Usefulness Leads to Nothing

There are times I feel the world’s indifference to my existence more than others. I never expected the natural universe to become codependent or subservient to my personal wants. I just feel empty of any sense of love for anything at times. I want to interact with something I won’t ever expect to love me nor should it expect to love me in return. I am tired of having ‘strings attached’, because most of the time, I am on being led around by the vast array of tendons anchored to my person by others.

This is the price of being dependable. You become only as valued as your ability to perform. I know this sounds somewhat shallow, but I see the effects of the effort and changes I endure for others and every so often realize that I am nothing more to them than a useful tool; taken out when needed and buried beneath the more popular or pleasing utensils when not, and otherwise, without such specific purpose, forgotten and left to rust. This must be what it is like for someone entering a nursing home to be storaged until holidays or death.

My whole life has been dedicated to one sort of usefulness or another. My father used me like a packmule to cart his tools while training me to be his trophy genius-son. My mother used me to run her stores and earn her some good money, but after that, I didn’t exist. My ex-wife saw me a stepping stone into married society and then, when my usefulness vanished for that end, I became nothing more than a child-support payment and convenient scapegoat for everything wrong with the world. I am the mule-scapegoat hybrid. Send in the crypto-zoologists!

I suspect that some people have actually loved me and I had no idea what to do with that. I do favors for those who ask because that’s who I am and it's also the only way I can be assured of their attention. they don't call me to have fun, just to get the job done. One can assume that my dependability leads people to think well of me, too. I have to stop expecting anything in return or this old man will continue to be disappointed by those who he thinks he can trust with his emotions. I have to stop being angry because of the way others use me. They can’t help themselves any more than I can at this point. Reading this, one can be sure to get a very negative and defensive response from the accused. They can’t imagine themsleves as ‘users’. No one ever does.

It’s too bad and too sad. There are so many thoughts and feelings to sort out. I want to get even with the world sometimes, but I don’t know what that would accomplish. Revenge just isn’t useful and ends up backfiring on the doer. Chas ve shalom I should ever lose my ability to be useful to someone. If that ever occurs, I wouldn’t exist at all! My biggest fear is becoming that 'useless nothing'. I will be found among the other undervalued items and the holders will wonder "Why are we still keeping this around?" That is maybe what nothing feels like.

“You will find that the mere resolve not to be useless, and the honest desire to help other people, will, in the quickest and delicat-est ways, improve yourself.” (John Ruskin,1819 - 1900)

“Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.” (Mark Twain,1835 - 1910)

Kol Tuv