The 'why'

I’ve been kind of running all of the past few years, even sprinting maybe. Now that I’m not running as much anymore, now that I’m just briskly walking through life, I more and more realise that I don’t really know who I am yet. I don’t know what kind of person I am.

What I do know, however, is, albeit in broad strokes, what I find important. I find it important to create things, to be creative, and to solve problems.

To connect that to who I am, I think I need to figure out the ‘why’. Why do I get so much intrinsic energy out of building companies? Why do I feel like I have to get out of bed at dawn every day and work until I don’t have any energy left? And why am I able to find the energy to do those things, but can’t muster the energy for certain other things?

The ‘why’ will get me to the ‘what’ in what I am as a person, I think.

It’s hard to find answers to those questions that feel satisfying, though. The furthest I’ve come so far is to determine that focussing on the things I focus my energy on is just the easiest way for me to fulfil my existential need to do something and be someone.

Maybe there’s no satisfaction to be found in that line of questioning though, and maybe there doesn’t need to be.

There’s something beautiful about the simplicity of just doing things to do anything at all. I guess that’s the plain English version of Sartre’s “existence precedes essence”. There’s no intrinsic essence, you are what you make of yourself.