ought

I don't honestly know the use of trying, except for the lack of alternatives which are actually alternatives, and the chance of helping someone whose heart hasn't given up.

In the past day or so my thoughts have hovered around the fact that my reason for existence seems to be a combination of indulging a handful of what I think are relatively modest desires, an essential clinging to immodest and improbable dreams, and a sense of obligation to be of use, to relieve suffering in compensation for that which I inevitably cause, a moral compulsion which I am unable to kill despite a long-lived resentment for those things that have been done to me for which no apology or comfort is ever likely to come. I wish I could kill it, or else find a way to sacrifice the desires instead, as well as the one or two dreams which make drastic life choices less appealing because of what doors they might close. I cannot shake the burden of what seems to be conscience, and I don't know exactly what to do with it, either. No amount of reasoning successfully convinces me that I ought to do anything other than everything I can, though the demands of making a living and the wealth of frivolous distractions my comparatively privileged life provides do a good job of muffling the voice of the moral imperative.

When I have my own attention, though, and distractions have temporarily failed, I know clearly that I do want to answer that voice with an unequivocal yes. The troubling question is whether I have anything of value to offer- how to decide what to offer- and how to educate myself so that neither it nor I am wasted. I don't know how to make that determination yet.

It's so late, and I've lost an hour more than usual. Would write more, but must go to bed in order not to guarantee myself a foul mood and a headache to take to work.

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