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It’s funny how certain realizations can creep up on you, and once they are unveiled you will wonder how you had never spotted them before. This applies to a lot of different facets in daily life, for some it may be a revelation about your family, or friends. For others it may be a new perspective on career, money, love, or planning their future. However, one of the most important lessons learned in life is the true understanding of self.
For all the people you know, whether it’s a work colleague, casual acquaintance, family, friend or foe; how many of those people do know on a personal level? Now ask yourself: What is it that makes me want to talk or not talk to those people. What are your common interests, and opposing tastes. What was the origin of you wanting to spend time with this person. And, what is it they see in you? Answering that last question may be hard for some, but possibly the easiest for others.
You see, most people will spend the majority of their life sailing on a constant path. They will stick to what fits and won’t deviate from that design. As a child they will first make friends in school, these are people who may play an important role in shaping the personality of a young person who is not yet an adult, but is in the sculptive stage of becoming a grown human being. Personality traits for a child are something that get absorbed, not learned. The subconscious necessity to “fit in” is a hugely defining part of what will shape a person, but does that mean that succumbing to other peoples ideals and tastes denies you your own distinct perspective?
Hopefully, not! You’ve got to be true to yourself! I can personally say that despite having a spectrum of original characters for friends, i still manage to be an individual without having to castrate my views or personal interests. But that is not to say that people won’t try.
I’m not trying to say everyone needs to be an “Individual”, especially since it has become a clichéd way of someone forcibly trying to describe themselves as utterly unique as possible. Ironically when i hear that phrase being self-applied by someone it activates my awareness of the persons desperation. It’s a desperation I would associate with someone who knows the goal of complete self-awareness, but has become lost in the superficial need for the recognition of said goal.
I feel like i may not be explaining myself as well as i had hoped, so let me just skip some shit and jump to the point.
Life is short, life is tough and you can never get the time back that you have lost. The only two versions of life that are constantly waiting for you are: ‘Present’ and the ‘Future’, and both are unattainable. The Present is gone with ever single second you are reading this very sentence. The Present in which you read this line, is the past for me when i wrote it. And, now that last sentence is your past too. Every Present moment in life is instantly archived to your past and is there to be remembered, but not ultimately to be relived.
The Future? Well that’s just as evasive. It will never come. The Future is something that is constantly out of your grasp. You never arrive there because you are always in a drifting state of Present. Imagine that you are in a hamster-wheel, the Present is that hamster-wheel and you are just running in one direction your entire life looking forward at the never-arriving Future.
It’s pretty shit, right? Well, that’s the point of this block of confusing text. It’s about getting out of that hamster-wheel and taking a little more control of your life. Realise that as much as you know the people around you, you need to take the time to know yourself more. If you’re luck enough to live in a developed nation, you’ll get about 70-80 years on this planet. Which is a minuscule amount of time in comparison to the 4,500,000,000 years that Earth has been around. It’s humbling to put those numbers in perspective. Too many people spend their lives being slaves to the ideals and influences of others, for what? To “fit in”? It’s your life, it’s your time that’s ticking away and you can not let yourself be dominated by failing to live in the way which matters to you.
When you die, the world will go on. People will still be born, the wind will still blow, waves will always come to shore and the Earth will still revolve around the sun (That is, until about 7.6 billion years from now when the star at the centre of our solar system expands and engulfs the inner planets and destroys all life on earth. Look it up!) But hey, that’s even more of an incentive to fucking live!
You’ve got 80 years, don’t waste it.
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Seán Wrenn 