The feeling that real life is over there flowing along, and someday maybe you too will be immersed in it haunts some of us. The truth is that whatever is going on, it is real life. Maybe many of us have some shade of autism in our makeup which makes it difficult or impossible to meaningfully understand the ways of civilization and the rhetoric used to define it.
Phrases like "you just have to go out there and do it" can be very vague and confusing. Go out where and do what? Out there is a tough one. I guess it means outside but I'm not clear on where. How do you know when you are out there, and if you get out there, then what? Maybe when you mange to do whatever living your life means, it will be evident. I don't know.
I've been in that flow a couple of times and it felt very strange. Not bad, just different. I ended up back on the bank every time through lack of a mystery quality or ingredient. Maybe it was that picture of the ideal; what I want, how I think life should be, and what I ought to be doing.
That last bit is another snafu; what I ought to do. It is usually right in front of me, but jumping into the obvious action is not natural to me. It takes fighting some part inside that would rather float on some imaginary cloud dreaming whatever dreams float through. Not a good recipe for lasting relationships or putting food on the table.
If one is fortunate, there will be people around who insist on pulling him down to earth, or at least not let him fly away so far that he gets lost entirely. That's a curious phenomenon when it happens. Maybe the key to arriving in such circumstances is having a bit of purity of heart or at least a desire for a pure heart. I can't think of any other reason that sort of good fortune would be in place.
I know I've not always had the same simplicity of heart and degree of empathy that I have now. Some of the misguided emotion, disregard for feelings, and general wrong conduct in days gone by troubles me at times. I assumed that what I knew was right was wrong, and that things worked in some dark mysterious way that made no sense. If you listen to the wrong things you think that way.
What I see around me may make no sense and there may be a whole slew of false premises loudly broadcast which rationalize it, but that doesn't make a thing right or true. It is better to feel alone and not human than to defer to that which is at odds with the inner compass just because that is what "everyone else" does or thinks.