indifference

Walking around LL Bean today reminded me how I wanted to hike the Appalachian trail - if not all at once at least in bits and pieces.  I bought a map, had a plan to start the New England sections.  I wanted my "style" to be granola - outdoorsy - hiking, kayaking, white water rafting - always outdoors in my free time enjoying nature.  It was a few years ago and I had all but forgotten about that version of myself I had imagined.  I always tend to imagine myself - my persona - as an extreme rather than a moderate version of anything.  I take something that I like and try to imagine taking it to that level of passion that I envy in others.   I would love to be my friends that are driven - well by anything really.   It is so easy for me to dismiss and invalidate anything that is not a now thing.  I cannot maintain the desire and drive for anything really long term.

Perhaps it is just my natural persona that I never developed hobbies or interest in my life.  I am at a master at being able to let go, but I am not so sure I am able to hold on to anything.  The interesting thing to me is that I actually have a great deal of passion inside me but I am unable to focus it.   I get lost between the thought and the execution and just move on to the next thing that seems it would be something I should do.   I do admire those with strong passions and long to feel the things they feel that get them through the difficult part to get the results to become the person they want to be.  Is it laziness?  Is it a reaction to my childhood and life?  Why do I have things that I think I want to do or should do but I do not have anything that makes me jump up and down and worth the effort.  Maybe is it a weakness in putting in the effort so I mute the desire as an excuse not suffer.  Do I avoid suffering to the point that I suffer from it?  

One Art
by Elizabeth Bishop
The art of losing isn't hard to master; so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster. Lose something every day. Accept the fluster of lost door keys, the hour badly spent. The art of losing isn't hard to master. Then practice losing farther, losing faster: places, and names, and where it was you meant to travel. None of these will bring disaster. I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or next-to-last, of three loved houses went. The art of losing isn't hard to master. I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster, some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent. I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster. --Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident the art of losing's not too hard to master though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.