life is an odd thing. we are born and know nothing. we don't know that we know nothing and are totally cool with that fact. as pre-humans, we learn by default. how to eat, what mom smells like, not to eat our fingers, that we can't taste our toes, and how to crawl.
we explore the world around us, increasingly so as our capabilities increase.
i don't really know when i first realized i was a person or gained consciousness. i suppose it was when i was born but early life is really pretty fuzzy some 43 years and change later. we are fed what people think we should eat or what they want us to eat. we do what people make us to and later, what we are told to do.
we enter school and are funneled through a lazily organized sequence of bored instruction delivered by largely unattentive, paid drones. they care for us, mostly make sure we are fed, clothed, and awake and emerge out the other end of the experience with a stamp of approval that says something to the tune of "yep, this one was conscious and can at least flip burgers as a productive member of society."
we're taught to be on autopilot for a dozen years or more depending on one's tolerance for rote instruction. paying more for education likely translates to a better outcome or maybe just a feeling of entitlement. either way, we're not really fully formed until 25 or maybe even 30. it's a strange process.
the creation of mandatory formal schooling surely had good intentions but at scale, often withers and delivers underwhelming results. i'm definitely underwhelmed at myself and have been for most of my life.
after schooling, we frantically cast our net around us, much like pre-walking babies casting their arms out in search of something new to shove into their mouths but in our new adult-sized bodies, we are now in search of jobs. in reality, all we want to do is procreate without result and party, but all of that requires money. we are the primate in the jungle banging on our chests. instead of chest hair and exposed ball sacks, we instead show off our fancy cars, nice clothes, and gym-shaped bodies.
unlike the monkey in the jungle, our cars, clothes, abs, and overpriced dinners serve very little functional purpose.
we slog through and get jobs. we advance on merit, tenure, or on the coat tails of relationships we've cultivated and life goes on. decades perhaps. it does fly. we don't really know why we're doing it, but we're told to move up, find a job at a reputable company people can brag about and to just keep our head down and plow forward. up and up, young one.
add a wife, a few kids, a house, dog, and all the thanksgiving trimmings and now you're fully locked into the game.
decades later.
time passes.
retirement becomes the topic of discussion but it is yet again a dead end road. we live to work to save to not work to die. what a shakesperian tragedy.
the magic is in the story
we get to write our own story
rewind the story of your life and take up the pen
whatever stage you find yourself in, it is yours
this one thing
this brain, body, feet, shoes, and clothes
none of it matters
we all end up in the dirt
we all end up dirt
its just the way of it
enough longing
enough wanting, hoping, wishing
time for action
now
go
