I am reminded of the nautical term "Becalmed." Of when sailing ships had no wind in their sails - powerless to harness their great bulk and potential to their destinations. How they must wait and pray for a change in momentum.
It must be terrifying to be a sailor. We talk of the "ocean of stars" in space, but the ocean on earth is already so vast to comprehend. I have flown in planes and seen the earth far below in perspective through clouds. But such a marvel is even at such speed as to fold time and space into a manageable package. Flying feels like man has conquered limitations and broken barriers. But it is not always so. Storms are called Acts of God, and can shatter that feeling and remind me of how frail my idea of control actually is.
But this absence of a storm. A quiet. Where there is a forced rest. You know what you want your heading to be, but can't pursue it. Or being in the eye of the storm, knowing that if I stray too far, I will be at the mercy of a whirlwind pacing. I get tired, overwhelmed, and distraught at the notion of potential.
My mother had a mantra in the past that haunts my mind occasionally. "What is the point/purpose behind what you are doing?" And for years, this mindset acted as a prod to my system, the idea that I could always be doing more, pulling knots tight so that my sails maximized the effect of the breezes around me. But I got exhausted and emptied, sometimes not feeling like I had the mental and physical energy to maintain that level of focus and perception of needs. I realize, as a mother, you are ever alert to the needs and nurturing expected of you to train and direct your child's development. And she meant well to direct me to push myself and overcome mental blocks to try to grow my strengths and fortify my weaknesses.
But I have an anxious temperament at times and can work myself into a frenzy obsessing over a minor imperfection to figure out how to solve or work around it. I love fiction because it is contained and orderly, the author being a small god of a world and having to tie a narrative together that makes sense and has a purpose. But that is a luxury few can afford in daily life. It is a comforting illusion that the world will have a greater logic and sense. I have had to learn to hold looser to my idea of how the world needs to make sense to me. So although my mother's question is a noble view of the world, it assumes that the world always has a purpose. And to my idealistic mind, that would be attractive and tantalizing. But like the Greek myths of Narcissus and Tantalus teach, the things you want most are often just out of reach and leave you to waste away with the wanting. So I have had to accept that my mother is not always right in this expectation. And that I shouldn't feel guilty at not always having a greater purpose in small actions. There is a joy to letting go and relaxing control. If I hold onto the string of a balloon, I won't get to have the glorious experience of watching it climb to the heavens. Even in loss there is the reminder of things higher than yourself claiming their dominion and setting your terrestrial existence into perspective.
To return to the point of the world being pointless in its consequences and circumstances at times: I mean, you can point back to the Fall of Man and how the world is suffered imperfection from its natural state. But more than that, I am arrogant to consider that the world should be understandable and comprehensive to my finite mind. Douglas Adams jested in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series about a theory that if the universe was ever comprehensible to a being, the universe would sense this and immediately transform into another iteration that was even more inexplicable, and that some other people had suspected that this second part has already been triggered before.
The law of entropy is believed to be a constant. That the universe is actively decaying into disorder, but there is a strong instinct in life and it's experiences that "order" is the intended state of things. G.K. Chesterton wrote about the "white fence post needing to be repainted and maintained to remain a white post." And control of our environments, both external and internal, is a strong impulse. We feel as if things "should be a certain way." C.S. Lewis leans on this strange instinct in his book "The Problem of Pain" which has proven to be a comforting resource for when I feel overwhelmed by sorting out this feeling, knowing that at least one other person thought about this feeling of responsibility.
It comes down to decency and responsibility to fellows around us. With roommates, there is a loss of total control when committing to forming a community in living space, common resources, and private property. Standards of living differ from person to person. It depends on their perceived level of comfort with how their external perception of how their environment matches their internal metric for "This is how my life should be." When there is a disconnect, it can trigger behavioral changes to correct course. But sometimes, I don't have the winds of motivation or reason behind me. I am forced to pause and reconsider, in the lack of natural solutions, whether I will accept the environment and change my preferences or work against that nature with internal fortitude and sweat to bend it to my design.
And not all battles against nature are worth fighting. I will exhaust myself and wear myself thin of being good company if I insist the world I live in is beholden only to my understanding. I am reminded of Proverbs 3, of having to trust in the Lord with all my heart and lean not on my own understanding, in all my ways acknowledge Him and He will direct my paths.
It comes to laundry, trash, and other chores in daily life. It needs to be done one item at a time to progress towards combating entropy into order when I am overwhelmed by the scope of everything that might need to be done. I can't fix the universe of disorder wholly, but I can set smaller things towards rightness, contributing on a small level towards the tribute to the renewing and remaking of all things.
And so, living among others is a reminder that I must strive to emulate the signoff of Paul to the church in Corinth in 2 Corinthians 13, of trying to live at peace with my brethren and be of one mind in knowing Christ and being perfected together. Though my friends may balk at being greeted with a holy kiss.
