotic battle over what matters and what doesn’t is an ever-present threat. But I am increasingly happy to just be. To have felt. Against judgement and criticism, I am enamored with being passive and observant in this timeline. I am enamored with only beginning to glimpse the honor of bearing witness to life, and to feel its ebb and flow around me, in me, through me. I don’t think anyone could argue it isn’t miraculous we’re here. With every passing year that appreciation transcends all others in importance. There is air that sweeps across my face and fills my lungs. The sky holds the energy-giving sun, radiant and magnificent in its brilliance. I lay in the grass and feel the blades between my fingers, the traces of nourishing, rich earth nestling underneath my nails. I close my eyes and open them again, and the world, as simple or complex as we make it out to be, is still there. And every time, I’m so happy that it is and that I can be a part of it, unimportant and insignificant as I am, for as long as it will have me.