At The Catalina Wine Mixer, our party to which none of us invited friends, we drank wine in our nice clothes and played Crazy Eights. After chatting fine wines, classical music, and just how ‘crazy’ an actual ‘eight’ might be, boiling cob corn and throwing the decorned cob on the roof of the apartment across the alley, and capturing a few of the moments with the camera, the topic of ‘purpose’ came up. Some felt like they knew their purpose. Others felt like they were without it. And I stood there silently, as per usual, thinking about something I have been thinking about for a long time.

Ever since I figured out what a defeatist was, purpose has seemed inconsequential. Since youth I’ve been told by people, mostly my mother, that I needed to change my attitude. I am the one telling myself to do this now, but it is rarely as easy as ‘opening the lights’ or ‘putting on the power’ to an electrical device, and I really don’t know what the logical, progressive steps would be. Giving up on giving up I guess. But since last year, purpose hasn’t been around, and I’ve just been boldly living like I’ve never lived before: selfish and semi-mindless, but almost on purpose, because I don’t know what else to do. Without purpose, temporarily, on purpose.

But purpose might be found in a book, or in a classroom, or in a blog, or in a simple Wine Mixer. But it is not found in my everyday cynicism. But right now that might be all I’ve got.