AndrewBrunelle.com

When one no longer desires, what is there left to do? If we follow the parable that to desire only leads to suffering, then our lives may become boring. I want for nothing means that we do not crave anything. That does not sound very exciting. I want absolutely nothing.

There is the pitfall. I might as well be dead if I do not want to do or have anything. I can want simple things, such as health, a wealth of mind, and a positive outlook on life. I can want enlightenment or something similar. I can want joy and fulfillment in my life. I can want success in a particular field. I can want to be fully myself and nobody but myself. I can want to be totally honest and trustworthy. I can want things that exist outside of time and the material plane.

I can want to not want. Let’s be paradoxical while we still can. I can reject the whole notion of materialism and give root to the idea of contentment. Even if I do not have the biggest television or the snazziest car, I can still be grateful and content with what I have in the present moment and also what I am working towards possessing, like peace of mind. Once we understand that the purpose in life is not to become a wage slave working to sustain an unsustainable lifestyle that will ultimately kill us due to either stress or overwhelming debt, we can strive for something better. I am not against having a lot of money, but I am against the squandering of that money on useless trinkets and bigger televisions.

So instead of going out to the mall wanting, stay at home, save gas, and want intangible qualities that every person most likely wishes to have. Everything we own is pre-garbage anyway.

I have writer’s block.  I guess the best idea I can come up with is to write about how I can’t think of anything to write about.  I just don’t have anything to say.  Not now.  I am sorry to disappoint my loyal readers, who supported me with their insightful comments, but right now I’ve hit a dry spell.  I guess this happens to everyone.  I guess the whole reason I stopped was because of the fact that I felt I was just repeating the same things over and over, just like all the popular blogs I read.  Steve Pavlina and Zen Habits, although Zen Habits is way more redundant than Pavlina.  I didn’t want to become one of those cliche blogs.  The ones that pump out the same material (not that it’s not good material) over and over until the loyal readership plateaus and all that is left are the self-help junkies who just need their next fix.  Self-helf is a drug like caffeine or cocaine in the sense that some people can use it to optimize performance while others can abuse it and sit on their asses all day feeling good, but not really accomplishing anything.  It’s easy to fall into that loop when it comes to self-help or personal development (or whatever those new age people are calling it these days.)

So I stopped writing for awhile to gain perspective on what I had accomplished in the last three years or so.  I felt that in some of my posts, I was stunningly authentic and insightful, while in others I was just spouting the same stuff from another blog I read, albeit in my own fashion.  Sometimes I wrote just to pass the time.  Just to feel like I was making a difference in someone’s life.  Sacrificing myself for the greater good.  Then I started questioning what the greater good was.  And I came to the realization that the greater good of the universe is to live our lives in balance with the rest of the world around us.  And I started getting on nature rants about how the way we live is arrogant and self-defeating.  I just got really pissed of at human beings as a species and started reading websites like The Church of Euthanasia and The Chuurch of Apathy.  Oh, and Violent Acres.  Very dark, but funny blogs.  I became all cynical and whatnot.  But it was worth it in my eyes because I learned the world doesn’t move the the beat of just one drum.  And that is what makes it beautiful.  There are so many differing opinions that we can all get our fill of and it makes us a more well-rounded person.

I did the comedy contest again this year and although I didn’t win, I got to be on television for 40 seconds.  Even though my material is truly funny, it doesn’t say anything profound.  It is just joke after joke after joke.  I am a Steven Wright-like comedian, not a George Carlin-esque comedian.  Steven Wright is hilarious, but George Carlin was both hilarious and thought-provoking.  So was Bill Hicks.  What those two comedians said in their tenure really spoke to me.  More than anyone else.  I truly appreciate them more than any other comedians.  And I strive to be more like them.  I want to make people both laugh and think.  I don’t want to be the next carbon copy of a pre-existing comedian.  I want to be uniquely me and have a unique signature.  Become uniquely myself.

I’ll post a follow-up to this post later, but I need to get ready for “Lockup:  Extended Stay,” otherwise known as my job.