'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.
Everyone's heard that saying at one point or another. It's frequently tossed out to comfort a newly single acquaintance, usually paired with the equally eloquent "There's plenty of other fish in the sea." To those that have spoken this line in the context of relationships, if you believe it, you've never felt love. I understand what loneliness can do to someone, how it can feel not having a counterpart by your side to progress through life, lift you up when you're down, and other cliches. But I can say for a fact, from personal experience, and from observing others, the feeling of being sans love is nothing compared to finding that love, and then losing it. It's not possible it can come close. Even if you take a person that is so lonely they're hopelessly depressed; if you were to give them love, and then take it away, they would sink into unimaginable depths.
Everyone has experienced loneliness. No one has their perfect match throughout their entire life, we've all been jealous of seeing the popular couple walk around school/the neighborhood/elsewhere and wondered why it couldn't be you. It's not easy, but it's not an impossible feeling to deal with. It's always there, but you manage to go about your daily routine sans interruption. But having that perfect level of happiness, knowing that no matter how bad your day was, you'll have that someone to talk to, there'll always be that person that won't turn on you, is one of the most amazing feelings in the world. And getting accustomed to, and then losing it, is an emptiness I would wish on very few people. The only way that I can describe losing love is being eaten alive from the inside. Of course, the common metaphor is your heart breaking. But it goes far beyond that. The normal routine you'd been accustomed to, having that person there to talk to or see, all of a sudden has been turned on its head. Your mind doesn't know what to do, because usually when you had a problem or something to talk about, that was the person you'd talk to. It's also the only thing you can think about. You wonder what caused it, did you make a mistake somewhere, did you take something for granted, what was the cause, and how can you redeem yourself? Everyone tells you it's best to move on, but you can't. Your body, your mind, they aren't ready to move on. You'd prefer to take a million steps backwards to fix the situation than to take one step forwards and move on with your life. You stop eating, you stop caring about anything else. You don't see your friends, you don't talk to anyone, you become a literal shell of yourself. Everyone on the outside sees you, they see a person standing there, the person they recognize from so many memories. But inside, you're hollow. The biggest part of your life just up and disappeared, and you don't know how to react. It's a swirl of emotions and some people get through it, and some don't. But trust me when I say that if you're still waiting for your first love, you're better off.
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Life or something like it
Life. We all know what life is, but can we really give it an accurate description?
1. the condition that distinguishes organisms from inorganic objects and dead organisms, being manifested by growth through metabolism, reproduction, and the power of adaptation to environment through changes originating internally.
Ok, there's the literal, scientific definition. But think bigger.
3. the animate existence or period of animate existence of an individual: to risk one's life; a short life and a merry one.
Getting a bit closer, let's try it once more.
11. the course of existence or sum of experiences and actions that constitute a person's existence: His business has been his entire life.
There we go. We are all alive, we all experience life in our own ways. We're told that a person's goal is to make the most of their life. But what exactly does that mean? Every person or group has their own take on the meaning of life, from the various religious aspects(getting into Heaven, getting a bunch of virgins, Xenu) to the more simplified version(there is no afterlife, so do what you can, while you can). But there is no universal goal that every single one of us strives for. The reason for that? Life doesn't matter anymore.
Since birth, your parents are going to pound this idea into your head: Your goal is go to school, go to college and get a degree, and get a job that pays you a lot of money. Once you have accomplished those steps, you are now considered a "success". But why exactly is that? Why is the bar set so low? The average lifespan for a human in the United States is typically in the mid to late 70s. Yet this goal, the degree, the job, this can all be achieved by the time you're 30. So what kind of world is it when we're not expected to have ambition beyond the first 1/3 of our life? The long and short of it is, from the second you escape the womb, your clock is counting down. At some completely random point in your future, you will die. It could be 80 years, it could be 80 weeks. In theory, knowing that your time could be up at any moment, shouldn't you be trying to accomplish as much as humanly possible with your time?
The fact is that outside of a very, very, very small percentage of people, the life you live won't matter. I'm not trying to attack people or bring them down, but for the most part, your accomplishments, whatever they are, will not outlive you. When your day comes and the clock runs out, that's it. That job that you were so good at, that your boss loved you for? They'll hire someone else. That house that you saved up for years to buy, designed just the way you want it? It'll go back on the market for someone else to buy. It's like (and I'm not trying to make pop culture references here, but it fits) William Hung, girl x from the Real World, etc. When they get their 15 minutes of fame, they'll do all sorts of things to stay relevant and get attention. But once it runs out, no one will care. No one's going to lament the void left by the Numa Numa guy. Life is the exact same way. And the reason for all this is the fact that humanity as a whole is spoiled. Looking at life centuries ago, nothing was guaranteed. Life and survival had to be earned, there was no middle ground where you could just make enough money to get by and stop. You either strived for the best you could be, or you lived in total poverty and usually wound up dying rather quickly. But today? The instinct we had is gone.
