Emotional Investment

“Life is… Good,” he said lost amongst his screaming thoughts, wondering what he could say on a concept he doesn’t understand within himself. You see we’re asked, “How are you doing?” so many times a month, week, day that we’ve become numb to its meaning. We have platitudes that express hollowness, “I’m good. Everythings fine. Yea, it’s going okay thanks.”

These mean fuck all and we know it!

We know it down to its pre-utterance, an inexplicable routine of absolute meaninglessness.

Don’t misinterpret me saying life is good. There’s a reason platitudes are used. They act as people’s benchmarks. They establish a basis from which we can neither judge nor sympathize, a middle-ground.

But you see, I can’t even answer, “I’m bad” or “Beyond wonderful!” I can only glumly respond, “Life is… Good.” The class and circumstances I was born into taught me from a young age to be grateful for what I have. So if I ever feel down about anything, I can appreciate that life could be worse. And from that grain of thought, we can’t feel bad for ourselves because we’re a generation of people who live on the benchmark a medium middle of platitudes and inspired social norms.

I’m a product of my generation and I find it hard.

Let me explain:

Telling myself life is good is a form of self-apathy. I can’t quite place it, but I’ve been trying to search for something for a while now, something to invest in. My time it seems has become abundant. And the interests I find myself investing in, don’t seem to hold my attention anymore. But I’ve thought and thought and I think what I’ve been missing in my search, is emotional investment.

A lot of people tell you in books, youtube, seminars etc that to make money you have to invest in things, and that the biggest thing you can do is invest in yourself. I’ve been comparing this idea to my life recently and while investment into yourself is important, the crucial idea I’ve been fixated on is what to invest my time in. But I think the biggest issue I’ve been facing, is that everything I’m doing has no emotional investment. I do things because I can. There is no reason behind them. There’s no purpose. Which is not to say that its a bad thing, but nothing keeps me vested because quite frankly… why should it?

When I was younger I was constantly struggling with purpose. The idea that there’s something we should be doing. I never agreed with society’s plan of trying to mould us into its idea that we have to study, get a job, raise a family and then… well basically die.

But at the same time, I still held onto the idea of having a purpose, of doing something with my life.

I find myself reflecting a lot on this idea now. I still don’t really know what I want to do, and the further I get away from that the less emotional investment I seem to have. People say, “Start with the things you like.” But I think that’s not completely true. People should say, “Start with the things that have meaning to you.”

I think I’ve been stretching myself thin a lot recently. I’ve been trying to pick up too many things in my life and it’s been hard trying to fill in the time I have with things I just have less emotionally vested interest in.

These hard-hitting concepts like purpose and what you can invest your time in have really been weighing me down recently. And while I don’t have an answer for them, I still think it’s important to reflect on the things you do, with the free time you have. Are the things you’re doing worthwhile? Not necessarily making you happy, but rather do they hold meaning for you outside of those moments?

An example I found of this idea, is a video game I played recently called Gris. It’s a game created by Nomada Studios and rather than it being a game, for a game’s sake, its an experience. It tells a story through its artwork and you can tell that this wasn’t just created for people to play but was rather a vehicle to show and create a story visually. The entire game is created in a water palette backdrop and everything down to its asmr sounds, create an unparalleled experience. It’s not just a game to the creators, but an emotionally invested experience that is shown by them to the player through the game itself. Really its just good for the soul.

I want that kind of investment in the things I do. I want to express my work through myself in all the things I invest my time in. I want to find purpose in my investments. And I want the things I do, to reflect, to grow, and to tell a story. I know this post seems long winded and maybe a bit clunky, but if there’s one thing I want to portray in this post, it’s that we should care more. We should care more for not only what and where we invest our time, but also for how much those things mean to us.

I hope we are all lucky enough to find hobbies, dreams and a purpose that we can be emotionally invested in, because what point is there in having those things? If we feel nothing within those areas of interest.

I hope I can regroup my screaming mind and take my time in finding moments of joy that can transcend that time and space, in the things I find enjoyment in again soon.

And you know, dear reader, I really hope you can too.