The weight of the world

When you realise that we are nothing but animals on a rock bobbing our way through space you may have one of two reactions; 1) everything means nothing, or 2) everything is so very important as its so fragile. And both of them reactions are so completely valid and overwhelming. Do we focus on work and ensuring we have everything we need to simply survive, do we focus on passions and interests and ensure that we live a fulfilling life, do we focus on family and making sure we love as hard as we can? What is it that you're planning on achieving during you're short time on this rock? That's what it all comes down to in the end. Some want to be remembered forever and some want to see it all. But how to do you figure out what it is that you want before you feel as though you've wasted too much time?

Well now its time for you to join me on my existential crisis. When the world first closed down I was set to graduate university with a degree in events. Ironic right? Festivals, group gatherings, evening going to clubs feel like such a distant memory, now the thought of being surrounded by people, sweat and no social distancing fills me with anxiety; after all, the world has frowned upon this for over a year at this point. Being nervous of going back out there is bound to be overwhelming. So that kind of damped all passion there, and it also gave me a year of empty space, much too much space for thinking.

I'm sure we've all also experienced friends and family that picked the settle down life, the family journey. They've decided that they want to fulfil their time on this rock with children, houses and pets. Whilst yes, its beautiful and I love babysitting (for short periods of time, because I love a good amount of sleep), plus who can say no to walking with friends and their gorgeous puppies. This journey is beautiful, on them. Its not where I see future me. I mean, although these ramblings are about not knowing what to do with this life and how I want to spend every worthy second on Earth, this route just doesn't seem to fit my future.

Then there's those that appear to have it all worked out. Those that, I'm pretty sure received a secret and key to it all before I had even realised that I was a human. Entrepreneurs, the go-getters, those that work 60 hour weeks and love every single moment of it. They seem to hold all the knowledge and make it look so...easy? (Please if you are one of these people, let me know the secret). I've been told a thousand times that it's hard work, learning and filling time with achieving goals. Yet I try to learn and suddenly my brain is a sieve, better yet a strainer, holes in my memory and holding absolutely no knowledge. But it is definitely something I am working on.

How could we forget, the creatives. People that see the world in neon colours, beautiful words and take simple sounds and make them into a magical experience. Oh how I love this category. You make the world so complete. You fill it with legacies and things that will stay on this rock much longer and you and I. Museums, ballets, buildings and pieces of work for all to admire. I wish I could fit in here. As a child this is where I thought I would end up. Raised by my grandparents (very 'arty farty' as they would put it). Every school art project was worked on until perfection, working on them together, learning everything they could teach me. Seeing all the most simple beautiful things. Road trips every weekend. I'm not sure when I fell apart from the creatives, maybe I'm just uninspired. But now I could stare at an empty canvas for hours and see nothing but an empty and unfulfilled canvas.

Obviously there as so many other choices and final destinations of where this life could lead. The possibilities are literally limitless. But this just leads me into another spiral of what if I pick on, then another and realise I want to achieve it all, and there just simply isn't enough time to accomplish it all. I guess really I am somewhere in between having too much time and simply not enough of it. How do you find a skill and master it, whilst also balancing hobbies, interests, socialising, other skills, travelling. Then put that onto figuring what impact you want to have, who you want to be as a person, what countries do you want to experience, who do you want to meet? There's so many different options. It all these decisions that makes being a human, being, that is so completely complex and heavy. We're raised and influenced by those around us, schools introduce us to new things, we pick up hobbies and interests that we love and that we hate. We meet people similar to us and those that couldn't be any more different. We experience love, hate, depression and joy. We get anxious over waiting for things to happen, and then before we know it we forget to enjoy the moments that we spent so long waiting for. Living in the moment is the week after it happened you realised it happened and that 0.3seconds you love it, before you continue onto the next day.

Then we add that to the matter of the fact, there is millions of us trying to work this out every single day. Maybe individually, we forget that our thoughts are shared by the millions. Whilst yes, some people have had it figured it out and make it look easy, many of us are just as lost as the rest. Questioning it all and trying to grasp the concept of life. And I think that makes it better, being the people who will try it all whilst trying to find what we want. Gaining experiences across all platforms, maybe mastering none. And I think that's okay. We inspire and influence others and can tell stories about it all.

If you've reached this end of this... I guess thank you for enjoying this moment with me. I'm sure this existential crisis will only last our whole lives, as we continue to swap paths and pretend we have this rock figure out, whilst also ignoring the fact the everything means nothing, or maybe it means the most. I'm not sure when I'm going to figure it out.