Hey buddy,
Not everyone gets the chance to hear from their future selves, but I've always known we are lucky. I don't have much time, so I'll try to say the most using very little, so maybe try not to look at things at face value.
By now the urges must have started. Seeing everything and everyone as lab rats in your little imagination project. You can't write about everything buddy. What's more, you don't have to internalize every person's struggle. It has made my life so much harder because I feel too much. You are seeing it as a gift, having a third eye to dissect people's misgivings with a high level clarity; you think it makes you a better writer, an exceptional thinker. It doesn't.
We've always been too fast. To think, to eat, to walk, to drink, to jump into conclusions. I can't stop now because they're habits we nurtured over a long period, and they stuck. I don't remember all the walks I took, all the meals I enjoyed, the sensual moments I shared with past lovers. Why? Because I was always looking forward to the next thing. Instead of absorbing the heavenly feels of the sloppy kisses, I was looking forward to writing a poem because an inspiration had struck me halfway. While writing the poem, I was thinking of the glass of wine I had promised myself as a reward. And that is why as I am writing this, I am already looking forward to a meeting I have with a lover.
We've always been risk takers, haven't we? That is a trait that has defined my entire life. With an affinity to risks comes great satisfaction and unimaginable dangers. It throws away our sense like a baby shoves away things he doesn't want. Luckily enough, it didn't cause too much trouble as I am writing this letter without any permanent damage in any body part. I have lived a thrilled life, an adventure in the little jungle that is life. At the same time, it propelled me to taste all kinds of drugs, each one promising to stimulate a different part of me I had no idea existed. Well, some were really cool and I loved how they froze my doubts, sadness, and boosted my self esteem to heaven's gates. With those I struggled the most, as my body had gotten used to them but my person was begging for another adventure. That clash has been responsible for some of the blank pages in my life's book. The trick is not to start at all, but then with what I know of you, if not the drugs, then it will be something else. Perhaps even more dangerous.
Oh, the lovers. We love with a pinch of salt. We don't go all the way; hell, sometimes we don't even move. I haven't really tasted love of all its flavors, its sweetness. I was afraid of the ugly and bitter parts but that also meant I didn't get to enjoy the good parts, the parts of love that convinces people to die for each other. It doesn't mean that there are no good women out there, there are plenty of them. But we are not the ones to notice them, we won't even know what they are if they slap us on the face. It's just how we are, we can't chart the oceans, we can't hang on a plane or even walk down a deserted street in the middle of the night for love. So we judge others based on what we know of ourselves. If I knew how to reverse that terrible behavior, I'd have done so before a dog could wag its tail. So, why am I telling you this? Because self awareness is at the top of the list as far as traits go. Sometimes we don't have to change our bad tendencies, we just have to be aware that they exist, and that way we can ensure that we only let them roam around if we intended it to be so.
Ah, the struggles now. You have already swam and drowned in a fair share of despair. Sorry to burst your bubble but it's not yet over. Some will stretch your sanity and burn your blood and some will freeze all your faculties. But they won't destroy you - that's the most important message you should take from this letter. Sometimes your life will feel like it's swallowing you whole then spitting you out and then repeat till you're tasteless, each time the beast retains some of your flavor. But that shouldn't bother you, it's that tastelessness that makes you, you. The same way people say that water is tasteless, but everyone knows that it has some taste - it's just that they can't describe that taste and so they call it tasteless. So, with struggle and disorder you just have to get used to them. Do not beat yourself up by thinking that you're so special or so unlucky that life chose you to endure its ugliness. Despair is random; it neither hates nor loves those it tortures.
To the pleasures. We like films, books, music and art that differentiates us from the rest. If more people like something, it means two things: either it's too basic that the majority can comprehend it or it's too good and we should be focusing on the opposite of that. Class and sophistication aren't redacted by numbers; if more people love our favourite book, it doesn't reduce our intellect. If anything, it confirms to us that at least we are not abnormal. I don't know if I want to change that in you, because nothing great happens because of numbers; perhaps revolutions and the temporary feeling of contentment that groupthink dashes in plenty. It's not wrong to love the weird stuff in life provided it lights up your face and consumes your soul. The only person whose opinion you should care about is yourself - and maybe me. And stop reading and writing too much about death; it messed me up a few years ago. It's better to watch it from a distance, too much understanding of it means that you have to feel it more dearly, more intensely than the next person - and sometimes you'll wish to abandon your entire being just to breathe clean air without trails of death woven somewhere inside it. What am I even saying, you're already in too deep, maybe start another trajectory where death is a friend, an ally who does what he has to ensure the effective harmony of the whole? That, just like despair, it doesn't love or hate us - it just is. I read somewhere of a guy who managed to find joy in his own death.
