This is a tandem post between two friends.  My friend Reid and I decided to write on the same topic during the same day in order to contrast and compare answers from two timeline vantage points. 

This post is my answer to the question:  ”have I found what I’m looking for?”  The idea came from our conversation about the U2 song, ‘I still haven’t found what I’m looking for’.  At the end of this post I will give you the link to Reids’ site so you can view the contrasting answer.    

My short answer to this question is no. 

However, I decided not to cop-out.  After asking myself this question, a new level of introspection and reflection on my desires arose.  At first, I became very grateful for the simple gift of my life.  I pondered friends, family, talents, experiences and even material things.  I’ve always seemed to have a deep appreciation for everyone and everything in my life yet, I walk about with a feeling of general dissatisfaction most of the time.  What’s up with that? 

I now feel that the reason for this is simple…  What I am looking for isn’t in this world.  Contentment for me is typically fleeting here on Earth.   Part of me believes that my life is like this so that I am compelled to keep looking, keep progressing, continue learning and growing. 

I choose not to fill the space this question invites with non-answers like love, peace, God or Jesus.  While there is much beauty in each of these contemplations, I’ve met people who claim they’ve found it and when they inevitably move past the facade, they are just like every other human… still seeking; still yearning.  We all seem to go about business as usual with this general anxiety that looms about.  Such is the uncertainty inherent with life.  

We are after all, a bunch of strange beings standing in a large grassy field looking up, looking down and looking all around saying “what the fuck is this all about?” while trying to make some sense of it.  Unless of course we have distracted ourselves enough not to think at all, not to mention any names… most people!  Yet regardless, we will eventually have to account for our life.       

The following is my final answer to the question that this tandem blog post proposes:  Have I found what I am looking for?

My sneaking suspicion is that what I am truly looking for is the entirety of my life and I will not get to see that until its final moment. 

At times I felt that it was somewhat cruel to release someone into the world, give them an inherent sense of a ’mission’ and then not tell them what that mission is.  It is up to each of us to find this or remember within ourself.  The danger in that process however, is that we tend to extract meaning based on our own experiential bias or perceptual filter at the best of times.  

I know that I came here to do something.  I just do not know what.   

If you see me standing on a street corner scratching my head with a contemplative look on my face, it is because I am attempting to remember what that something is. 

I tried using the power of deduction to find what I am looking for.  For example; I’m a musician, therefore I’m here to make music.  I’m a drummer, therefore I’m on Earth to facilitate drum groups.  I’m a writer, so I must write; and so on and so forth.  Every one of these attempts has revealed a little bit more of who I am and what I am capable of so it was all worth it. 

All of these attempts serve to affirm my sneaking suspicion that I am looking for the totality of my life and not just bits and pieces.     

In the meantime, I can learn to better accept life as it is; full of ups, downs, beauty and tragedy.  I can become a better human being by loving more, even if it hurts like hell at times.  I can open my self to new ideas about who I am and what I am capable of.  I can be free in any moment by realizing that it is all temporary and that without a doubt I will inevitably find what I am looking for.

Please check out www.readreidread.com for the contrasting answer.

Thank you.

Chris