still haven't found what i'm looking for

(This was originally written a year and a half ago, the day before an exam for which I hadn't studied one bit, and I was feeling a bit... well, I wanted to feel cocky because it sure beat kicking myself for not cracking a single book. It was all bravado, though. Ultimately, the exam went fine and I ended up REALLY glad I hadn't wasted any time studying for it.)

I’ve been fortunate to find that I really enjoy my job, with the variety and flexibility it provides. But it’s not enough. Work is a part of my life, but it alone is not what will allow me to feel fulfilled and satisfied. I’m looking for something else too.

Part of it is relationships; part of it is new challenges and experiences. But a big chunk of it is understanding. I don’t understand what is going on around me, in an immediate, local or global sense, nor on superficial or deeper levels. I understand more than I did when I was 25, or 20, or 15 and that’s somewhat satisfying, but I’ve generated at least as much confusion as I’ve resolved. And I don’t know where to look, and I don’t know what the answer is. Come to think of it, I don’t even know what the question is. Do I need to know what the question is before I seek answers? I don’t think so. I think that the answer I’m seeking will be in the form of a Gestalt, and the question asked when looking at a Gestalt is the ultimate in open-ended questions – so open-ended that it’s more of a prompt.

Answers to the more straight-forward questions usually have at least two parts: first, the background and second, the specifics. Often, the background is left out on the assumption that the questioner knows the framework from which the answer comes. Usually it is the specifics that the questioner is looking for anyway. It’s hard to look for specific answers without specific questions, but maybe looking for background is a place to start.

I know that part of the background is in looking into history. Much of the way the world is today was shaped by what and who has gone before, and what I’ve learned so far has come in large part from here. But that’s only part of it, because how we think about and react to history is as important as what actually happened.

How do I find the answer? I suspect that psychology and philosophy will help me, and those’ll be the next places I look, but I’m not sure the answer is there either. In fact, I’m sure it’s not. I hope that by the time I’ve got what I can from these disciplines, I’ll have some idea of where to go next.

We’ll see.