One of the keys to a happy life is to have your own unique path, your thing, to sense your own beat, your particular way of doing things, and to pursue it and let it evolve. But it is also one of the great difficulties, as it is not very easy to find that path or that unique thing that makes you singularly you. In part it is not easy because of all the noise and distractions from everybody else, the constant barrage of input, and all the ways you're being pushed and manipulated to try to be like others, or like some manufactured ideal of what others are like. Standing around waiting to see what everybody else is going to do is not going to put you on your path. Nobody can tell you what you want to do. You are very likely to find inspiration in what you run into in the world, and who you run into, and things might happen that suddenly light you up. But it is you, all by yourself, who need to notice that. You might get help, but it is solely you, alone in some sense, who can know what your thing is. That typically requires some kind of distance to the rest of the world, or some kind of protective bubble around you, which you need to maintain by yourself. Of course, once you know, and once you have a self-guided way of navigating your own life, then the really fun part starts, of finding others who pursue complementary paths, and of generally going out and leaving your mark on the world. It doesn't work so well trying to do it the other way around, joining one thing after the other, accepting other people's opinions about what you ought to be doing, but not taking the time to actually find out. It is both very simple and very hard. It is hard because one easily can miss the simplicity and make things much too complicated. You don't need a master plan. You do need to shut up the noise in your head, at least once in a while, and then you need to be honest about what calls you on a daily basis, and you need to be at least somewhat willing to follow a path you don't quite know in advance where leads.
