On my birthday, I thought it would be good to do some reflection. I mean, I pretty much do that every day, but today I thought I would really go all out. Make it epic.

So, I began thinking about my life, and I thought, “What do I want?” How very individualistic and First-World-privileged of me, I know. Really, I could ask myself why I chose that question above all the other “big” questions, and I think that in itself is a good question and probably comes down to cultural conditioning along with individual factors.

But anyway. The first answer that I wrote down was, “I want to not want anything and be happy with what I have.” Which would be awesome, because then I wouldn’t have to think any longer about what I want! I could just want what I have and be done with all this striving bullshit.  How very Buddhist of me.

The alternative, of course, would be to write a long list of what I want and start working towards that stuff. I’m pretty sure it would look something like this: 1. Gain wisdom and life experience 2. Have love and friendship in my life 3. Learn a lot of stuff about the universe/world/people  4. Share my knowledge and wisdom with others. 5. Get a PhD 6. Be financially stable. In about that order of importance.

Of those items, the highest ones are the ones I am already in the process of having and can’t really make go away unless I crawl into a hole or something. The bottom couple are the ones that are less guaranteed but could happen if I work towards them.

I guess I’m saying that I pretty much do have what I want. My life is rich. Even though I put wisdom as #1, because I am a philosopher-type person, I know that #2, relationships, is really the most important. Without relationships, I would have little wisdom or life experience. I would not be here right now. We live in an inter-dependent web.

Ultimately, though, what I want surely isn’t that important. I could want a whole page of things or I could want nothing. I could want materialistic and selfish things or I could want to help humanity and be a better person. Who knows what is the “right” way to be a human, if there is a right way to be at all? Step back from this whole life we have created on this planet, pull back until you see the globe of the Earth, then the solar system, the galaxy, the darkness of space. What is it? I don’t know. I see nothing.

I guess that’s pretty epic.

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