Everyone's always saying, how crazy it is that you work so hard, you work so hard all day and for what? For money to dress your nest with? For health insurance, because your lifestyle wrecks your mind and body? For travel, even when you don't have days on your calendar? No maybe, I got it all wrong. You work for love. You work for that thick and warm feeling of having changed the world, albeit in a small way. Or maybe you work for that crisp feeling of having conquered the world, albeit in a small way.
You also try some other stuff. Write a story. Take language classes. Ring your mom. Head to town for a party with friends. Make a movie. Visit the sick or the aged or the unfortunate. You fill in the empty spaces of your life with things that aren't result oriented. Tingle your sense of creativity, sympathy and empathy, so that you feel less like a robot and more like a creature that can also feel, understand and inspire. Ultimately, you want to create something thats as alive as the earth spinning on its axis. Perhaps you'll find some joie de vivre in the process. Making a life is nearly as difficult as making a living.
This morning, life imitated art and I woke up from my 17 year old self in a dream, into my 24 year old self. My 17 year old self had in turn woken up from my 14 year old self, in a dream within the dream. All my selves were forlorn. Where had time gone? It had gone off, like a loaded gun.
Increasingly, there's a fretful Djinn in me that's throwing tantrums quotidian. It wants out of the office cubicle. It comes up with crazy, impractical ideas- paint, sing, strum on guitar-sitar, dance. It conjures up phantoms of an alternative life, all bohemian and unreasonable, living everyday on a lark. But what will happen once I get to sunny island central? I'll probably start preparing for my GMAT, because my Djinn is monkey wearing a purple turban.
This is 'how to be unhappy 101'. Aim for something really difficult to get. Suffer the hardships through this quest, with eyes on the prize. Once you've eroded irreplaceable bits of yourself in this mad-match and secured the trophy, be self-derogatory, belittle your achievements, decide that you were all along, chasing a mirage. Then embark on a self-destructive, hedonistic barrage all over town. Don't celebrate your victory, because after all, victory is just a matter of perspective. The only thing worse than your prayers being unanswered is having them answered. Of course, you could abandon your project before completion. That's an even better way to feel like shit.
When you accept the senselessness of it all, it makes sense all the more.
The thing that makes life worthwhile, are goals. I came to this conclusion after years of aimlessly wandering across days and days of nothing to live for and wondering what that elusive thing was that made people get up and go.
Having nothing to live for can happen to anyone. It can happen to someone who has everything. It can happen to someone who has nothing. It can happen to the young, to the old. It can happen to the beautiful as well as the diseased, to saints and to sinners. Its a thing, like say, a cold, that cannot be cured, but it can be silenced - by making a to do list.
You also try some other stuff. Write a story. Take language classes. Ring your mom. Head to town for a party with friends. Make a movie. Visit the sick or the aged or the unfortunate. You fill in the empty spaces of your life with things that aren't result oriented. Tingle your sense of creativity, sympathy and empathy, so that you feel less like a robot and more like a creature that can also feel, understand and inspire. Ultimately, you want to create something thats as alive as the earth spinning on its axis. Perhaps you'll find some joie de vivre in the process. Making a life is nearly as difficult as making a living.
This morning, life imitated art and I woke up from my 17 year old self in a dream, into my 24 year old self. My 17 year old self had in turn woken up from my 14 year old self, in a dream within the dream. All my selves were forlorn. Where had time gone? It had gone off, like a loaded gun.
Increasingly, there's a fretful Djinn in me that's throwing tantrums quotidian. It wants out of the office cubicle. It comes up with crazy, impractical ideas- paint, sing, strum on guitar-sitar, dance. It conjures up phantoms of an alternative life, all bohemian and unreasonable, living everyday on a lark. But what will happen once I get to sunny island central? I'll probably start preparing for my GMAT, because my Djinn is monkey wearing a purple turban.
This is 'how to be unhappy 101'. Aim for something really difficult to get. Suffer the hardships through this quest, with eyes on the prize. Once you've eroded irreplaceable bits of yourself in this mad-match and secured the trophy, be self-derogatory, belittle your achievements, decide that you were all along, chasing a mirage. Then embark on a self-destructive, hedonistic barrage all over town. Don't celebrate your victory, because after all, victory is just a matter of perspective. The only thing worse than your prayers being unanswered is having them answered. Of course, you could abandon your project before completion. That's an even better way to feel like shit.
When you accept the senselessness of it all, it makes sense all the more.
The thing that makes life worthwhile, are goals. I came to this conclusion after years of aimlessly wandering across days and days of nothing to live for and wondering what that elusive thing was that made people get up and go.
Having nothing to live for can happen to anyone. It can happen to someone who has everything. It can happen to someone who has nothing. It can happen to the young, to the old. It can happen to the beautiful as well as the diseased, to saints and to sinners. Its a thing, like say, a cold, that cannot be cured, but it can be silenced - by making a to do list.
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ReplyDeletethank you, I'm glad :)
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