Living Smaller

I was mowing my backyard this evening as Holly pulled weeds. We picked up a push manual lawnmower on trade for a post-hole digger my dad and I used to put in our fence. It was a fun feeling to plow over the grass that had grown a foot high.

Yesterday, Holly, Pax, and I finished tilling the raised beds and planted seeds for various veggies. I didn't really document the process (Holly might have).

And I thought to myself, "What if this is it? Simply tilling the ground and planting stuff for the sake of growing it? For the sake of harvesting it?"

That might sound strange to you, but for someone like me, most everything I do is material. Material to blog about (like I'm doing now). Material to gather to make a case for why my life is meaningful, helpful, of value. It's another way to prove myself.

Part of that is unhealthy, I know, I know. And part of it is my wiring. I'm an achiever, a performer. And that's okay.

But I wondered what it'd be like to just live a small life. Using my own person as a feedback loop instead of looking for digital validation from friends across the world. Proving myself to only...myself.

And I don't know where I'm at with answering the question about it being it. And I'm certainly not interested in you telling me that it's going to be okay or that I don't need to feel that way. Because if you say that, you simply do not understand my compulsion, simple as that. :)

But I will say that I consider more and more the idea of simply living for myself, not for others. That is, trying to save myself, to change myself, to really live for myself rather than always thinking how this might appear to people, how people will understand it, etc. To do something simply because I'd like to, because I want to, not because it toes some ideaology's line.

It's a discipline for me. Yes, becoming human is a challenge for me. Living small, as most of us live, is hard for me. Living human size, without all the hype and success. But I'm trying.