What makes everything else seem like petty bullshit?

[Radical Activist]

What in your life, or what event has happened, that has made everything else seem petty and stupid? What makes you not care about the mean thing a friend or SO said to you, about the fancy car you want, about what celebrity just got arrested, or your ambition to do something that suddenly seems temporary and unimportant?

I'm guessing a lot of people might say their children or family. I'm single so I had to think about this. For me, it happens when I remember why I do political and issue-oriented work. Every once in a while I need to be reminded about why I do it. One time Dennis Kucinich said something to me that made me check my ego and remember what is really important. Other times I'll have a victory or loss in something I'm working for and I'm forced to think about the long term picture instead of a short term setback or victory. In the end it comes down to helping other people and caring for others in the short time you occupy a space with another human being. I remind myself that a bum I'm meeting for the first time deserves as much respect as a US Senator I'm meeting for the first time. The Tao te Ching also keeps me centered in that respect.

Anyone else have something they can share?

[datasuspect]

1. knowing that life is fundamentally meaningless

and that death is certain, that we all die alone. that impels me to create, to love, live, cherish, enjoy, give, and share in the short time i have on earth.

[Radical Activist]

that sentiment

sounds incredibly depressing to me. People are inspired by such different things.

[Elidor]

3. Wow, Your post has NO NUMBER!!!

YOU FREAK!

[Radical Activist]

5. Some posts are beyond being defined by numbers

How weird is that?

[Elidor]

10. That is very unusual. You have achieved Zen Critical Mass. n/t

[datasuspect]

4. it's hard to get around

took me the good part of a decade to realize the Truth (at least as it applies to me - and i realize that everyone is different).

95% of the people i run across aren't prepared to face the fact that they will die. it's gonna happen. your body rots and becomes food for maggots. there is no afterlife, etc. etc.

but that is not the most important part.

the most important part is what you do in the short time you are actually here, the meaning you create.

i can't consume anymore, i need to create.

[Elidor]

2. Love and the people I give it to

Other things are small potatoes.

[neuvocat]

6. Death.

I was stuck on a freeway because someone else in my lane couldn't move. It was uphill and it was at night, so you can imagine how much my own survival was on my mind (even worse of course was the possibility that someone else could end up dead if I wasn't careful enough).

[ScreamingMeemie]

7. Watching my husband watch me die.

Or almost die. If it hadn't been for him, begging the doctors to do something, anything...for noticing that my fever had spiked, for checking my heart rate. That makes pretty much everything else a cakewalk. :hi:

[Swede]

8. When I see my neighbour pushing his boy down the street in a wheel chair.

That little boy will never get out of that chair,it fills me with sadness. And all my troubles shrink to dust motes.

[NightTrain]

9. Suddenly finding myself without an income.

I don't mind telling you, that's some frightening shit! :scared:

[Zuni]

16. I know what you mean

I remember a few years ago, I was living in a nice apartment in Baltimore and I lost my job. And then it took me weeks to find something that would pay close to what I had been getting. It was scary---I almost had to move back home

[NightTrain]

17. At least you had a home to move back to!

My parents are both dead and I have no family. There's no safety net at all for NightTrain!

[datasuspect]

18. man, if you don't have any kin

you can come be a squatter over here by me - heat is on, so are the lights.

we don't have tv or furniture though.

i don't think people here would let you fall off the face of the earth.

[NightTrain]

20. "i don't think people here would let you fall off the face of the earth."

That's a nice thought, but uh-uh. After the bullshit certain people put me through last year over my not having money, I wouldn't even think of asking DUers for financial help a second time!

[Zuni]

21. we could take up a collection

[datasuspect]

23. i'm sorry

i didn't know about that.

hmmmm. . .

[NightTrain]

24. My fellow liberals called me, among other things, a shameless beggar.

Nice, huh?

[datasuspect]

26. hey, some people are jagoffs

and mean-spiritedness is never in short supply ANYWHERE.

if i can ever do something to help, please let me know.

i know lots of "urban survival" techniques. i have often lived without an income or an address for months at a time (sucky part is, i've been homeless - literally in the street).

so believe me, i don't apply compassion conditionally.

[Ladyhawk]

22. Sorry. I'm in a similar situation. It bites. :( N/T

[bleedingheart]

11. I nearly died 9 years ago

I had just had a child, and the doctors expected to put me on a heart transplant list...I even had last rites performed.

I enjoy life more as a result of that experience and I don't worry about the material aspects of life...I enjoy the hugs of my children and husband, the sun on my face, the feeling of dirt on my hands as I sow a garden...

