Hey 3.5 readers. BQB here.
I am filled with ennui.
What is ennui? You might think it’s sadness. You probably think that because the public education system failed you, but that’s another post for another time. If you’re spending any amount of time reading this blog, I already assumed you suffered some kind of failure in life and that’s ok, join the club, of which I am a ranking member.
Ennui is dissatisfaction. Just utter blah-ness, a feeling of purpose-less-ness. I would dare say it’s worse than sadness because if you’re crying, you care enough to feel emotion, albeit a negative one.
On the other hand, ennui is just like, “Meh. I can’t even be bothered to feel any emotion about anything at all because, why bother? Everything is out of our control.”
Seriously. I’m like the protagonist of a French film. Give me a perpetually smoky cigarette, slap a beret on my head, a white and black striped shirt on my body and then I’ll just sit there in a listless manner while I munch a baguette and think about pondering the meaning of life but that would be too hard.
It’s existing but not being or doing. It’s not caring but not out of a decision to not care but rather, due to an inability to not care. That inability could come to many in a variety of ways but for me, it has come from trying to play the game so many times and failing that I am physically incapable of attempting another try at the game so I’ll just sit here in the existential café and smoke and speak in a French accent and say things like, “Sacre bleu, I am riddle with ennui, mon ami.”
Has anyone out there ever suffered ennui? Did you cure it? Is ennui curable? Well, if you care enough to respond, you probably don’t have ennui then. Congratulations.
Bookshelf Battle 
As a licensed Class D driver, I have the authority to tell you that you’re spending too long on virtual pleasures and not long enough on tangible ones.
Here’s a prescription for a romp in the park, followed by whatever sport or activity you enjoy most. This medication must be administered without the constant presence of a cellular telephone.
Ehh, it’s not quite that…sort of. It’s past mistakes of youth that landed me in a giant hole. In the past I comforted myself by thinking there was still time to dig myself out of it but now I’m at an age where I have to realize there isn’t enough time left and I have to settle for life in the hole. How odd life is set up, to be older and wiser but alas, opportunity doesn’t come for the old and when it comes for the young, we don’t know better, or at least I didn’t.
It’s hard. That little voice says fight on and you’ll get to the top but then that’s where what you said comes in. Time might be better spent just taking a walk and smelling the roses, enjoying the very limited beauty of the hole, maybe forgetting about getting to the top and forgiving myself for not getting there and just gussying the hole up the best it can get, put out a vase of flowers and a little sign that says, “Hole Sweet Hole” and just enjoying the hole.
I do start to think this blog and self publishing endeavors might just be making me dream about something that probably wont happen and maybe time might be better spent on more mundane things. It’s hard as that voice keeps telling me to try even though evidence suggests trying gets me nowhere and only works for other people.
That was a lot of ennui.
A lot of that is outside my licensing. 😀 I’ll have to refer to the successful patterns I’ve noticed in others:
1. Work up to a job that pays well and doesn’t have crappy hours.
2. Work on creative, non-lucrative projects in the ensuing free time.
3. Spend time on tangible pleasures.
4. Hook up with someone you can form a true, loving connection with.
5. Find and pursue a life purpose.
There are obviously other career and life paths, but I think many people look at the few who got lucky quickly and get frustrated that didn’t happen. You gotta work.
Also, it’s true that you’re never too old. You don’t have to stay in the hole (though a sign might cheer it up). One of my favorite authors, James Herriot, kept telling his wife about the book he would write until she finally said, “You know you’re never going to write that book.” So he finally started in his fifties. 🙂 Twenties would have been easier; but he didn’t have the time, experience, or base income.
Well when you put it that way, putting it all on hold to wait and see if a novel about a toilet gator makes me a millionaire seems rather silly
Yes, it does. Maybe try a septic tank narwhal?
Who gave you the script for part 4? Security breach! Lol