When America was first formed, the early leaders had this idea of Manifest Destiny tattooed in their heads. And it wasn't a short-term thing, they were determined to stretch across the land "from sea to shining sea". And it definitely wasn't fast, it took a few decades, but they accomplished it. Fast forward a few more decades, and we're sending rockets into space, a place that had always been there up above everyone's heads, but we never imagined we'd reach. Then in 1969, we put a man on the moon. Common sense would have you think that it'd be the tip of the iceberg, but here we are, nearly 40 years later, and that's as far as we've gone. In fact, we haven't even been that far since 72. Apparently there is no interest in anything else out there. "We'll we've seen the moon, what else is there?" A light year is the distance that a beam of light can travel in a 365-day span, approximately 5.8 trillion miles. A gigalight-year is one billion light years. Now, we know that there are other galaxies and objects in space as far as a gigalight-year away, and the visible edge of the universe is 46 gigalight-years from Earth. So realizing that this tiny spinning rock makes up such a microscopic, negligible, minuscule part of the universe, you would think that there would be some sort of attempt to see what lies beyond. But alas, no. I mean, yes there are scientists who study this, hoping to find a break, or find some way of making it feasible and possible in the near future. But everyone else? You can ask people on the street about their hopes for space exploration, and they're probably say they're more concerned with what's going to happen on Grey's Anatomy.
So why are so many people content to just follow the blueprint? It's hereditary. You're going to have person A, who is told that the school-college-job formula is the definition of success. So they do it, meet someone, start a family, and pass on the blueprint. Instead of completely stimulating a child's motivation, telling them that literally anything and everything is within their reach, we're just telling them "Hey, this worked for me, why don't you give it a shot". When you get the child that wants to go off and do their own thing, to actually follow their dreams, they often become the family's black sheep. Instead of being supported and lauded for actually pursuing something they love, trying to find that balance between economic success and happiness in life, they're viewed as an outcast and branded as a failure-in-waiting. Creativity and a desire to actually change the world are viewed as negative character traits, and applause is reserved for the ones that walk in previously laid footsteps. And anytime someone does wind up doing something unique? They are immediately swarmed with parasites, and you'll see countless carbon-copies and clones pop up, trying to ride the wave of success.
I hate to quote Hatebreed here, but the title of an early album is Satisfaction is the Death of Desire. And that's the problem we face. And while it's partially because we're reaching our level of satisfaction too early in life, the main cause is the definition of satisfaction that we're being given. We as a people need to never be satisfied. Complacency is letting your guard down. Once you stop believing that you can fail, once you believe that all is well, that's when things will go South. I mean, if you feel that you've accomplished your goal in life, why stick around? You're going to spend the next 40-50 years wasting space. You don't have 30 years to stimulate your mind, and 50 years to live the same exact routine. You have an entire lifetime, no matter how long or short, to fully exert yourself mentally and try to actually make an impact. So do it. Whatever is in your heart, no matter how far-fetched or impossible it may be, shoot for it. Drop everything that would be a roadblock and pursue your own happiness.
I say, let me never be complete. I say, may I never be content.
1. the condition that distinguishes organisms from inorganic objects and dead organisms, being manifested by growth through metabolism, reproduction, and the power of adaptation to environment through changes originating internally.
Ok, there's the literal, scientific definition. But think bigger.
3. the animate existence or period of animate existence of an individual: to risk one's life; a short life and a merry one.
Getting a bit closer, let's try it once more.
11. the course of existence or sum of experiences and actions that constitute a person's existence: His business has been his entire life.
There we go. We are all alive, we all experience life in our own ways. We're told that a person's goal is to make the most of their life. But what exactly does that mean? Every person or group has their own take on the meaning of life, from the various religious aspects(getting into Heaven, getting a bunch of virgins, Xenu) to the more simplified version(there is no afterlife, so do what you can, while you can). But there is no universal goal that every single one of us strives for. The reason for that? Life doesn't matter anymore.
