How do you live?

I've been trying to figure that out.

I've written six different versions of this entry alone, rewriting my own self-doubts.

By all technical definitions, I am a person. I have a head. I have a name. There are several pieces of very official-looking paper proving that I exist and that I am a individual with inalienable human rights, recognized by many very big international organizations.

You can look me in the eye, hold my hand, even talk to me when I'm sober enough. But let the topic of conversation steer towards reality, to discussions of responsibility and commitment, and I will kick and scream.

Somewhere along the way, I lost myself under a years-long sedation, anesthetized in fear and longing. I could no longer bear to be around people, even those whom I admired. Sometimes I was happy, but felt that I did not deserve to be so. I was so obsessed with this ephemeral future and so hung up on the tragic past that I was stuck bouncing in between, everywhere in all places at once but never here in the present. At any given moment, I did not really exist. I'm not really here.

I'm 9 months into my gap year. It's been a trip. Spent the first half chasing a dream in all the wrong ways. To be a person with a career you have to be a person first. That was the part I had missed the whole time.

Now I'm really taking a break. I was in-between some shitty part-time jobs. Nothing glamorous. Fast food, retail, teaching. Hated it. Hated my managers. Got paid like shit. Didn't even get paid, one time. Sold all the nice shit I had accumulated over the years, living off my savings for the time being.

I began writing again, learned a lot about myself. I realized that I do want to be a better version of me. The thing is, I didn't really know who I was before either. I sort of forgot along the way, somewhere between addiction and heartbreak. The return to journaling helped me understand that in the end, only the things that really matter ever get written down. Everything else that fades into the background, it was never worth keeping around in the first place.

Placing myself between people who seem to have shit figured out has been a strategy. Sort of eyeing what others say and do, what their lives are like. Realizing that people with years on you aren't suddenly enlightened, they're still trying to work things out too. It's relieving, in a way. Knowing that when I get to that age, I don't have to have it all figured out either. Maybe we never really do, even when we get old and wise.

Time doesn't heal all wounds. It just gives you the distance to look at them from new perspectives. The things that seemed so impossibly large up close are now specks in the horizon behind me. I'm not healed. Shit hurts sometimes. You think that telling other people will relieve the pressure, like steam in a kettle, but the reality is, you're oversharing a sad and slightly fucked-up story, and now both of you are depressed.

So how do you live?

You have to believe in something.

I've been in between religions, agnosticism, atheism.

Christianity was once all I knew, but I was quite certain that I'd go to Hell if that were the case.

Agnosticism irked me. I've never been a centrist anyways.

Atheism seemed like its own kind of hell. To believe in nothing didn't seem like the sort of freedom it promised. Instead, I found it rather depressing to believe that all we see with our eyes and all that we can currently prove with our scientific knowledge is truly the extent of all that exists. In a way, I sort of knew this not to be true either. What religions got right was the unprovable, ethereal understanding that this isn't all there is to life. I was sure, so sure, that there was something more, I just couldn't prove it, or put it into words.

Buddhism was interesting.

On summer breaks growing up in Thailand I was captivated by ghost houses: Places for spirits to rest, stay, eat and drink, so that they may be at peace. I was attracted by its blunt declaration that there was something more that existed beyond our senses, beyond the limits of our physical plane of existence.

I stayed overnight at a temple. I bothered the monks with my endless questions. I ate all their food and drank all their tea. I went to all the ceremonies, trying to find something. I prayed. I meditated. I abstained from my usual vices of alcohol and cigarettes.

As I visited the altar at night, I was surprised to find what people actually prayed for. At the feet of Buddha lay bags of rice, offerings in exchange for better fortunes. Written on the bags were the honest prayers of desperate people.

Someone had prayed for their father to remain in good health, that they recover from their sickness and continue to live fulfilling and healthy lives for the remainder of their years.

One wished for their daughter to be accepted into a prestigious university, to grant them luck in their exams and admissions.

Another asked for good fortune in their company, hoping that this year would be better than the last.

The next morning, I woke up at the crack of dawn and joined in prayer a missionary who had flown in from Tibet. As he chanted I performed behind him the 108 bows. With each repetition, I would let go of a desire. Did I even have 108 things I desired?

I bowed my head down, lifted my palms towards the sky.

I want to be free of pain.

The chanting continued, the wooden bell knocking a steady but stern rhythm.

I want those I love to be happy and achieve their dreams.

Again.

I want my family to be healthy and live long lives.

Again.

I continued, thinking of every possible desire I could have, trying to find them on the spot, and then found myself too making the same prayers that I had scorned as materialistic. I wanted success. I wanted pretty things. I wanted to afford to travel. I wanted to get nice gifts for people. I wanted to fall in love again. I wanted cherry ice cream. I wanted peace.

We pray for the unobtainable, for long healthy lives and peace from past harm. We also pray for trivial things, like money and success. We are all looking for better lives. We all desire happiness, for ourselves and the ones around us that we love. We all suffer, because that is the nature of living. We are all so small in the end; in this way we are more alike than different. Still, I was left with more questions that answers. If not this, then what?

Maybe religion in general just isn't for me. Maybe in the end I don't really believe in it, or at the very least I don't feel the need to perform it for a deity. Maybe I want faith in something different.

Faith in other people. Faith in myself.

So how do you live?

Honestly, I don't know. I don't have it all figured out quite yet. The gap year hasn't ended, I'm in between shitty part-time jobs, and I'm still on a break from most 'creative' endeavors. But some things are becoming more clear.

Like I said, journaling has helped me structure my thoughts a lot more. I figured some things out. I wrote a list, and of the things on that list, I highlighted one: Stop doing things that make you dislike yourself.

I started exercising again. I started playing guitar again. I started going outside as often as possible. I stopped filling my room with bullshit; you can't take it with you when you die. I diverted my spending towards experiences: concerts, travel, food, gifts. I've cut down on addictions new and old, holding myself to a hybrid sobriety. The only vices remaining are cigarettes, the occasional drink, and ear-shatteringly loud techno on Saturday nights.

Crowds don't feel as hostile anymore, and busy streets no longer seem to be the threat I once perceived them to be. I make an effort to talk, to say something that matters, to have a real conversation with the person across from me, even if I know I'll never see them again. It's not easy. Sometimes I'll fuck up, or find myself slipping back into bad habits. It takes everything to remind myself that a small mistake is just that. I try, because I want to, because I have to.

The world feels impossibly large and daunting. But I cannot make the world a better place if I cannot start by making myself a better person. I am afraid, but I am even more afraid of missing out, of not connecting with others, of not understanding people.

The world is terrible if you let it be.

I've decided to rebuild mine. I build my world with

shared smoke breaks between DJ sets

heads on shoulders on the last train home

drunken calls in the backseats of taxis to long-distance friends

albums full of pictures of people I love

and an iPod shuffle with my favorite songs.

How do you live? We don't stop suffering. We don't stop desiring. We can't cut these things out of our lives, because it is not up to us to decide what we experience or what we feel, only what we can do.

All we can do is our best.