Life As a Free Floating Radical

This morning I envisioned myself as a free floating radical.

A living thing that is drifting through life without conviction. Most of us live this way.

No purpose, no goal, other than to get up, eat breakfast and do whatever is expected of us that day. One, maybe two days a week we get to do what we want to do, but we never have the money to really do what we want to do, so we watch TV and munch on Cheetos Cheese Puffs. There are hundreds of millions of orange fingered people shuffling through life.

I am fascinated by people who have a purpose in life. People who wake up and know exactly what they are going to do and exactly why they are going to do it. Must be a good feeling. I believe that is called living. 

I was sitting in my recliner having these thoughts this morning, in that odd moment when I am done reading and Carol has not come down stairs yet. I often sit in silence and think, or whatever passes for thinking in my embattled and diseased brain. When Carol does come down she'll often say "How you doing, Puddy?" Remember Puddy on the plane with Elaine?

Day off, gotta save my life. But do I really? As a free floating radical, maybe the focus has to be on limited happiness. I probably won't save my life today, and I have to work tomorrow, so I might as well have fun today. But how does that work?

I'm not sure I know what fun is anymore. I don't run in to it often at all. I think I know what happiness is, but is happiness a long-term affliction? Can happiness be on again off again? Happy on Tuesday, unhappy on Wednesday, happy on Thursday, unhappy on Friday? Or is happiness a stable state that you achieve when your life is in order?

Does fun lead to happiness? Or is fun more like an injection of heroin that has to be repeated over and over again as a defense against life, but makes no lasting contribution to happiness?

That's an awful lot of questions. Can't handle this right now.

I think Puddy was on to something.