Watched the documentary about Hedy Lamarr last night with Tim. Was absolutely blown away. Left reevaluating my approach to life – too accepting. Too defeatist. Is my life easier than Hedy's? By all accounts, yes. And no wonder – I accept what I am given. I appease others until I can disappear into my own home and mind and activities. (But it is possible that I'm more discontented in some ways than Hedy was. How can I deserve to feel so discontented when I am not taking action? It seems like Hedy took action her entire life.) What I am doing is surfing on the waves of my life. I can't help but feel it wasn't in Hedy's nature to accept and surf. She seems to have been far more daring.
She did not limit her own imagination so that she would better fit in with her perceived parameters of her life. Her life's parameters grew with her ideas and desires.
I also can't help but admire the groundbreaking courage it takes, the absolute self-loyalty, to marry and divorce six or seven different partners. The self-loyalty is the real sticking point for me. Me, with a history of sparing unending amounts of loyalty for others who would not show me the same in return, while I spare almost none for myself.
The self-loyalty, the ability to pivot, and not only the willingness to try new things, but the absolute conviction that she deserved to succeed at whatever she truly wanted. That's some of what I admire most about her. That's what I want for myself, of myself.
Have been in and out of half discontented, half hopeful daydreams all day, trying to imagine what I'd like to pivot into. Can I pivot? Must I stay in this soul frustrating job? Is having a baby and being a mother what I was actually meant for? Is everything else simply a small sideshow? That's not the reality I want. Do I have to have my current career for a long while? How long? Do I ever get to leave this and be fulfilled doing anything that actually matters instead?
Left with the impression that we didn't choose to be alive here solely to get as much fun and bliss out of our physical lives as possible. Having a blissful easy life isn't the point. We aren't supposed to suffer the whole time either. But I can't help but feel like I came here to do something. Something that matters, something to help people, or to fix some wrong.
And here I am, not doing anything like that. It would take severe mental gymnastics to pretend that I am. (Except when we foster cats – that really helps and matters a lot to those precious creatures.)