Too Many Trees

I am about to shamelessly mix metaphors.

All throughout my life I have struggled and strained and mourned and fought with the existence I have been given, its limitations, and its possibilities. Anger, anxiety, depression, and even despair have been the foundations of my experience. I could blame it on my parents or my childhood, and most folks do so most folks would buy it, but the truth is that when push comes to shove I never had it that bad. So my father is emotionally distant and utterly incomprehensible. Most are! So my mother had a decade long 'bout of the crazies. Most do! I was never seriously physically hurt by either parent nor by my step mother nor by my step father nor by any of the successive parade of paramours. Any psychological abuse I could claim was the result of either incomprehension or incapacity and was very rarely inflicted intentionally. So many can claim so very much worse than anything I have known and they turned out better than I.

If I knew why they'd give me a Nobel prize.

What I do know is that I have always suffered from being able to see too much of the forest. It feels like I am standing on a hill and I can see the forest that is life and all it's possibilities spread out below me, and I am terrified by the sheer number of trees spread before my view. Worse yet, I am painfully aware that what I see is only a fraction of the forest which lies beyond the next hill, and the hill after that, and the hill after that, and only-god-knows how many hills after THAT. I am no Quisach Haderach.I can never see the full forest, and the small portion that is mine to view is already both over and underwhelming. You see: they're all trees. Oh, sure, they're different kinds of trees and that's wonderful and grand and fantastic.... but there are no Lorax, no Yggdrasil, no Chamalla, nor even a lone Lotus tree to wrap me up in dreams of more magical forests. There are hundreds, thousands, millions.... aw hell, INFINITE trees with wonderful and unique but ultimately cosmetic differences. I stand where two paths diverse in the wood and am paralyzed because I realize that I have infinite choices before me. It is not a choice between the path well worn and the road less traveled. It is a choice between any and all of the infinite potential radials of a sphere. They each make all the difference, but never difference enough.

You see, while I see so many possibilities I also see an infinite array of disappointment. I have never quite been able to vomit up this nasty belly full of idealism I somehow found myself in possession of. Reality disappoints. With all those options there is not one that guarantees any form of happiness, or even simple contentment. I look around me at a race with staggering potential and an abysmal history of squandering it and even as I disapprove I cannot claim to be any better. I see problem after problem and while I can think of solutions to many of them none of those solutions are viable so long as humanity is Homeo Sapiens. I despair of us ever becoming Homo Ethos or even Homo Storge. I fear we are much more likely to devolve into Homo Ignavus, if we have not already.

I fail to be motivated by money. I understand it's inherently symbolic nature but simply cannot internalize it. I continue to value Value itself rather than monetary placeholders for it. I have lived in a home where money was readily available and in a home where we counted squares of toilette paper so we could afford our next batch of Top Raman. They both had benefits and faults. I was happy in neither.

I fail to be motivated by success or social acclaim. It is fine, I suppose, but the only approval I really crave is that of a small group of friends who approve of me anyway.... which is why they are friends in the first place.

I fail to be motivated by humanitarian goals because I have no faith in humanity. I do not trust that any gift I give my race will be well used. I do not even trust that we will not simply find a way to use any gift I could give to generate further misery. Not even Christ could give good enough advice to keep folks from killing each other over it... even though one of their most important rules is to not kill each other. I am not even certain I wish to contribute anything to my own race. I cannot help but wonder if a swift end to this wretched experiment in sentience might be best all around. It is also very unlikely that I will ever reproduce. At this point I cannot ovulate naturally and am already missing half of my right ovary. I have no genetic legacy to leave. My line ends with me. Past my own lifetime I have no physical investment in humanity.

That having been said I cannot even choose between my own interests. There are too many things I COULD do. Many of them I could enjoy, but I would be horribly poor. I could be adequate at nearly anything I chose, but why put forth the effort? I could milk the system like so many others, but my pride simply won't allow it. I could choose a path that I am fairly certain would make me wealthy, but to do so I would have to sacrifice almost everything I currently enjoy with little hope of greater enjoyment later.

I can not choose. There are too many trees.

The only real thing I have ever found that meant anything to me was the regard and interaction of a handful of wonderful eccentrics. The only insubstantial that more me are a cursedly persistent curiosity about the human psyche, composing my poetry and vignettes, and some of the obscure flights of fancy that philosophy allows.

So maybe it is time to pick an external lodestone. I can rattle about in my own bewildering internal landscape forever, but psyche-spelunking is only moderately satisfying if there is no rich outer life to stimulate it. The only thing that ever got me voluntarily out of bed in the mornings is love. I cannot "follow my dreams." My imagination is, as my teachers always swore, an impressively well developed beast. But I HAVE fallen in love with a man who has dreams. Real dream. Achievable dreams. And he has the motivation and energy to follow them. I can hear years of feminism howling in rage, but perhaps the most satisfying thing I can do is let him choose which of those infinite paths we will take, though it be little better or worse than any other, and let my love for him make all the difference.