Who are you Living For?

In order to just focus the topic, let’s say if a power greater than you is the answer, we’ll talk about your number two position. Otherwise, I’ll get a zillion answers from God to Satan on here and my point will be lost. ;) I don’t care about politics either so if you want to respond with, "Over half my paycheck goes to the ‘gaaaw-daaamed guvermint’" I will sympathize with you but will also ask that be saved for another blog on the same topic (uh, although it probably won’t be one I write) ;)

When I say, "Who are you living for?" I bring it up because this is a question I have asked myself over the years and my answer has surprised me.

When I was a child, I lived for my Mom. I was one of those children who provided her with copious amounts of artwork for the fridge and when that was full, it was taped to the cupboards. I did very well in school so I could show her a good report card. I would clean my room in order to surprise her. The great thing about living for her was she loved me a lot so it wasn’t as though I was in fear of her. As I got older, she had a live-in boyfriend who was the horror of my life (THAT I will write sometime in another blog) and my day-to-day was not living for him but became SURVIVING for her. All decisions were made based on Mom. After we got out of that hell-hole, Mom had many financial problems and I quit my last year of high school to go to work so I could help with money….the focus, still on her.

I then entered relationships that were truthfully all about them (omg, I won’t even start on those here or I will lose focus of the blog) I woke up almost every single day for a decade in the hopes of pleasing a significant other.

Now really, this is not meant to come off as me being some Mother Teresa and giving til I have no more. There are so many people who have actually given their lives which switches the question to; ‘WHAT are you living for?’

‘Why are we living and who or what for?’ seems to be the consolidated question at this point in life.

For me, I have a consolidated answer. The greater good.

I was mentioning before about the ME society. I grew up in the 80s in a time where it was all about ME. Being a Rock Star was what most of us musicians wanted to be. Then, 90’s Grunge came and smacked us all upside the head and nerds from all corners took over. I liked that movement if for no other reason than they were more inclusive with their fans. Then skip ahead to when being inclusive with fans made you rich so you became all cocky about it. You didn’t have to work as hard to make a good song like you did in the 80’s, you could just get it sounding better with better producers and shove it down your loyal fans throat and VOILA! More money and you could spend more time coiffing your hair again. What many of these new nerdy rock stars forgot? –how to write good songs again. The songs became an anthem for the ME Society and you didn’t have to craft anything, evoke emotions or take on a cause, all you had to do was preach ME to the masses and keep everyone selfish and sheepish.

Then oh what a shocker!! One by one, the audience was like, "Yeah this new album sucks, I’m only going to buy one or two songs from them" and the whole industry crumbles because sales are down. It was as though Grunge once again smacked everyone in the side of the head except this time, there was no take over anthem and no money for them to make "accidentally" from it. No revolution (which by the way, I hate that word—overused with nothing to back it up) no movement, no getting back to "US" again. It just stayed on ME but in a different venue.

For all its faults, the hippie movement at least did something inclusive for the greater good. I am personally too into heavy music to do that myself, but I can at least appreciate what they were going for. And it would seem what they were living for was the greater good. (albeit on a drug-induced plain)

They would live for each other, peace, love and some other warm fuzzy stuff. It’s so easy to wake up every day now, look out at the world and think, "Screw it, I am living for me and my dog" but why would there be over 7 billion of us here if we weren’t meant to be inclusive? If we were all just meant to simply survive, what would be the bigger point in that? At the end of each day we etch a stroke on the wall and think, "Phew, I survived today" ? That’s it?

I personally don’t buy it. I am always glad to SURVIVE the day, but what I would rather do is LIVE each day. Bob Marley’s birthday was yesterday, so I have been giving it a lot of thought. The quote that you may have seen where he said, "Wake up and live!" (I’ll put the whole thing below again for a reference) is so great. It’s a reminder not just to survive alone, but to be open to everything in our path. I don’t believe we live for others, or ourselves but the entire experience of the greater good. I don’t feel like each of us is a piece of the puzzle, but we are all artwork. Depending how we craft what we have been given is how we slot into this whole thing we call Earth.

And no, I am not smoking da GANJA! I did enough strange brew as a teenager to last the rest of my life. HA!

ROCK THE DAY!

Karen :)

"Life is one big road with lots of signs.
So when you’re riding through ruts, don’t complicate your mind.
Flee from hate, mischief and jealousy.
Don’t bury our thoughts, put our vision to reality.
Wake up and live!" ~Bob Marley (February 6, 1945 – May 11, 1981)

Hmm, he died at the beginning of the 80s. Ya suppose that’s when the whole thing started to go to pot? lol