Existential Crisis

Who am I? Why am I here? What is the meaning of life? What is the meaning of meaning? What the hell?

As I sit here, as I have for the past month and a half, devoid of all human contact for extended periods of time, I have come to realize that I am undergoing what they call an "Existential Crisis", though I think just a mild one.

Mild or not, sitting around all day pondering 'why' is the mental equivalent of engaging yourself in physical combat. At the end of the day I can feel my brain trying to leak out of my ears.

In place of humans, I have substituted my dog and cat. I regularly have meaningful discussions with my dog that involve talkingrealfast and running around dancing interpretively, only to have him follow me with more enthusiasm than Rosie O'Donnell during Dykes on Bikes. Just the other day, I took a stroll down my hallway, only to spy the black and white beast lounging on the couch, staring longing out of the window. I was moving before I was even aware of the compulsion to jabber nonsense while jerking my arms and legs wildly. Within a second or two, he was dancing beside me, a look of all-encompassing enjoyment on his doggy face.

My conversations with the cat include no words. Instead, we stare at each other for a while, I inevitably blink first, sometimes two or three times, before the cat blinks once, and then she meows at me. I, of course, respond with a high pitched 'meow' of my own, to which the cat replies, "Meow?" Repeat for a while before the cat somehow lets me know by the inflection of her 'meows' that she wants me to pick her up and set her next to her bowl of food.

Do animals have Existential Crises? Do they sit around and try to figure out their purpose? The purpose of everything? I've known a lot of people who have turned to drugs for the answer in my situation, and now that I think about, I would if I could. Is it only humans who are arrogant enough to assume that we even have a purpose other than to, say, destroy the earth as part of the natural cycle of things? Maybe humans are too lazy or afraid to create their own purpose, and just want one given to them? Oh well, people have tried for years to find an answer, but 'why' doesn't make sense in the first place.

Essentially, you are asking "why is" ? You might as well ask "why is blue"...if the question doesn't make sense, there is no answer, and my current, most comforting belief is that people make their own purpose, and right now mine is to suffer is much as possible so that I will never take anything for granted, even simple things like walking around the block. Eventually, I guess I will try and stress this to other people, and get them to wake up/open their eyes/whatever general metaphor you feel like using.