Keeping up with Honey Boo Snookie

I'm beating a farm animal here but let's do it! What is 'normal'?  I'm not normal.  That's an absolute statement.  I was unfortunate enough to be sitting in my den... I think I had pressed pause on  a TLC  program, when I pressed the button to return to "live" TV, there it was.  The show I morally had tried to ignore.   The  scenes that laid before me were unsettling, yet very, hmmmm.... Self-assuring.  My family, as weird and "unique" as they are, including myself, seem so freakin' normal and boring compared to these folks!   We live in the South, but we've never owned a four wheeler, played in mud, or interacted with livestock in any way.
   Why do we watch this shit? I have a theory, and it all starts with those 'hoarders' shows.  My mother has always said my house is not clean... I think it's pretty clean.  BUT, if I watch an episode of 'Hoarders' then I feel like freakin Martha Stewart with an OCD nanny!  So I have absolved myself to the very obvious fact that we watch these shows because we can justify our normalcy.  I. E. "My family is soooo normal cause these guys are extremely screwed up.".  I just want  to say "Thanks" to these people willing to be exploited! Even though I reject the reinforced stereotype of the Deep
South, knowing that these families exist, makes me feel damn good about my complicated family.  As bad as the economy gets, my daughter does not talk with her tummy or sleep past noon.  But why, oh why, must your ratings beat the presidential speeches?  That.. THAT MY FRIENDS, IS OUR PROBLEM.    

The ironic process of finding yourself

If we are truly a 'sum of all of our live's experiences', then how do we ever truly find the definition of ourselves.  The above cliche' is perfect, if you'd like to wait until you're dead to realize that you actually were worth it afterall.  It worked for countless famous artisits, authors, actors... but what about "normal" people? How do we find our self worth, much less ourselves,  while we continue to struggle through the day to day issues life throws at us?  Whether you muddle through your day at the office, or muddle through your classes, even muddle through a long day at home with screaming kids... We all, no matter how self-proclaimed enlightened we are, muddle through our days waiting for a break, an escape, an epiphany,a calling to something greater. When does that happen? What if it never does? What if, I am not one of the important people that never achieve the greatness that comes with "finding life's purpose". Worse yet, what if I don't know or even know how I'm to know what it is to have a calling? to hear it? to find it? What if I miss it? Life speaking--"Oh, Mr. Brown, you were "called", ten years ago, you didn't respond so we moved on to someone else who was smart enough to recognize their purpose, sorry." 

We obviously all have had at least one calling. We all ended up on the same Earth, living our shared realities. We were called to live.  Now, hmmmm. What to do with that? Simple, right? Sit back and experience life. The happiness, fear, loss, sadness, stillness, exhilaration, and the stagnation that we all encounter daily. Could this be as simple as waking up happy, then losing your smart phone while running errands, feeling extreme sadness at the fact that you'll have to spend $500 to replace it--Trying to be still and think back to where you left it, then feeling exhilarated when the grocery store clerk kept it safe for you until you came back to get it?  Yes, and all in a days work.  The disappointment is that we don't realize how truly blessed we are  to be able to experience emotion at any level.  Whether you're in a five year stent of stagnation after an ugly divorce, or sure that you are living the 'best years of your life', or living while experiencing the seemingly endless period of grief and sadness after the death of a family member or friend, you are experiencing life, in all of it's manic depressive qualities.  If we are truly the 'sum of our lives' experiences', then maybe we should concentrate on the experiences and not the sum... Maybe the only way we can fail in life is not to experience ANY sort of emotion. 

**In my job I see dead people everyday.  People who shouldn't have died, that day at least, or so it seems.  After a decade of wrapping them up in white sheets and sending them to the morgue... I can say, from my experience, that no mother cries over their child screaming, "She'll never model ever again!", or "He'll never score another goal". The sadness comes in the true stillness of death.  The realization that there is no more experiences left for this unfortunate person.  No more laughing, crying, loving... So is life purposeful? Or just there meant to be experienced, and only hoping to be realized.  Pay attention to it.  Realize you're living it... try it. It's harder than you think :)