Catharsis

I’m convinced that I won’t ever be happy or become enough for everyone. But I also learned that happiness is not a destination. If there is more to life than the pursuit of happiness, then it’s the search for meaning.

On the other hand, I am also convinced that my existence is not meaningless. Yes I know that all lives in the universe don’t have to have a meaning at all. But self worth is not something we beg from the others. It is not the acceptance from other people. It is the concept and appreciation that we have and give to ourselves for everything we achieve.

We do what we do because we feel good doing it. For some people it could be their day to day jobs or hobbies or taking care of their families or pets. For me it’s making music.

Making music on my laptop is somewhat an egocentric activity. But so is reading books, watching movies or drinking our coffee. We call it catharsis, which means something we do to relief ourselves from repressed emotions. But when I share this music to the others, just like letting other people eat the food that we cooked, it’s no longer an egocentric activity. We want to feel connected to the outer world.

I am quite hard on myself everytime I make music. I want to give to the world something that is uniquely me, even though it’s only in a little minor detail. I want to add something new to the long history of music with all its masterpieces from the past, not only repeating what the others do or already did.

But I know so well that when my music is out there, I no longer have any options but to let a piece of myself layed bare for others to enjoy AND to judge. And with my own self, I am trying as good as it is possible to accept the fact that I won’t be able to impress everyone.

I want to make better music and I want to become a better person. And it is very easy to lose grip when we always compare ourselves to the others. I know how depression feels like and it’s mostly because of this.

The feeling that we won’t ever be enough for someone else is something that we have to accept. But losing sight of our own self worth is the fastest way into a powerless state of mind, and that’s how depression slips in.

There is no easy way into self acceptance. So happiness is never a destination, instead it’s in the way we prove to ourselves, not to the others, that we can reach higher and better in whatever we feel we can do our best at.