I've always been a sucker for Death Cab for Cutie. I know. Such a 2000s band name, but laying that aside for a moment, they've got this one lyric. It gets in my head fairly often, and to me that means it's a solid line:
"So this is the new year.
And I don't feel any different."
What a poignant observation. Time is a construct. We are a construct. The concept of the individual is a construct. Nothing matters unless we give it meaning. What in the actual fuck is going on and why? Anyone who claims to know has just put forth hope in an idea. That doesn't mean anything necessarily. It has the meaning one has given it.
I've always found religion one of the most frustrating aspects of living. It's amazing to me that people can so fully "believe" in something. And then someone else can so fully "believe" in something else. And one belief system can negate the other's. How amazing and insane and confusing and, fuck.
2018 was a strange year. I jumped in with a sort of laissez- faire-fuck-you attitude, ambivalent, excited, tired, and waiting for the shoe to drop, while just trying to do what I wanted to do. For so long so many of us are told it's wrong to have wants, to do what we want to do. Why the hell is that such a bad thing? Why shouldn't we do the thing we want to do? Do the thing that will make us happy? If we're all following our bliss, and perhaps not following the blind construct some other person told us we wanted, then won't we be the happier? I guess murderers want to murder, and that's tough if you don't want to be murdered. But, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about going for the career you want (save for murderer as career path), having or not having a family, going on the trip, spending frivolously if you've got it. Why must we always save for the rainy day? Some people save their whole lives waiting for the bottom to drop out, so they could say, oh, good! I'm glad I never did anything so I can try to beat cancer with all this money I've saved, never you mind that the cancer was caused by XYZ factor that maybe could have been avoided if you'd just have LIVED a little.
I'm ranting here. I'm tired. But, mostly I'm tired of being confused about what it is I want out of life. I'm tired of watching people make decisions and be happy about those decisions, while I dabble in the here and there, never certain of any choice I've ever made. I'm tired that the thing I was told would make me happy, isn't actually the thing I want, and I've wasted so much energy chasing after bullshit. Energy I could have spent figuring out my shit earlier.
I have a fear of wasting time, and it seems all I have done my whole life is waste time. Granted it, I wouldn't be "me" if I hadn't do all of this, but still, who's to say "me" now is a better version than "me" as the ideal version of myself. Sometimes it gives me comfort to think of alternate universe me's, and knowing maybe there's a version of myself out there that is the best version of me. I don't want to rag on myself too much, because in general I like myself, my life, what I'm up to, etc. But, when I really let myself think about it, the anxiety and stress of living eats me up.
So it's 2019. This is the new year, and I guess I don't feel any different. I would sure like to though.
