Sunday, 26 July 2009

• Islands In The Stream

  If the last few years are any indication, I have absolutely no idea what will have gone on by the time I'm 30.  It might be cool, I don't know.  And if it's not, I don't care.
  
  I don't know how, but at some point I picked up the ability to never have any regrets.  It might be as easy as just telling yourself, "Don't regret anything."  Whatever happens, happens.
  
  I have a hero in my life who is something like in his forties and with a good job and a wife and kids.  And sometimes, when I think forward to a time like that in my life, it's hard to realize that you have to be there and in that moment.  I think there's an inevitability in most modern lives to one day "evolve" to the point where you're just living vicariously through your kids.  You stop having goals per se, and it becomes a thing where "My kid is going to kindergarten, my kid is graduating highschool, my kid is having kids" etc.
  
  But I personally think I'm far too self-centered to ever get any satisfaction out of a scenario like that.  That's why I'm in absolutely no rush to get to the "settling down" stage in life.  Maybe one day an alarm goes off and you hit that, but I can't be sure.
  
  Part of me thinks that people get married and start having kids and stuff just because that's a facet of your life that always exists and you can effectively put a "check-mark" next to it once you get married or whatever.  Like, "Found a wife, check, won't have to worry about that anymore."  While there are other parts of life, such as career and monetary considerations, that for most people are always going to be perpetual.  Basically, because very few people get to a point where they say "Check, don't have to think about money any more."  And honestly I think no one can get to the point where they can think they have completed the "personal development" part of life. 
  
  And in all honesty, at the beginning of this blog, I had no degree and no consistent monetary stream, or anything like that.  And now I do have that degree (something that no one can ever take away), and I do have a good job of work (knock on wood), but in certain moments I think I feel just as lost, goalless, and confused as I might have been in any individual moment back then.  And the way I've always looked at is that life really is only a series of moments.  Everything you have ever done in your life has lead up only to this moment  Fact.  Nothing less, nothing more.  And, if quantifiable, you usually only ever reach around an average level of happiness or sadness at any particular time; horrible tragedies or once-in-a-lifetime joys excluded.  So, one might ask, did any of the previous really make a difference? 
  
  I guess that depends how you qualify what making a difference really means.  Fact of the matter is that everyone who has ever died or everyone who will ever be born will all become a speck of cosmic dust as soon as the sun goes supernova.  So in a cosmic, scientific, sense, nothing makes a difference.  But, in a series of moments,  having a good conversation with someone or lifting someone's spirits or maybe even hurting their feelings with a well-placed blast - that makes a difference. 
  
  The moral that I get out of all this: Just do what you want to.  Never put too much stock in regrets, and in that same vein, in consequences.  The means will always converge to some end. In the meantime do whatever it takes to make your series of moments as enjoyable for you as you can. 

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