As Goliath Laughs

In search of a better me.

Have you ever gone through one of those phases where you start to wonder what life is all about, and more importantly, what you are all about? I have been struggling with that issue a lot lately.

Slogging over a computer day after day, pumping out content for the mills that just about puts food on the table but doesn’t even come close to feeding the soul.

I am not sure if this is a writer’s dilemma or if it is because I write mainly about environmental issues and am therefore exposed to a steady stream of depressing articles on a daily basis. There are positive things happening in the environmental arena, but they are far outweighed by the catastrophes we find ourselves creating.

More importantly, however, is the fact that the little pieces I write in an attempt to draw the world’s attention to what is going on all around us seem to simply fall on deaf ears. A small boy called David once brought down Goliath with a few tiny pebbles. The words I throw, it would appear, would simply make him laugh.

One of the problems that I face, and many others I suspect, is that sometimes I am so busy just surviving that I seldom have time to step back and look at what is really important; time to ask myself is this what I am supposed to be doing or is this even what I want to do anymore?

Writing is a lonely and frequently thankless pursuit. I slog away in the mills because I want to be a writer, but what I am producing, very often bears no resemblance to the dreams, hopes, and ideals that brought me to this point in the first place. It is not even as though I don’t have other options. The point is, that to turn to them would mean letting go of a dream, even if it is a dream that has become clouded and obscure.

I suspect I am not the only one on this platform to question what I am doing as I peck away at my keyboard. Because I mostly write for a living, there are many who would say I am lucky. There is, though, writing and writing. If your words feed your soul or achieve something important, then that is all well and good. If all they do is wallpaper some company’s web site, lost among an endless stream of other people’s drivel, is that really writing or is it simply placing words in a row in a coherent fashion?

I need to examine this for a while and the only way to do so is to step away from the grind stone, find somewhere quiet and sit and stare at my navel for a bit. If I come up with the eureka answer I will let you know. I should warn you first, that eureka insights have been in very short supply most of my life.

Perhaps I will just fiddle around with some of the some of those things that I enjoy doing; walking the hills, turning bits of wood into saleable items, and writing largely ignored articles on Medium.

Thank you for reading.

If you are a lover of the environment, nature, and wildlife, you may enjoy the following articles published in The Environment.

1. My Kingdom My Rules
2. The Game of Snakes and Adders
3. I Don’t Want to Get Rich but I Do Want to Change the World

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