Photo by: Gaspar Uhas
https://unsplash.com/photos/person-holding-red-flower-during-sunset-KrTAeWiPimc
Perpetually two ends and everything in between
We grieve the person we could have been, for we were once naive and hopeful to change the world, to realign the rules that were set in place to make our world barren. Now, as we try to protest the boredom and responsibilities of adulthood, we realise there’s nothing much about it we can change. We can live in it, but what can a speck of dust like me do to make the change? I have neither the resilience, confidence nor the power. Still, we drift in and out of states of wanting to escape and wanting to do something to change for the better. Be it the world, or ourselves.
‘Do something!’, the voice in your head shouts. And you listen. You do whatever you think will make a tiny difference. Reposting a story with gory details about the Palestinians in Gaza so more people know about the atrocities that are happening in the world, our world. You know you can’t single-handedly stop it, but maybe your spreading of awareness will make a difference.
‘That’s not enough!’, there it is again. There isn’t much you can do. So you change the perspective, imploring to do better for yourself. How many times have we self-inspected and realised that the way we take care of ourselves when no one else is around will make our parents sad? They sacrificed so much to make sure we live the best lives they could give us, yet this is the way we treat ourselves. For what? The convenience, as an attempt to cure the burnout, a cry for help, who knows?
‘I need an escape,’ finally it realises. But escape how exactly? Parties and get-togethers aren’t the same anymore, everyone’s busy. After the third failed brunch plans because your friends are busy with work (or their boyfriends), you start to miss when everyone would show up. But you understand that priorities have changed, so have yours. You would skip meeting a friend for your family now, but it still hurts to see the hopelessly unaligned calendars amongst friends who used to see each other almost every day of the week. Unfortunately, we can’t help it because there are always so many options on how we can use our dwindling amount of free time. You need time to yourself too.
You look up at your wall of photos plastered with memories. We used to believe everyone would stay in touch but truth be told, friends really do come and go. The people you were hugging in those Polaroid photos are now strangers who know nothing about your life, same goes for you. The photos remain on the wall, some start to fade a little, but the days are no longer the same. The people, the lives we live; graduating high school was a one-way ticket to never having the same path with your schoolmates again. If you happen to meet someone along the way, you smile because you know you were lucky for that to happen, yet the smile is bittersweet because you know this meeting won’t last long. You stare at the photos, hoping that maybe if you stare hard enough, you’ll be transported back to that moment. To relive the simplicities of being a teenager, where everyone co-existed in the bubble that was your high school.
‘You are a language I am no longer fluent in but still remember how to read,’ a quote by Ashe Vernon that you stumbled upon keeps you up at night. Staring into the darkness of your room, unsure where anything starts and ends, you think about how the ‘you’ in the quote can refer to countless others. Your old friends, a previous lover, your younger self. You decide to turn on the lights because the darkness is starting to feel like it’s closing in, about to trap you along with your thoughts in it. You wince as your eyes adjust to the light and as your vision sharpens, you gaze at your wall of photos again, gradually turning to everything else in your room and taking all of it in. How many versions of yourself have you discovered and outgrown? Everything around you is a museum of everything you once loved, everything you once were.
‘Escape!’, the voice roars again. You want to escape from these thoughts too, everything is starting to feel a little too real. Some turn to alcohol, temporarily numbing themselves and feeling the high of not having complete control over their thoughts and limbs while being immersed in songs with basses so loud they feel each thump reverberating through their bloodstream. And on the milder side, some pick up a book. To try to understand why the people who made reading trending again love it so much, but they lose focus half a chapter in and decide they will never be able to. Some do so because the last time they read a book was back when they were in their dark blue and white school uniforms, blabbering about the new Geronimo Stilton book. They try to reignite their love for staring at words pieced together, magical enough to teleport the reader into another realm.
‘Do better!’, You stare at countless TikToks about why someone prefers a Kindle over a physical book, or the other way around; or how someone decides when to get a physical book versus when to download the epub on their Kindle. While you weigh your pros and cons on which is a more worthwhile investment, the realisation that digital transformation has been happening rapidly around you dawns. Not just about books, but also on kiosks, menus and all the little things in our lives. Yes, they have made our lives easier and more convenient, but it is as if the Covid-19 pandemic sped things up tenfold. The new trends and phrases feel like too much work to keep up with, and you start to wonder if it’s because of your age, or because there’s so much more to life than a trend that won’t even last a month. It’s the long-term things that count now.
As your empathy towards older people like your grandparents grows with your age, you wonder how they are able to adapt to the digitalisation of nearly everything nowadays. When you see a kind-looking grandpa with his physical copy of today’s newspaper at the coffee shop, you can’t help but smile. But also think about how you only read news articles on the tiny box you call a phone.
You notice that if you stop for a moment and look around you, many still hold onto their old ways. Some people try to bring things back from the past – old fashion trends, vintage bags, etc. As much as the trends come and go, many things remain timeless because they remain in our minds and our hearts. You see younger people take interest in traditional arts and cultures so the art won’t die with our generation. It’s nice to keep up with the times and the recent trends but sometimes we should stop and smell the roses, appreciate what’s around us before it inevitably changes to something else. Uncover the charm of the unmoved.
As we sit and look at the world around us, we realise its haste transformations, faster than we are growing up. For the world, just like us, fears being left behind. But if you stop and look really closely, there are things that stay unaltered, things that we hold onto and refuse to waver. For there is beauty in growing, transforming and changing; and there is also beauty in reverting, remaining and maintaining.
