Floundering, purpose, and the pinball analogy
Also: "Leidenfreude" - Does this count as tragicomedy?
Odelia here with Percolations #85. I had a single idea for this post, but it self-populated. Regardless, enjoy.
What comes to mind when you read or hear the word “flounder”?
I’m reminded of (what seemed) long periods of unsuccessful water-treading whenever I pretend to swim — especially that one time when I was in the middle of a small lake by myself and one of the toes on my right foot decided to go out-of-order in a painful, tension-filled manner.
That fighting to keep your head above water while trying to figure out what you should do next and where (if anywhere) you should be headed towards? That’s floundering.
In everything, I’m finding, there lies The Flounder.
(By the way, it’s such a luxury to flounder about, innit, as long as you’re just struggling about and catching enough breaths to stay alive, but not quite literally drowning. Just saying.)
For example, life-sized flounderings might look like the following (you’d see The Flounder everywhere for a month now, haha):
Relationships: It’s in the moments you meet someone new and you both figure out how you should relate to each other from now on. It’s the gradual shift as a client becomes a business partner becomes a friend. It’s the this-or-that game friends-to-lovers play when they couldn’t quite pinpoint whether “being a thing” lies on a spectrum of could-be’s or should be dealt with in black-and-white. It’s the awkward, conflictious shift from seeing your mom as just mom when you were a kid, to relating to her as an adult and friend when you think you’re all grown up, back to just a mother again when she’s no longer able to keep up with and match you the same way she always had.
Learning stuff: When you’re new to something, you’re often so green you couldn’t tell chaterues from lime. You don’t know what you’re seeing, much less what you’re not seeing. Clumsy toes, clumsy fingers, and even clumsier neural transmissions. Floundering as a description is rather kind and gentle visuals-wise, in this context.
Building a body of work: I’m in this stage with writing (and have been since I wrote that submarine novel ten years ago). I am not quite where I am with what I write — that is, what I end up writing is rarely what I mean to. (Save for one novella and one short story, both of which have not been published anywhere yet.) Making Percolations a weekly deal no matter what life looks like means that
somemany of these posts end up being unpolished and off-the-cuff. On the other end, my two YA parkour novels (one’s published, another’s in the works) take their sweet time going through the publishing process, which results in a disconnect between writer-me and published-me. Right now, I flounder least on my blog (and in my daydreams), but I still kick around ineffectually and desperately here and there. I still face the questions of ‘who am I to write,’ ‘why do I write so much,’ ‘who cares about the words you throw together,’ and ‘what good does all these posts do.’ And I still leave them unanswered. Because I’m still just trying to breathe…
Floundering is such a curious state to be in, you see. It’s the lack of an anchor to hold you in place, tell you where you are, and point you in a certain direction.
Sometimes you choose your flounders, as when you take the leap into a field of study you’re unfamiliar with; or, as people around you send you spinning and sputtering when their life changes affect yours; or, as life momentarily becomes unreal over a significant external upheaval which then lets loose upon you a whole different reality.
And it’s not that fun, most of the time. (Unless you’re a weird adrenaline junkie, as well as an overthinker with a masochistic streak…like someone I happen to know…)
It’s unsettling, gruelling, and a little scary.
But it’s also full of what makes life worth living — growth, uncertainty, faith, effort, hope. And if you’re floundering for the sake of someone and/or something you love, then this is also where that love becomes a decision and not just an interest or case of likey-likey.
And remember, as long as you’re floundering about, you’re suspended by water. You’re not touching the ground — you’re above it. Definitions, identities, understandings are being erased and re-written, double-checked and tested.
As Steve Jobs said about one of the bigger shifts in his own life:
“I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.”
The lightness of being a beginner. I love that phrase.1
I think part of me is obsessed with chasing after that feeling — it gets me exploring and learning stuff non-stop. I like the floundering. It’s not pain-free and there’s always the possibility I’d get tired, drown, and never reach the shore.
But that’s part of what makes it thrilling, no?
Besides, floundering doesn’t mean you’re all lost and floppy and failure-like.
I like how someone else once described it:
“Living with less gravity but more backbone.”
You might be flailing around trying to figure things out — but that doesn’t mean you become less of who you are, turn into a worse version of yourself for a while, or lose your self-respect.
As long as you have a backbone — a grounded, honest, and calm understanding of yourself and the world and your principles/values/beliefs, and how it all fits together — could you actually drown? Or more precisely — would it really be that bad if you died trying to be someone like that?