Since birth, your parents are going to pound this idea into your head: Your goal is go to school, go to college and get a degree, and get a job that pays you a lot of money. Once you have accomplished those steps, you are now considered a "success". But why exactly is that? Why is the bar set so low? The average lifespan for a human in the United States is typically in the mid to late 70s. Yet this goal, the degree, the job, this can all be achieved by the time you're 30. So what kind of world is it when we're not expected to have ambition beyond the first 1/3 of our life? The long and short of it is, from the second you escape the womb, your clock is counting down. At some completely random point in your future, you will die. It could be 80 years, it could be 80 weeks. In theory, knowing that your time could be up at any moment, shouldn't you be trying to accomplish as much as humanly possible with your time?
The fact is that outside of a very, very, very small percentage of people, the life you live won't matter. I'm not trying to attack people or bring them down, but for the most part, your accomplishments, whatever they are, will not outlive you. When your day comes and the clock runs out, that's it. That job that you were so good at, that your boss loved you for? They'll hire someone else. That house that you saved up for years to buy, designed just the way you want it? It'll go back on the market for someone else to buy. It's like (and I'm not trying to make pop culture references here, but it fits) William Hung, girl x from the Real World, etc. When they get their 15 minutes of fame, they'll do all sorts of things to stay relevant and get attention. But once it runs out, no one will care. No one's going to lament the void left by the Numa Numa guy. Life is the exact same way. And the reason for all this is the fact that humanity as a whole is spoiled. Looking at life centuries ago, nothing was guaranteed. Life and survival had to be earned, there was no middle ground where you could just make enough money to get by and stop. You either strived for the best you could be, or you lived in total poverty and usually wound up dying rather quickly. But today? The instinct we had is gone.
When America was first formed, the early leaders had this idea of Manifest Destiny tattooed in their heads. And it wasn't a short-term thing, they were determined to stretch across the land "from sea to shining sea". And it definitely wasn't fast, it took a few decades, but they accomplished it. Fast forward a few more decades, and we're sending rockets into space, a place that had always been there up above everyone's heads, but we never imagined we'd reach. Then in 1969, we put a man on the moon. Common sense would have you think that it'd be the tip of the iceberg, but here we are, nearly 40 years later, and that's as far as we've gone. In fact, we haven't even been that far since 72. Apparently there is no interest in anything else out there. "We'll we've seen the moon, what else is there?" A light year is the distance that a beam of light can travel in a 365-day span, approximately 5.8 trillion miles. A gigalight-year is one billion light years. Now, we know that there are other galaxies and objects in space as far as a gigalight-year away, and the visible edge of the universe is 46 gigalight-years from Earth. So realizing that this tiny spinning rock makes up such a microscopic, negligible, minuscule part of the universe, you would think that there would be some sort of attempt to see what lies beyond. But alas, no. I mean, yes there are scientists who study this, hoping to find a break, or find some way of making it feasible and possible in the near future. But everyone else? You can ask people on the street about their hopes for space exploration, and they're probably say they're more concerned with what's going to happen on Grey's Anatomy.
So why are so many people content to just follow the blueprint? It's hereditary. You're going to have person A, who is told that the school-college-job formula is the definition of success. So they do it, meet someone, start a family, and pass on the blueprint. Instead of completely stimulating a child's motivation, telling them that literally anything and everything is within their reach, we're just telling them "Hey, this worked for me, why don't you give it a shot". When you get the child that wants to go off and do their own thing, to actually follow their dreams, they often become the family's black sheep. Instead of being supported and lauded for actually pursuing something they love, trying to find that balance between economic success and happiness in life, they're viewed as an outcast and branded as a failure-in-waiting. Creativity and a desire to actually change the world are viewed as negative character traits, and applause is reserved for the ones that walk in previously laid footsteps. And anytime someone does wind up doing something unique? They are immediately swarmed with parasites, and you'll see countless carbon-copies and clones pop up, trying to ride the wave of success.
I hate to quote Hatebreed here, but the title of an early album is Satisfaction is the Death of Desire. And that's the problem we face. And while it's partially because we're reaching our level of satisfaction too early in life, the main cause is the definition of satisfaction that we're being given. We as a people need to never be satisfied. Complacency is letting your guard down. Once you stop believing that you can fail, once you believe that all is well, that's when things will go South. I mean, if you feel that you've accomplished your goal in life, why stick around? You're going to spend the next 40-50 years wasting space. You don't have 30 years to stimulate your mind, and 50 years to live the same exact routine. You have an entire lifetime, no matter how long or short, to fully exert yourself mentally and try to actually make an impact. So do it. Whatever is in your heart, no matter how far-fetched or impossible it may be, shoot for it. Drop everything that would be a roadblock and pursue your own happiness.
I say, let me never be complete. I say, may I never be content.
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