My alarm woke me up this morning. I have it set to the radio rather than a buzzer. I think that it would be great art project to do this every single day, and then write down the first sentence you hear. I digress.

I'm not sure what show was on, and I didn't listen to it for very long, but it was a documentary about a man who was trying to find himself. He said something to the effect of, "I was looking for something, but I didn't know what it was." Then he met a group of First Nations men on a sweat, and he had "a religious experience."

I clicked off the alarm and got up. I didn't have any interest in lying around in bed all morning since I've got things to do today, but as I was puttering around, I couldn't get those few phrases out of my head. I began to wonder about my life, and think about what it is that I'm looking for.

I've got to be looking for something, right? I feel happy these days. I have a job. My body feels healthy, I have a place to live, I'm surrounded by great friends, I have a family that, although crazy, loves me.

I'm not sure if I'm looking for something or not. I think I am because I often get this strange impression that I'm just going through the motions. The days seem to fall into each other and be a routine of excess and boredom. There's got to be something more than that. Life has got to be something other than earning a living, listening to an iPod, checking email, and eating frozen fruit milkshakes. It must be. Though happy, this can't be bliss.

I guess I'm just not sure where I'm going. I should be working hard to find a teaching job, but I am so disillusioned about the profession that I am very seriously considering binning the whole career. I know that the longer I stay at the CBC the longer I will be working in a job that really doesn't challenge me. It was a job I took short term, and the longer I stay, the better the chance that I will never leave. No one wants to work for 35 years in a job that they took simply because it was short term.

I could go back to school, I suppose. I don't know what I would study, and I'm sure that I would do well, but what's the point? Why spend three years earning a PhD and then be stuck with huge debts and the cold realization that you are no closer to finding meaningful work than you were when you started? If I started next fall, I would be 34 years old at the end of it, and that's quite old for a new doctor of nothing important.

Wow, do I ever sound awful in this post. I'm not unhappy at all. I'm certainly not depressed. I'm just in complete wonder at what the whole point of things are. I'm about to go out for a 90 minute run in the blistering heat of late morning and I have no idea why. I'm about to go to work, and I have no idea why. What in the world are we supposed to be doing?

I don't believe in the fairytale life of sitcoms and suburbia. I don't want a picket fence a yard. I don't want to live in a neighbourhood of strawberry-box houses, and people who all look the same. I have absolutely zero interest in having children. I always have enough money to get by, and that's all that I need. What, then, am I supposed to be doing with my life?

I guess I know the answer to my question. I need to do something to make a difference. I need to try to help people and change the world in some small way. I need to change my apathy and luxury into positive change. I suppose that I've always known that and have always wanted to "make the big move" to do something brash and reckless. Hop on a plane and fly to a place far away and start again. Go where people need me.

The problem with that idea is that people here need me. I'm the puppeteer of the family now. I'm the one who needs to be the flying buttresses. I can't just ditch off and abandon my Dad. It isn't as though I have to baby him and supervise him all the time, but I need to be close enough to help out just in case; to swoop in and make everything right again.

So, again, what am I looking for? The weirdest part of this whole thing- other than the fact that this post seems like the ravings of a madman- is that I didn't even know I was looking for something until I was roused out of bed by a radio documentary. There's got to be some kind of reason for it. Coincidence can easily be detroyed by an overrationalizing brain.

I don't know what people do when they think about these questions. Do they make foolish decisions? Do they start feeling like they need to change everything? Do they simply push everything down and do their best to ignore it?

I've decided to play it by ear. I think that I'm just probably over-tired. If experience has taught me anything, it's that things can change in a second, and whenever you don't expect it.