Life is Weird. Life is Scary. Now What? | Do We Ever Escape the Wounds that Create Us?
Lessons from the distractions and uncertainties of life…
“Since he has nothing, since he is nothing, he can sacrifice everything.” — Julia Kristeva
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“A reminder to remember: just because the sharpness of the sadness has faded does not mean that it was not, once, terrible. It means only that time and space, creatures of infinite girth and tenderness, have stepped between the two of you, and they are keeping you safe as they were once unable to.” — Carmen Maria Machado
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“Time is the substance I am made of. Time is a river which sweeps me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger which destroys me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire which consumes me, but I am the fire.” — Jorge Luis Borges
Openness without thought is like a blade with no edge: whole, but useless.
Life is weird. Yet, life is interesting. And if I’m honest, I’m constantly afraid. I’m constantly afraid, yet all I can do is distract myself from this reality. What do we have to be fearful of? Well, the countless unknowns in life. The constant need to make decisions in a society that demands you make them. If you make the wrong one, you’re called a failure. If you don’t make them? You’re also called a failure.
A society that constantly tells us to decide; you must find yourself; you must find your path; you must do x, y, and x or your life will be a misery.
And the weirdest part of life is realizing, all that advice, all of those suggestions on distracting yourself…they’re not entirely wrong. If you focus on the doubts of life, all of those uncertainties, they do consume you. Take it from me. It’s only when you find a way to focus on those distractions that can balance out those doubts, the things you’re curious about, that life begins to open up and show you its magic.
It’s not about finding yourself; it’s about creating yourself, constantly.
So be afraid. Be very afraid. But also be brave. Be very brave. Because the only way to live life is to constantly be creating yourself.
Some of our dreams will be crushed. Some of our dreams will be fulfilled. But within the construction and deconstruction, we must continue the process of creating ourselves.
And maybe in the process of creating ourselves while connected to the society we find ourselves in, we can begin changing it. We can begin forming our own small piece of society into our own creation.
I sometimes wonder if the requirement for hope is allowing myself to remain naive. I must maintain the dreams of naive men, as sometimes that’s the only means to keep the doubt at bay, and keep moving forward.
As we find ourselves to be cogs in the machine, we must build our own small machine. And then maybe accepting we just might remain the small cog in the much grander machine.
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