Tuesday, August 19, 2014

Forgetting Yourself

I wake up, I look into the mirror, I see the beard and mustache that I have been trying to grow for the last few weeks, its slowly coming in, but it’s not as thick and dark as I wish. I see that I need a haircut, the part that I cut in with clippers is starting to fade and become less apparent. I need to cut that in again. I taste the upper part of my mouth and remember that last night I didn’t brush my teeth because I was too tired. Not too tired because of how hard I worked that day, but because of how late I stayed up watching Netflix. I see that my posture is bad, I am slouching, maybe it’s because of how hard work is, or maybe it’s because of all the things that I have on my plate but don’t handle. Not because I can’t, but because they are the vegatbles that I would rather fiddle around with and stare at hoping that they will disappear. Unlike my younger years, there is no dog I can slyly dish them off to, but I must swallow them myself. I see my clothing, it’s outdated, but I have other things to worry about.
I go to work, I like my co-workers, they’re fun and they seem to be the most real people in my life. I try to entertain them with stories of recent things that have happened. My stories are so trivial, when they don’t get the desired response I feel dejected, almost as if the success of the day rested upon that story. I try to be cool and say things like them so that I can fit in. Sometimes I am mean in order to get a laugh. Anything to make someone smile, right?
I come back home and head straight for the couch. I just want to relax, it was a hard day, other people can’t work nearly as hard as me. I don’t even know why I work. I guess to pay for stuff, but what meaning does that stuff even really have. Food, just to live another day. Clothing, the basic reason of having clothing is to keep warm and to cover the body, now it’s used to show how hip and trendy you are. Rent, this place that I am living in, it’s my temporary home, or cage that I keep myself locked up in. The place that keeps me from living my life. My car, the thing that gets me from home to work to food. None of this matters, who cares about the food I eat, the clothes I wear, the care I drive, the job I have, these are ends that keep me alive, but not living. The best way to live your life is with others. Even now I am in a room filled with things that can only pass time not make it matter.
Do we forget ourselves in the ends that we make to be important, if we didn’t meet these ends what would life be like? Sure they’re important, but the things that we exert all of our strength to keep raised above our heads so that it doesn’t squash us, do they really matter? Or are those things just dead weight that are only as heavy as we perceive them to be? Don’t we put extra weight upon our backs that weakens our knees and makes us grind our teeth with every step we take? This weight blinds us, desensitizes us, it’s the collar around our neck that keeps us from CHANGING THE WORLD, from FINDING THE TRUE BEAUTY IN THE WORLD, from FINDING TRUE HAPPINESS THROUGH RELATIONSHIPS WITH OUR FELLOW CITIZENS.

Do you wake up in the morning and remember who you really are? What life is really about? Or do you wake up and just see two ends in your life that you have to make meet.