Isn’t it just demoralizing that the future consists of college, job, and then death?
This is the timeline of a life:
Baby. Child. Going to elementary school. Pre-teenager. Going to middle school. Teenager. Going to high school. Worry about the future. Figure out who your friends are. Figure out which major you’re going to have. Maybe get a part-time job. Going to college. Adult. Take many courses. Intern with people. Find your career. Find your job. Maybe fall in love, if you are lucky. Work. Raise a family. Work. Become middle-aged. Work. Navigate through middle-life crisis. Work. Retire. Spend time with your grandchildren. Maybe find new hobbies you missed out on when you were young and spry. Die.
One person’s life, in the grand scheme of things, is just a mere whisper in a cacophony of voices. It’s a mere flicker of light in a starry night. It’s a single speck of dust in a world of dirt.
My view on life may sound pessimistic or even nihilistic.
And, believe me, it’s not. At least in my mind.
My cousins caught two bunnies. They were wild and half-starved. And for the rest of their miserable life, they were stuck in a cage, forced to look outside and wonder where they could have gone by now.
The week before last week, we went to visit our cousins. Safely, of course. And, to our horror, one of the bunnies was missing. It was just one lonely rabbit in a cage, staring at us with skeptical half-lidded eyes.
That rabbit’s life flickered out, like the flame of a candle slowly dissipating into the atmosphere after a brief blow of wind. It lived, it existed, and then, it died.
I’m not a nihilist. I swear.
Because life is not meaningless on a micro-level.
It’s filled with a cacophony of colors. Bright shades, dimmer shades, no color at all.
You have the chance to love, to live, to make friends that will last a lifetime, to make your mark on the world.
But, in reality, it’s nothing in the grand scheme of the world.
And there are only those few thousands of people out of the billions that live on this world that will actually make a mark.
For the rest of the millions, they just fade out. They met something to someone at one time, but when all that knew them are gone, they just disappear. Like they never existed.
You only know they existed through pictures.
But for those few thousands, they get commemorated in time. They’re cemented in history. They will never be forgotten.
That’s why there is this innate drive in me to make something of myself. I’m afraid of being forgotten. Of being those faceless, gray masses who disappeared in an instant. I want to cement my name in history.
That will probably never happen. The fever dreams of a fanatical teenager.
The point I’m trying to make, I guess, is that you have to make your life meaningful in some way to not be one of those that disappears into the clouds.
Life is short. Few people make use of it. The rest die unremembered, except by their loved ones or, maybe, by none at all.
So, life, on the macro-level is meaningless. Unless you are one of those who have left your mark on the world. Then, your life is dedicated towards being an immovable rock in the flow of time.
Make your life meaningful to your family.
Make your life meaningful to your friends.
Make your life meaningful to the environment around you.
Love with a ferocity that will span generations.
Speak, write, and work with a ferocity that will continue even when you are gone.
Leave a legacy to be continued.
And, maybe then, you won’t be unremembered. And, maybe then, your life will be important on a micro-level and a macro-level.
Lots of love, and be ferocious,
Jess
Chaos of Life 