This is what it’s like to decide

“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn’t quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn’t make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.”

― Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

There’s no right way

decisions must be made
in dark alleys
of wishes and regrets,
leaving behind many
who he’ll never be able
to walk with.

the thought of choosing
makes his heart
ache,
left or right,
fast or slow,
right or wrong.

there’s no right way,
honey. there is no
right way…

so instead,
he closes his eyes,
opens his
bleeding heart,
takes a drag
of the city
and his people
and exhales long and slow

let the smoke rings
decide the way
to go.

Career, and other important stuff

“I think careers are a 20th century invention and I don’t want one.”

— Christopher McCandless, Into the Wild

 

I spent quite a time trying to understand the mind of this human being. Why? Because he was a bit different. And his way of thinking was ahead when compared to the views of our “society”, and who doesn’t want to learn from someone up on that level. But in past couple of days, I came to realize what he really meant and lived for.

 

Here’s how UrbanDictionary defines the word “career”, and it’s spot on.

 

career

 

Similar to a ‘job’ or ‘work’… Usually means that you are stuck at the same pay level that you start with. No chance for advancement and someone else will pass you for a promotion even if they are less qualified as long as they know the right people (Or have the right parents/family members). Also usually requires a piece of paper that you spent thousands of dollars on which you will never make back. The only people that will give this a thumbs down are people that had their ‘education’ paid for by their rich parents… They are very defensive when it comes to the truth being spoken out loud… People screw people over to get rich, that is how it works…

 

Now I understand that it’s plain stupid to look up UrbanDictionary for such an “important” aspect of our lives. Isn’t this why your parents and each and every one of your relative is so concerned about you getting your education from a good college, finding a job that pays well and get settled for life? People who check everything off this list are considered “successful”, and those who don’t are considered a waste of human potential. But isn’t it sad to see how cruelly we have limited this human potential and defined “success” so low in terms of human experience and high with respect to being a slave of this system and earning all the money we can?

 

This is a world in which money is absolutely necessary. The drive for earning money is ingrained in our psyche, we’re taken to school, we plan for university, and then we get a job. From age five we’re striving to make a living, to have a career. But what if it’s all just an illusion? What if after we have achieved that ultimate success that we were chasing all our lives, we realize that we never really danced to the music because we were always focused on the ending note of our musical play? I maybe wrong, but what if I’m right? You can’t go back forty years and start all over again. We young adults are always expected to follow this path invented somewhere along the 20th century, so we all can have enough money to buy things we don’t need in order to impress people we don’t care about and satisfy our inner desires created by the false interpretation of our lives. So many of us blindly follow these instructions and completely forget about what we really wish for. But how successful is this “success”?

 

Take a moment and think of people who you admire. Now think of what would have happened to them if they had followed the same path on which you’re on right now. My list includes dropouts, athletes, writers, adventurers, explorers, inventors. If all of these people had gone to college to get a “proper” education and worked for a multinational enterprise, they wouldn’t be on anyone’s list and would probably be lost in the circus trying to pay their bills and living up to the expectations of everyone else around them. Sad life. Why is it then so off-stream for us to follow our dreams and aim for new experiences in our everyday life rather than being stuck in a routine to earn a living?

 

My irritation comes from the fact that tiny children are forced into a world of constructed reality; they are shaped and molded into robots, who may go on to make millions, but will be slaves to the system. Children should be out rolling around in mud, chasing their dreams, free and wild and enjoying life. Young adults should be given time to figure out what the hell they want to do for the rest of their lives, and society needs to slow down and allow people to be the way they want to be without being judged and to live freely.

 

That’s it for my ranting about important things . Thanks for keeping up if you made it this far.