So yes, it’s possible to flounder without losing your sanity and sense of aliveness, or even your thankfulness for the very fact that you have the luxury to flounder.
That’s the mindset I’m aspiring towards.
***
On purpose. (Again.)
“Go find your life purpose,” they say. “Then pursue it with all you've got.”
The trouble is, by its very nature, purpose isn’t something you do or achieve or reach.
It isn’t a goal, or something to find, or attain.
You don’t achieve your why. It simply ignites and fuels the motive energy by which you achieve other things.
(Short thought, but it took me too long to understand it — and to accept it once I’ve understood.)
***
Reality is a pinball machine.
(And we are the rolly thingys.)
My mom once said that life is like a pinball machine — you get started, roll and jolt around like mad, and do your best to get home at the end of the maze.
It sounds rather violent as far as the analygy itself goes, until you take a look at all the ways life slaps you in the face and tears at your heart.
Then you realize that her thought is diluted truth.
Life hurts.
Is it trite, then, for me to tell you ‘don’t take pain all that seriously'?
Maybe.
In any case, it’s more accurate to say this:
You don’t have to take every kind of hurt personally. So much of it isn’t direct right at — and only — for you either.
Go ahead, save some of the energy you’d have had spent complaining and getting mad, and use it instead to laugh and make others smile.
***
See, solo ideas rarely come to me. Oh well.
Also — whoops! — this turned out more like one of those pump-you-up motivational pieces than I’d planned. My ego is cringing, but whatever. I stand behind what I wrote. :)
Keep floundering on, dear ladies and fellas.
And if you feel like it, go buy yourself a Beavertail on Dominion Day and have it all to yourself. (But share your second one with someone. Can’t have any of you starting off a new month on a sugar high then blaming me for crashing later in the week. I don’t recommend that sort of floundering.)
Have a lovely weekend!
Odelia
Quote for the week
“If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.” ― Gospel of Thomas
(Yes. This quote again. It’s been on my mind so much these days…)
This week’s word: “Leidenfreude”
From The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows by John Koenig.
leidenfreude
n. a sense of paradoxical relief when something bad happens to you, which temporarily lowers your own expectations for yourself, transforming a faceless protagonist into something of an underdog, who’s that much easier to root for.
(German Leiden, suffering + Freude, joy. Compare Schadenfreude, joy at the misfortune of others. Pronounced "lahyd-n-froi-duh.)
*** Ah, guess it's a no-go then. One less thing on my plate, One less thing to reach for, One less me to keep tabs on. One more dream forsaken, One more empty crate, One more scabby old sore. Bend, scowl, sniff, crawl on... ***
Snapshots of life
A few snaps from my drop into Florida over the weekend:
Toronto at midnight, July 22/23, 2025:
My favourite boba shop now carries hōjicha lattes and Japanese cheesecakes. Totally made my day!
Been back in the chainmaille studio for some upcoming crafts-and-arts markets.
Give this a peek
This is just so neat (as long as you’re not claustrophobic):
Cool stuff
According to the choices on this site, my design aesthetics tend to be like this, this, and this.
a sampling of images from CARI.institute
An intriguing and exciting (to me) note from this post:
Life notes
I’ve been noting down things and activities I tend to romanticize and exploring ways I could bring them into my reality so that I see them as they actually are. Onwards on my mad journey towards eliminating self-deception and illusions as much and as quickly as I could! Sailing is on the list for July — more on that later. :)
Tried out an online auction for a local estate sale for the first time this week. Gonna pick up my items tomorrow. Is it weird to purchase a small brass cremation urn as a celebratory gift-to-self for completing a death doula program? Maybe, but I find it fitting and beautiful, even if morbid. Memento mori, ya know.
On Saturday, I stopped by a small, non-franchised grocery market less then ten minutes from where I live. Less than a minute later, I broke out into a grin and nearly whooped out loud — they had trahanas and Greek mountain tea! I had been looking for them for nearly two years. They also have the best hummus and peppers-and-feta dip I’ve had in a long time. I’m taking my sister there to try out their pasta salads next week, and then I have their gyros and souvlakis (made and grilled in-store) on my to-try list too…can you tell I’m excited?
Oh, and one more bit of news: I got accepted into my architecture program. :)
I’d be honest. The first time I read that line, I understood “the lightness of being” as a phrase unto itself, much like that book certain literature teachers have on their reading lists.