After a long debate with myself, I have decided to commit my life to the only truth I know; communication and happiness. Through months of high rent, unease both financially, physically, and spiritually, my health was deteriorating. On a mental plain, all I could see were the dangers ahead, the sinking feeling of debt, the constant chase of possessions, and the nauseating feeling of never being able to satisfy this life. On a physically plain I was fatigued, and sore. The desk that I sat at felt as though my body was literally deteriorating in an upright and conscious position. By the time I got home I wasn’t wanting to exercise, but like all American life, I wanted to blur everything around me. Mindless wandering through a screen that before 50 years ago barely even existed. Spiritually, I was in angst. I never believed anything would ever come the way I attracted things before. My faith in the universe was gone. The bewilderment of youth had quietly slipped away and the passion of life was fading.
Though most people experience this, I had a rapid change of pulse. I was older. Not old, but old enough to know that I was mortal. The seconds were ticking away and I realized, as most do, I was dying. Not on a literal sense as a cancer or a progression of a disease, but a metaphysical feeling deep inside of me knew that biologically my body was changing and the growing of youth had crawled to a pace of a final maturing of the brain. It was at this moment I saw it all. Life would keep accelerating past this point, because I was now aware of my mortality. I would live, breathe, and die as all other living things do.
Past that point, I didn’t know, but I didn’t care to think about it. It was the moment that concerned me, the feeling of slipping, and the anxiety that followed. This was not induced by anything other than my deep sober awareness. My palms became wet, my face flushed, and my vision became bright and blurred. I knew all things around me were moving, like looking at a photo album of long ago, a nostalgia took over. Wanting to hang on to the things, places, and people that were long gone. Wanting to repair all the damages I’ve done to both the people around me and myself, the grief of wanting to stop my family from getting older. However as all feelings do, it passed. I became calm again. I began breathing, and smiling, and like a glass of muddy water placed on a cool granite slab for a long period of time, the dust settled, and the beauty became clear. I was alive again and my resolution was clear.
My life was no longer going to be a series of daydreaming. Like a Walter Mitty type my fantasies and dreams were nothing more than visualizations to escape from what was in front of me, a screen of bills, possessions, political stints, keepsakes, thoughts, and experiences that I had never truly had. I had lied to myself to too many years. I chased the wrong dreams. I read countless novels or growing into a rugged exterior, a wanderer, and an adventurer, yet I was as soft and boring as ever.
From that point, I knew what I needed to change, my goal of not just observing everything around me but absorbing everything. Growing old was no longer seen as an inevitable doom, but a blessing of sorts. I would see the world through my own eyes. I would wander aimlessly. I would love and be loved. I would provide for my loved ones, become the man I knew was hiding. My parents and grandparents would grow old, but my love for them would always be true, and they would know it. My friends would see me as real, not just another stepping stone to find some temporary fun. I would become sustainable, I would only consume what I had earned, I would live well within my means, and I would always remember where I came from. Call it an epiphany, or new age measure of meaning, a buddhist realization, or whatever you may, but the truth became clear from the inside, not its counterpart. To all those that are scared to move forward or by anything that hasn’t left you satisfied. Wake up and live.
The Graduate 