Thursday, July 22, 2004

living with mediocrity

how many of us seek just to blend in. we all are dying inside to be different, special, better, yet we are enveloped by a sort of apathy that makes us settle for the mainstream. or perhaps i am speaking for myself. i want to be different, do something bold with my life, something great and exciting so that when i'm 50 i can tell my children these wonderful adventures i've lived to experience. i've scaled the victoria falls, i've bummed off the streets of moscow, gone on a culinary escapade in southern europe, surfed the coasts of the world, swum with humpbacks, danced away in brazil. could i give up everything i've known and understood to live a life of a wanderer, earning my keep where my heart takes me, no savings for posterity, but living life passionately and intensely for the moment?

who ever said it's a nice house, a car, money in the bank and flying first class that's the life of contentment and happiness? would roaming the world in search of its treasures but having none of my own make me a happier person?

for a few minutes every day, i contemplate trying it out. but then the opportunity costs, the knowledge that i could possibly be left in the dust as everyone else starts accumulating assets, and the image of me at 60, on the streets because i had not planned for my retirement hit me. reality bites again and i cowardly move back into the mainstream.
graduate, get a job. work, work harder. marry, have children. grow old. stare at your shriveled self and wonder where the sex life disappeared to.

we keep talking about direction, drive, prospects, money, security. all the key words of a coming of age individual such as myself. can we be directionless but productive? driveless but inspiring? poor but rich in experience and secure in uncertainty? someone show me so i may dare to follow.

2 Comments:

Blogger JJ said...

That's kinda weird; i have these thoughts too; though i've gotta say, jia, you've had your fair share of experiencing what life really has to offer. And then you decide, cos its your life. I guess if you were really content, you wouldn't mind being 60 on the streets. but then you'd have to be senile, so i guess not haha. personally, i wouldn't settle for mainstream, and i'm dying to be better and better, if not the best. To be different and special; yeah i definately know that want. Which leads us to the question: what's your ultimate goal in life? it kinda contradicts because when you think about it; what about......RELIGION

3:04 PM  
Blogger x said...

"...tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
we are not now that strength which in old days
moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are-
one equal temper of heroic hearts,
made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."

tennyson, "ulysses"

7:39 PM  

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