Stream of Consciousness, Indeed

thesun

            It’s something that I often think about in the gusts of introspection and self-evaluation that come after a long night’s studying: is the fear that tomorrow may bring the grisly reality of a truck’s bumper to one’s face enough license to live frivolously? Is it even frivolous, I continue, to live one’s life by the boyhood creed of “Carpe Diem”? Is it fear of unexpected death, even, or simply the acceptance that it may come?

Perhaps others believe that the “great question of life” is one regarding one’s purpose on Earth. I am, however, a firm believer that life is what you make of it, and “purpose” is not something carved into a blackboard with a rusty pin. Teachers, especially when reading Romeo and Juliet with their classes, like to throw students an existentialist curveball: Do you believe in fate? The students plunge their thirteen-year-old bodies into insomnia with the question, worrying over whether they are destined to become lunchmeat grinders at a large industrial factory or businesspeople with a genuinely leather briefcase, genuinely leather shoes, and genuinely fantastic paycheck. Their parents tell them not to worry, that they will do amazingly well on the test tomorrow, that they will get the part in the school play, that they will not become a lunchmeat grinder, especially considering that, nowadays, machines grind meat.

Does it even matter, their little bodies slump over desks and chairs with questions, if I don’t do well on this test? When I am eighty-four and on my deathbed, will they be discussing what grade I got on a math test? Their minds twist themselves into orange peels, What if I do well on this and it amounts to nothing?

That was not something that I had even thought of until last week, to be completely honest-- that it was possible to amount to nothing after putting forth hard work and effort. We have always been told that if we try hard, if we study, we will succeed. We have all had the notion of entitlement tattooed on our palms and fingertips—that we have the magic touch, that because we are straight A students we will get into Ivy League schools and have impressive jobs with six figure salaries and attractive spouses. And what happens to those people that work hard and don’t get any of that? What have we, as a society, set them up for? But, they think to themselves as they lie awake, dreading another day of cubicles and cheap coffee, I worked so hard, did everything I could, got good grades, why didn't I get what they promised?

You can see my dilemma—perhaps will I work hard and end up having everything I want, but perhaps I will end up receiving nothing in return. Perhaps in sixty years, when my trembling seventy-six-year-old hands try to grasp at photographs of a spouse-less dinner table and an overflowing desk at work, I will realize that my effort has amounted to nothing; I’ll have wished I had flown to Paris instead of taking that job interview. Perhaps I will simply be so caught up in my decisions that I will never enjoy my life. I guess this is why people think that purpose is something determined for them—if you spend enough time thinking about what to do, life carves itself into the blackboard for you, without waiting for your approval. After all, as Geoffrey Chaucer said, "Time and tide wait for no man."