True Calling
2026-04-25
Don't you hate it whenever you're playing some stupid puzzle game and you can't find the solution, so then you start having a harsh realization with yourself about your intellectual abilities and your resulting place in the world?
Yeah, me neither.
But anyway, I'll be sharing that puzzle game in tomorrow's link log so be on the lookout for it. If being in the American education system taught me anything, it's that anything can be learned. Talent is one thing, but sheer effort and manic determination is another. But even when you have a killer work ethic, it might not get you that winning place in whatever gamification the thing you're doing is enmeshed in. Talent, hard work, sheer luck—all those things come together to determine the world's basic perception of your worth in it, right? I mean, today we see a greater view of being what most would call a "loser," except capitalism or shitty human nature or whatever else you want to call it gives it this weird pornographic quality; one might want to say something a bit more refined like "romanticized" or something like that, but no, our world is too industrialized for something like that. Even a "loser" is a consumer category now—perpetually 18–24 years old, downtrodden but soon to find their way; there's just enough hope there to make it seem like it might turn around, because that's what every good story has—someone who learns something new and changes because of it.
But what if there's a resistance to that? In stories, that makes a character deep and interesting, but in real life it makes someone maladjusted and weird. I think we all know that kind of person: that guy or girl who can't seem to stop making the same mistakes, going through the same cycle of maladjustment because they don't want to confront those few things that really scare them. I see myself that way a lot, but even in my ever-present and aching self-awareness, I find myself wondering why I'm not there yet, you know? Time heals all wounds, but it also has a funny way of making new ones in their place. What scares me?
Not having a way out.
The things I dislike about life are commonly felt by the average person. All the pain that comes from waking up every day, even on a day where there isn't a lot of it, makes for a life that at times can feel like it's going nowhere. Because of those stories we all like, there's a sense of resolve through pain—a moral learned, a new way forward, something like that. But the most painful thing is realizing that there really is nowhere to go, nothing to do. Everything is okay, and that's why it fucking sucks. There's that constant desire to go, do, and be. I want to change, but how can I do that when nothing feels new or I feel trapped in my comfortable but unfulfilling bubble? I might try to tell myself that the bubble has plenty of fulfillment in it, that I'm really living the dream. Any writer in decades past would probably be jealous of someone in my position. The only focus is to write and I don't have anyone to prove anything to, no one to answer to except for myself and my readers. Doesn't that sound perfect?
Well why isn't it, then?
I've enjoyed a decent amount of growth in this project since starting it last year. Going from a few hundred views a day to several hundred views a day is solid growth for a project of this capacity. It's anti-consumer, anti-engagement, anti-platform (mostly), and everyone who comes back most days does so because they're truly interested in what I have to say. I'm no authority of any kind. I'm not necessarily your friend in the traditional sense, but avoidant of cornerstone parasocial trappings. I'm a writer, and I write because I have something to say and I want someone to read it. That's the fundamental nature of it, really. I don't want this to feel like a job. I don't want it to feel like an obligation. I do this because I have to and there's nothing else I can or want to do. Value is subjective to a point, though. There's fundamentally more value in someone who puts shit on shelves at stores or fixes a broken sink, and that's something I have to face every single day. The opportunity cost is constantly present; if my aim is to be valuable to people, I'd spend my time finding that trade or working toward producing something of more tangible merit.
But no, I'm too selfish for that.
No, I think too highly of myself. I think that I'm in such a unique position that I get to squander the gifts I've been given just to write these same screeds every day over and over again. "No, but it's art." There's enough of that already. "Well, what about that one person who reads it and it changes their day, isn't that worth something?" Maybe, but I might be better off tossing stones into a river. Ugh, I don't want to sound ungrateful, but I also want to be honest with myself. I could get that office job or that shelf-stacking job, but if I do, I might actually just kill myself, okay? I want to be normal so fucking badly, but I'm just not. There's something so deep in me that refuses that life, and I can't for the life of me—as someone who purports themselves as a writer—sit here and try to explain to you what that thing is and why it makes me do this.
God loves me more than I could possibly understand, but there's still an immense desire to have a proper sense of discernment here. How can I know that I'm reliably doing what He put me on this earth to do? I guess I can't, can I? I'm reminded of a story from Everyday Saints about a monk named Father Melchizedek. He spent most of his life at the monastery, and his main trade was carpentry; he made furniture, icons, and lots of other beautiful crafts for the monastery. Not only was he in full service to the Lord, but he had an occupation that made him happy. As an older man, he had a stroke and was pronounced dead for a few minutes. While he was out, he was in a field, and in it were all the things he had made. Then he saw the Theotokos, and she told him, "Look at all those things you made—why did you spend all that time making them? All we wanted was your prayers." He came back to life after that stroke and immediately begged his abbot to give him the Great Schema, the highest monastic rank. They have no job in the monastery other than to pray.
I'm no monk, but I know my true calling.
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