Start living in the present. There's nothing shameful about reading a book using your phone. The seductive smell of the pages of old books is great but the world has taken a turn and you should move with it. The technology that has been developed through years of hard work and failure are here to make our lives easier, not the other way around. You can scroll through TikTok for a few minutes, or even post on Instagram, not just X. If you feel like you have something that the world should know about, by all means start a podcast or a YouTube channel and flood them with your opinions unflinchingly. With the help of technology, it has become quite easy to leave a mark on the world. You don't need to be an Einstein-level kind of genius, you just need to be a risk taker - and that I know you are. Once that is done, you will garner some support but more importantly, you'll attract a particular breed of humans who hate themselves so much that when they see another person treating himself with the respect he deserves, they run mad. Only that they hurl insults in an attempt to crack that confidence you've armed yourself with. They are viruses that crave your attention. They know you'll never look their way if they say noble things, but with curt comments, they stand a chance. Deny them that chance and you'll see them crumbling down like a city acted upon by a nuclear weapon. Show them love and you'll wipe them completely out of the face of the universe.
As an extension of the above point, strive to balance indifference and hate; and love and indifference. You can't be friends with everyone because then you'll be nobody's friend. You can't hate everyone because that will destroy you. So you have to hate and love in different measures. In other words, don't be an extremist but that doesn't mean you should be neutral. I have never seen a neutral person appearing anywhere in the pages of history. Niccolo Machiavelli in The Prince warns that whenever there's a fight, make sure you choose a side. Saying, 'that's not my fight,' will harm you more than you can imagine. If A and B are fighting, support either A or B and you'll be eliminating one enemy with the help of another while forging an alliance that might last for ages. So, while I want you to embrace technology, beware of going in too deep. There are things in life where we have to go 70%, some 5%, some zero, some 100%; and almost miraculously, our lives achieve a certain kind of balance.
While I have touched on the topic of friendship, I think it's fair that I expand on it. Friendship is like a pain killer in a realm of pain. If you're lucky enough to drink from the stream of true friendship, your mouth and tongue will stay still. There are friends that we encounter and we are blinded by their amazing friendship. I didn't shy away from exploring the paths that friendships promise and I tried to be a good friend- but I never really was. Loving someone else separate from yourself, someone who has had no physical contact with you; someone whose soul is so familiar with yours, whose love is like a warm balm over a fresh wound. Friendship is so much more than love because you don't ask anything of each other, you just enjoy each other's company. With how much I have seen of friendships especially between men, I was once inclined to think that if such idea of soul mates exists, then they must come in form of friends and not lovers. Friendship between men can survive trifles of all kinds, and made even stronger as a result. I have not taken much time to understand the dynamics of women's friendships so I can't tell you much about them, and frankly they won't be of much use to you. Of course, there is the other element that friendships breed - betrayal. If they betrayed you, they were never your friend in the first place, and they subconsciously tried to tell you so but you were so 'love-stricken' that you ignored them. Good friends are so few, and there's a fat chance we haven't tasted its full flavor. With that, the game of numbers advises us to assume that everyone is a fake friend and let them prove themselves to us over time. Only then can we open our doors to them, but still we should leave a big part in our hearts as an allowance in case they reveal their true colors. Living that way means we might never experience the full swell of friendship and that is okay too.
In dealing with people (because whether we like people or not, we have to deal with them), it's reasonable to use whatever information is out there concerning them. And that is how I came to utilize stereotypes. You see, if people spend time together and actually consider themselves as a part of a larger group, over time they start thinking the same. So after a while, there won't be much difference from one feminist and another, one fundamentalist from another. That's because subscribing to a label limits the scope of one's thinking and after some time, they won't think beyond the confines of that label. Which brings us to the issue of stereotypes. Other people before us tried to understand people as groups - that way they didn't have to start profiling every new person from scratch, that would be time consuming. So they analyzed people as groups: people who dress this way tend to be this way, people who look like this behave that way, et cetera. So, when a person fits a certain stereotype, there's a chance that you will be about 50% right rather than judging from scratch. After being 50% right, you can then give them the chance to prove you wrong. That might be a controversial take but it is the truth.
Allow me to stop here for now, I can't stop thinking about that meeting with a new lover. Our love is still spicy and things haven't started feeling like chores yet so I have to milk it before that moment comes. I hope that from those few words you'll find some peace, some solace in the fact that we never stopped writing. That the world's illusion of importance didn't convince us to board its train of existence but instead secured a seat in the plane of living. Life is beautiful, buddy. Live it unapologetically and don't you dare let anybody else sway you from that path full of trifles and triumphs in equal measure. Or else, all this greatness I am overwhelmed with we will never experience.
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