the "Storm and Stress" of existence...

In my youth, I engaged in many years of
“Strum und Drang” my soul suffered greatly
from my inability to “solve” the questions of
existence…or even my inability to properly
understand the question of “existence”
but today, I don’t suffer or feel the “stress”
of existence like I did for… decades…
why is that?

Part of my youthful failure was my inability to understand
change and what change meant to me personally and
collectively…

part of my failure was my inability to make sense of
my “role” in existence… (not that I know today but today
that doesn’t frighten me like it once did)

the meaning of existence might be revealed to me or not…
and that doesn’t bother me like it did before…
I wanted the “TRUTH” and I want it now… part of my
newfound acceptance comes from my accepting that
fate plays no role and chance plays every role in existence…
this new understanding that we don’t have “fate” but
we do have chance and possibilities… that is what drives
our lives today…and within chance and possibilities lies
another possibility which is choice… we can choose
which possibilities, to some degree, we can choose our
possibilities in existence… but we can’t choose
what I call our “accidental traits” I was born an American,
I didn’t choose that, I was born a man, I didn’t choose that,
I was named “Kropotkin” I didn’t choose that…I am white,
I didn’t choose that accidental trait… I am starting to lose my
hair at 63… I didn’t choose that…

So the question becomes, what can I choose and why should
I make those choices and not others…
I can choose to believe in god or not… I have chosen to not
believe in god… I can make that choice… I have chosen
to be a liberal… I can make that choice…the question becomes
why those choices and not other choices?

I call these the “essential choices” because those choices are
what really determine who I am, not my accidental choices of being
an American or being white, but in my belief or not, in god…
or my belief in being Liberal or not…

The question and it is a question, is what choices do I make
and why those choices and not other choices?

existence for me is not a “truth” an “answer”, but
a question… what does it mean to have existence?
or what does it mean to be an “American?”

I am calm today because I can accept that change is not only
possible and desirable but a necessity of existence… If I exists,
I must change… and that doesn’t bother me… as it seems to
bother others around here…my point about change is that we
shouldn’t allow change to happen to us, but we should engage
with and direct the change that is going to happen… in other words,
we should be in charge of the coming change… we should make
conscious decisions about the changes in our lives… not just
allow them to randomly happen… but actively engage in
the decisions that we are to become…the possibilities in our lives
should come from our own conscious decisions… not from random
actions upon us…

the “Storm and Stress” of existence still reside in me, and about me,
but as I can now make a conscious decision about what it means to me
and react to it, as a choice, not by necessity… means I am cool,
calm and collective about the “Strum und Drang” of existence…

it can rock my world or not, my choice… and that is my point…

I make the choices as to whither existence is chaotic or not…

Kropotkin