Day 141: what are we doing?

Today various people have been agitated, stressed, bothered, whatever. I have been feeling fine as usual, with pockets of standout happiness, appreciation of life, satisfaction with various things that have been going on. Blerk. Yip. That seems to be my reality right now. I am regularly feeling contentment with many aspects of my life. But I also hit a patch of boredom. Not of the I'm having a slow day variety but more of the what on earth are these little routine lives we're all living actually about kind. It's like, here I am happily doing my job, exercising of a morning or evening, doing my singing practice, going to parties, shopping for clothes, writing my blog, going to movies, planning holidays, but where's it all heading? A lot of the things I've just listed do give me plenty of satisfaction, but... sometimes I just feel like I am living in a bubble that is just below the surface of the amazing reality of what life has to offer. In my mind's eye (and on TV and in movies etc) life promises huge, exhilarating possibilities and experiences. But who's living them? Are you? Or am I missing the point? It's true I haven't experienced what it's like to become a parent, and I've heard that's pretty perspective-altering. But is life about big amazing moments, or is it about the tiny pleasures of just being? What started me thinking about all this, was that I calculated my remaining days off the piss. From today I have 224 days to go. And then I will be allowed to drink again. But what difference does that make? Am I supposed to sing from the rooftops because I can reacquaint myself with western society's favourite passtime/distraction/sorry excuse for entertainment? Whether I drink or not has absolutely no bearing on what my life contains. At its core, my life will be equally as interesting or as boring with or without a drink in my hand. And the vision of everyone running to their nearest pub, wine bar or bottle-o every time they want to have fun just kind of depresses me. Are we so boring that that's all we can think of to do? Could it be that the reason we all drink so much is because we're leading lives that are largely empty? That we use alcohol not just to fill the holes but to block them out as well? But then, not everyone does drink a lot. Could there be a correlation between fullness of life and emptiness of bottle? (Anyone know an idle scientist looking for something to study?) Hmm, lots of questions, none too many answers. And while I'd love to stick around and work some out, I'm afraid I must dash. Pondering life is indeed entertaining, but sometimes a little getting on with it is also required.