You Can Either Sink or Swim

So this generation that we're in...a little intense right? But we all go along with it. We all add to the intensity and the drama that our lives revolve around. Who's to say that our younger selves would look at who we are now, and point and say I KNEW IT. None of us really expected ourselves to be where we are now, and by this I mean....what the hell are we doing with our lives? It's something we all avoid thinking about, simply because we have no idea. Are we all lazy, or is the world around us just corrupted and crazy?

 I feel as if as the years go by, we are simply reproductions from our originals. When reading Benjamin's The Work of Art as the Mechanical Reproduction, I can't help but to think of myself and everyone else as just a piece of "work" what is a reproduction from the original. Of course, things change over time due to the circumstances and the context of things, but we adjust to things and like pieces of works, we are basically reproductions from the innocence we were born into, who mold into the life thrown in front of us. And that life that I'm referring to isn't so innocent. It's survival of the fittest out here, and we strive for perfection, all of us, which is not necessarily a bad thing...until you aren't the person surviving. 

So, when I ask myself what am I doing in life, isn't the answer for everyone: "What I think I should be doing." And then we hope and cross our fingers for things to fall into place...

No Stomach for Depths

I stood there on the top of the building, looking at the face in front of me that was scanning mine for answers. I was looking past their head and over their shoulder at the city that was going on with their business behind us, all while this happened. I did not know what was going to happen next or what tomorrow was going to be like. But, I felt trapped in a bubble that I couldn’t even call my own. I was trapped in someone else’s bubble. I heard voices and cars around us, something they clearly did not, or at least pretended not to hear as they stood in front of me continuing to wait for words to come out of my mouth.

I was warm, my palms were sweating and my face was red. The person standing in front of me suddenly became a crowd of people, and inches away from me appeared a podium and a microphone. It was my time to let it all out for everyone to hear, to make my impression. The audience’s faces showed they were hungry. The snarling, gnashing of the teeth led me to believe they've been long deprived. But no words came out, and my moments were passing. I choked. I couldn’t say what I wanted to say, or wasn’t even sure of what I wanted to say. The crowd that had been looking up at me was gone, and looking around I stood alone with solely the company of my own silence and I didn’t know whether to cry or to be relieved.

Wednesday's Calm

I closed my eyes, listening to the crashing of the waves onto the boat and the sound of the motor as land became solely a speck in the distance. There was other people on the boat with me, but it was almost impossible to hear anything even if they did want to talk. It was only a Wednesday, but we were acting as if it was a Saturday, an unexpected vacation. In the distance, I saw a pair of dolphins emerging from the dark sea below them, gasping for air. The sky was blue and clear, but it was still early enough so that the sea ahead of us was calm, as if it hadn’t woken up yet. The waves began to crash in a certain rhythm, making it almost impossible not to enjoy as it created its own soundtrack. The boat made a sudden stop, and we all stood there surprised and waiting for an explanation from the man standing behind the wheel. We all turned to look back at the smoke that was creeping out from the sides of the motors, and we all resumed our positions and got comfortable as we stared out into the open waters around us that would temporarily be our home.

“There is no use being alive if one must work. The event from which each of us is entitled to expect the revelation of his own life’s meaning - that event which I may not yet have found, but on whose path I seek myself - is not earned by work.” ~Nadja, Breton

Wing It

I thought I had a good sense of who I was and what I wanted, and it was enough just because it had to be. Winging it, was what I told myself I was doing. Settling into a place where I was forced to live on my own, I had been counting down the days for a moment like this, and my pride wouldn't let the loneliness get the best of me. I would sit in a new city that was full yet so empty and drown out the thoughts that would make me worry. I would throw up a smile and practice my lines of meaningless conversation, because I had to, and it was what I wanted. I explored a campus with a pool of unknowing and seemingly unfriendly faces, but with my arms open.

Randoms. Check. It was something you were supposed to think about and consider when you signed an apartment. It was something you were supposed to discuss with the people patting you on the back and cheering you on as you made that decision. Looking around, I sat alone. Check. I fidgeted with the pen, but only after I made that check and continued to smile. The key was handed to me and I walked over to building 1. I unlocked the front door, peering in and getting in return the first smiles I had seen all day.

Walk Around Aimlessly Without A Plan

What I've learned is that you can't plan out everything that happens in your life. We worry too much about mystery and try to spend our lives figuring out the unknown without remembering to take in the beauty that's right in front of us. What ever happens is meant to happen, regardless of anything you do to try and fight fate. I spent my summer in NY, waking up and having a full day of exploring a city that was completely unknown to me. I remember once walking down into a subway station with my headphones on, and got on a train that was headed uptown, opposite of where I was going. I didn't attempt to get off, but simply leaned back and let the train take me wherever, and it was the most at peace I've felt with myself in months. No service on my phone, I just observed those in a hurry to complete the next task on their lists, without a worry in the world about what my next steps were. Spending my days not knowing what was going to happen next in my life and being frightened yet excited is something that everyone should experience, and something people sadly forget to. We can't be so afraid to experience the unknown, something we have absolutely no clue about, and to just walk around aimlessly without a plan.