Purpose

Once again I have been neglecting my blog for quite a while. Sorry about that. Even though I don't really seem to do much of anything, I somehow manage to always run out of time to do the things that are important to me. One of those things is writing this blog and, once again, I am going to make an effort to keep up with it.

Lately I have been getting this feeling that I (desperately) need to do something that matters, something that makes a difference, something that has some sort of impact on the world. I feel like this basically all of the time, but lately the feeling has been much more urgent and somewhat crippling. I find it incredibly hard to force myself to do all of the stupid mundane shit that I have to do in order to exist in this society when I am painfully aware of the fact that none of it actually matters in the long run. Why should I go to work when my job is meaningless? Why should I do dishes or laundry or go grocery shopping or even get out of bed when there are horrible things happening in our world and nothing I do does anything to stop them.

I had hoped that adopting Riley and Petunia would help to alleviate this feeling to some extent but, the truth is, it has only made it stronger. Really getting to know Riley and Petunia and loving them so much has made it that much harder to know that so many other animals who are just as wonderful and amazing as they are, and have just as many beautiful individual qualities, are facing unimaginable suffering every day. I have always been infuriated, disgusted and deeply saddened by our society's treatment of nonhuman animals but now, whenever I think about it, I can't help but imagine Riley and Petunia in those other animals' places and it is utterly heartbreaking.

I think the other reason that I seem to feel worse about my life in general since adopting Riley and Petunia is that I now have this one aspect of my life that actually matters. Suddenly there is this one thing I do that has real value and it just makes everything else seem all the more useless. I dread going to work every day because, no matter what job I'm doing, it just seems so insignificant compared to the terrible things that are happening to innocent beings all over the world. Our culture puts so much emphasis on a persons "career" that we end up being defined, not by who we are, but by the jobs we have. I don't want to be defined by some job that I only have because I need the money. I want to be an animal rights activist. That's who I really am. That's how I want people to see me.

I hate feeling like I have to save the things I truly care about for my day off and I really hate feeling like I used up all of my energy at work so that I don't feel like doing the things I truly care about anymore. The only time I'm able to feel good about myself is when I'm doing something to help animals in some way. I need to find a way to do that. I have to find a way to do that.

I actually have a, tentative, plan for doing something better with my life and I will let everyone know if I get to the point where I actually think it might be feasible. Also, I will try to make my next blog a little more timely and a little less depressing. Thank you to anyone who actually still bothers to read these.