burning with the inner fire of unbreakable will

when you know who you are;

when your mission is clear and you
burn with the inner fire of unbreakable will;
no cold can touch your heart;
no deluge can dampen your purpose.

you know that you are alive.

-chief seattle

i'm not quite sure what to think right now. when i got off work tonight, i checked my voicemails as i always do. except tonight i listened to several identical messages. all from friends wanting to know how I was in my new place with the new job... said they had read my blog and wanted to talk and catch up, thought i might be lonely.

the quote on my last blog entry is about the dichotomy between loneliness and aloneness. "they're not the same thing you know." 

coming here was a conscious choice: i am living this way purpose. i knew it would be isolating, i knew it might get lonely, i knew it'd be hard as hell. but i took this position after careful contemplation... debating taking a similar job which would have been closer to wilmington and where i could have lived in a larger city. ultimately i decided i wanted this lifestyle and felt called to a more isolated way of living. call it conscience, call it god, call it the universe... but whatever you like to call it, i listened, and it pointed me here. 

ok, so truth be told, i do get lonely sometimes. but for me, right now, it's about sitting with the loneliness and pushing through it to the other side. it's about the entire experience. i think most people are afraid to be alone, and therefore they think this must be terrifying. it's not. it's hard, but it's worth it. for too long i have been either living with someone or was in a place where i had such a large social life that there was little time to spend by myself, to work on my own growth as a human being and self-actualization. perhaps i am simply supposed to be alone right now... my soul is aching to grow, i've got a purpose nagging on my heart to be fulfilled.

life is not about fulfilling desires. it's not about fun or pleasure. life is about purpose. it is about being virtuous and serving others. we all have a purpose on this earth; many of us don't know what it is. moreover, many of us are too wrapped up in hedonistic desires to even have given thought to purpose at all. i truly believe that if one does not have a virtuous mission, then that person is not a contributing member of the human race. if i may be blunt for a moment: without a purpose, one is merely a breathing waste of space.

recently i went through a period where i wasn't actively pursuing my purpose. i won't mention my superficial meaningless jobs here, but in a nutshell i floated from here to there, socializing, networking, galavanting. was it fun? yeah! was it meaningful and fulfilling? no. the funny thing is, that's never been the chantal i knew, but situations and emotions met at a point where it was easy to get taken. surprisingly, i'm glad of it, for it gave me a direct experience by which i can relate to others with compassion and empathy.

i'm in a place right now where i know that i need to have this experience of being alone and isolated in order to grow in a way that will be important later. my ultimate mission is, as it has always been, to serve others. if i'm not doing that in a very direct way, i might as well not walk the earth. if i am not following my purpose, i am merely a breathing shell of who i am supposed to be. in order to fulfill my purpose to help others in a real and direct way, i must confront and process issues within myself. how am i to ever help others face their fears and grow if i am never able to face my own?

so, living life with clear intention, here i stand, alone in a little house surrounded by miles of land under the endless black night sky that looks as if it could swallow me whole. in many indigenous cultures it is said that when you start to live life with clear intention and purpose, that the entire universe conspires in your favor. you will not be harmed. instead, you will be aided along the way by everyone and everything, everywhere. and most importantly, you are never, ever, alone.