Irrelevance?

 This week has been another rough go.

Not so much on the personal front, although there is not much good to report there.  My maternal aunt that went into the hospital with The Plague has severe brain damage due to the event of her heart stopping during her ride to the hospital.  They removed her ventilator this week and hope to be able to transfer her home for hospice care as it will only be (sadly) a matter of time. My paternal aunt that went into the hospital has also migrated from the main hospital and on oxygen to the ICU and a ventilator with sedation and her children told she will be there "for a while".  

No, my issues have been with myself.  And my relevance in a new and different world.

I have been wandering the highways and byways of the InterWeb because I find myself battling more and more with my own sense of irrelevance in the larger world.  Yes, I know what you will say:  you were always irrelevant in that sense.  And you are right - but my views and beliefs were, I thought, not so much so.

To summarize what my wanderings have taught me, it is that I, my beliefs, my way of life, and my future really have little relevance to the modern world.  Opinions of them essentially range from "Ignore them" to "Burn them all down", but there was very little sense of any sort of value or respect that was indicated.

I do not want to get too much off into the weeds debating those points or their authors in this discussion - that is not really the point of the meditation, other to acknowledge the fact that they exist or are there.  What I am dwelling is the fact that I am simply feeling this irrelevance heavily this week - and the outer World seems intent on doing nothing  but reinforcing that.

If you are curious sometimes, do a search on the phrase "What to do when I feel irrelevant?" or "How do I become relevant again?".  It turns out to be a slightly depressing stroll through psychology magazines and self help columns and commentary.  It essentially turns largely on the ideas that:  1)  You are not really relevant anymore; 2)  Accept your irrelevance; and 3)  You can possibly be slightly relevant if you accept the fact that are irrelevant but are willing to provide your feeble assistance where it fits in to society.

In other words, not a great deal of help there at all.

I do not write this out of a feeling of depression or a need to end it all - neither of those are at play or a concern here.  What is bothersome and I am trying to come to grips with is the fact that in something of a single year I have moved from existing with purpose to having no relevance to add to larger world.   As if experience, education, and beliefs have all been completely set aside.

Perhaps this is a form of that dreaded "Middle Age Crisis" - if it is, I have not had this version of it before.  What is doing is slowly eating away at my sense of doing something - anything - matters.  

It is, as the poet said, all sound and fury, signifying nothing.