broken machines

"Maybe that's why a broken machine always makes me a little sad, because it isn't able to do what it was meant to do... Maybe it's the same with people. If you lose your purpose... it's like you're broken." Brian Selznick, The invention of Hugo Cabret

Sometimes we feel like broken machines. Except that for machines, it’s straightforward: you know exactly what a clock is supposed to do, what a car was built for, what a microwave does. Machines have a clear purpose. And when they break, we just replace the defective parts.

People, now that’s a whole other ball game. Are we supposed to just know what our purpose is? I watched a very interesting video yesterday, which was an illustration of a lecture by Professor Renata Salecl. She was talking about the overwhelming anxiety created by the endless choices we have. I’ve written about this before, in the “Paradox of Freedom” [funnily enough, Prof. Salecl's lecture is called the Paradox of Choice]. I, for one, am the first to admit that the vast amount of choices available out there is paralyzing. I don’t know what to do with myself. And the mere idea of having one purpose and finding it –now that alone can leave you anxious for a lifetime. What if you spend your whole life looking for a purpose instead of living?

There is this idea that anyone can “make it.” That we can all become that one person who is the best –or at least who is famous for being good at that something. You can now be the unbelievably smart person who decided to create a twitter account for @AngiesRightLeg and have 50-thousand people following you overnight and journalists and bloggers mentioning you in every other article. A twitter account for @AngiesRightLeg. Now that’s purpose.

I have always been a victim of choice. When I was a child, even a teenager, I wanted to be an award-winning actress. I wanted to be famous. I wanted to walk down the red-carpet. And when I watch the Oscars every year, part of me still wants to be that. I look around at the crowd gathered, the Octavia Spencers and the Jean DuJardins, who last year were considered nobodys, suddenly becoming superstars. Anyone can make it, right? But what is it we want to make? I want to do humanitarian work. But I also want to be a writer. And I want to be an actress. And, one day, I want to be a mother. I want to live in Beirut. I want all the cliché advantages of having your family and friends close by, living an easier, bubbled life. And I want to live in Rome. Far away from inquisitive family members and in a vast, open culture. And I want to live in San Francisco. And in Thailand. And in Barcelona.

But now everyone has the same choice. You’ve got self-made men and women everywhere you look. You have a Masters degree and that’s good for you but there are hundreds of thousands of other people who have the same exact degree and the same qualifications and it’s up to you to put yourself out there and find your own unique little thing that will make you shine over everyone else. Or maybe it’s just a little bit of luck.

And then we wonder why so many marriages end in divorce, so many relationships end up in the gutter. To me it makes perfect sense. How can we actually expect anyone to stay in a committed relationship when you always have the choice to be with someone else, someone prettier, someone thinner, someone richer, someone just plain different. If you always have that choice, why would you settle?

And where does that leave us? Dissatisfied.

My Parisian told me yesterday: happiness shouldn’t be in a goal you set for yourself. It shouldn’t be achieved. It should be found in the moments you have all the time. In the lines of a good book, in a glass of good wine shared with friends, in a laugh, in a kiss, in a breathtaking scenery. Otherwise, there is no purpose at all.

There’s no point in thinking “I’ll be happy when I get a promotion,” “My life will make sense when I leave this country,” or “Things will be better once we get married or have a child.” Living in the idea of a future that could make us happier is not living. It’s waiting. And then "choice" has the opposite effect of what it was meant to be: we feel trapped. Just like Oscar Wilde said: “To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”