[undergroundpanther]

19. Umm here's somethinhg I wrote on this...

Playing around with reincarnation...


The Last Time I Died...

My cat is watching..from her godess eyes
Sitting on my livingroom couch in repose
In my loft apartment downtown.

Suddenly,
I found
I couldn't breathe
I said waitaminute!
But nobody heard me.
Wasen't even sure I heard
me myself,..I
I raised my hand in protest,not yet,
as if it could halt the bullet tearing into brain.

The floor rushed up that day to meet me.
An arc of red runs by
Sunlight shining in through the window
A patch of sky was in my view,
fluffy clouds blow by between drips of red,
It was almost like any other day.

Life unloved feels
like a dirty little window ,when there's nothing worth seeing outside
Why are you are sure it always stays the same,this feeling inside
When you feel the cold set in,even though it's warm,
You realize,even dirty little windows get washed with unshed tears.
Lives go by whether lived or not.They move on.

Stiffining myself as I brace for a swarm ,
bursting myself out of my own heart .
Shades of purple turn to black,ungodly sighs
ichor ,dry cracks through my bulging eyes
as a tuft of hair falls revealing slimy skull
Maggots feast. My cat supposed to be
taken out by a stranger, but she ran away.

A few men came in and rolled out some yellow tape,
Across the door, across the floor, these gay grim decorations.
Took notes and pictures, talked to each other ..masks on.
The dust motes didn't care..the windowsill had nothing to say.
I tried to tell them I was here,but they couldn't hear me
I tried to grab thier shirts to shake them to thier senses
but I just fell through them, I looked into the mirror on the mantel
and saw nothing,I had no way to say..what was

The couch left,so did the mirror, along with people I barely remember.

The old wooden floor whispers of
an outline of my position,in the moonlight.
Now that the body has been taken away,
the tape is gone, the flies have gone,
Nothing here ,but a fading off colored stain,
A weird smell ,dust and empty space ..

Is this what I have become?
Darkness stretches forth,
as streetlamps flicker themselves on
Floating in this room empty,
I'm aloner than alone,
I find I no longer have a home.

So
I follow...
The cat in the window,outside in the alley,
I know her presence from long before.
She knows the way, I follow,
I look at her looking into the eyes of her prey,
Her ivory fangs snap together on a tiny neck,
and dimunitive cries go unheard,blood on the street..
Death comes,and I see myself again,

Death it comes, it always will,
it transforms us away from ourselves,
without making a sound it changes everything.
What is death to those without a soul
to percieve it as it turns to life again?

Moving into a small dark space
I am this spaceless timeless thing,
I can't remember...
I feel throbbing in my ears
Falling? or am I rising?...
Is that a heartbeat..beating next to mine?

I look into my eyes again,
Eternal oceans of green and blue
She loves me into being,
softly purring,like a dream come true
drinking all this sweetness in, I behold
Death has brought me to life again.

[datasuspect]

12. then i think about my 5 year old nephew

born with the worst form of hemophilia. who had to have a port surgically implanted in him because the factor they had to inject in him (like 3x a week) was collapsing all his veins.

and he is a beautiful boy - sunshine, light, and energy.

just a roll of the dice.

makes me very sad.

[bleedingheart]

15. watching children suffer like that is awful...

when my son was ill, we ate in the Children's Hospital cafeteria and I recall little ones who were in Little Tikes carts with IV polls and they were all so ill. Some were permanent residents of the hospital. Shunts, catheters, patches of their little eyes......

makes me cry to think about it.

[DerekG]

13. A movie, actually...

Recently, I saw "Grave of the Fireflies"--the "Schindler's List" of animation. It chronicled the lives of two orphans who suffered under the firebombing of Japan. I substituted those children for the ones who are currently dying in Iraq--under the bombs and shells our taxes fund--and feel more and more inclined to shun careerism and start acting like a Christian, doing something to help the impoverished.

[Jack Rabbit]

14. When my sister died suddenly last summer

I'm still not over it.

[all.of.me]

25. a death puts it all in perspective

when someone near me dies, i'm reminded that all that matters is family and friends. the rest is extraneous. nothing else matters, just people we love.

[yellowdogintexas]

27. my friend who lost a child to cancer (she was 10), our other

friend who had twins and lost one at 3 days of age ( the other one is now 4 years old and wonderful though)
my cousin who died of breast CA at 49

my father's suicide really made me perk up and think about what is most important.

having a kid

[Radical Activist]

28. I knew people would have more profound things to say than I did

Thanks to everyone who posted.