what is the plot?

Lately I’ve started to ask myself “what am I doing here?”  I am back at a desk, far from the exhilaration that comes with a daily venture into the unknown.  I started this “spirit quest” as my wittier friends have termed it, back in August of last year when I decided that I could no longer wait for my life to happen.  Today, while devoting too much time to reading other people’s stories online, I came across this quote on a blog by someone who had set out on a year of travel: “my life has a superb cast, but I can’t figure out the plot” (Ashleigh Brilliant).  Perhaps owing in part to my blogosphere induced haze, I felt as though my reality had leapt up off the page – this is exactly what I feel like most of the time! As though I am constantly searching for the plot in my own story.

 

Naturally this inspires a lot of questions in me: why is it that I feel like I don’t know the plot in my own life? How should I go about finding it and then what should I do with it?

As my yoga practice has fallen substantially off the rails, I cannot answer these questions.  It occurs to me that instead of figuring out the plot I’ve been spending a lot of time checking out potential locales, testing travel equipment, sampling the meals that will be eaten by the characters and so on.  I’ve went around the world seeking additional cast members, auditioning for both supporting and leading roles.  All the while, I’ve captured images (in pictures and in writing) to aide my memory when the story is eventually told.

In the process, surprisingly few people have asked what the story they are participating in is actually about.  Likewise (and fortunately), they seem equally uninterested in what the protagonist (myself) is ultimately set on doing.  Unequivocally, the cast I’ve assembled is superb.  Isn’t that a feat in itself? Which brings me to an (I think better) question about the plot – should I care?