— an anecdote of potpourris.
The Uncharted Utopia
Young Minds of Medium 2021 Hopes & Dreams
I often dwell on how exactly ‘progressing’ would look like. Mundanely, it would comprise each one of us riding the same bus, stuck in traffic, for a 9 to 5 and doing it all over again in the morning. It seems tedious to look at it just the way it is for me. So, for the sake of tiring my restless mind in hopes that it’ll eventually fall asleep, I visualize.
I’d picture every human being walking in an all-grey realm. The direction varies, though; each of us is going differently straight, no matter how strange that may sound. No sun, moon, not even the slightest speck of light, but we all can see each other just fine.
It’s just us, purely walking one step at a time.
It seems like a never-ending walk to nowhere. From time to time, however, our pace would change. Sometimes, a little faster than our feet could handle. We can’t help it, though: some people run for sport while others are running for their lives. To where, I know not. But I like to imagine that each of us is heading towards our utopias.
Some say it could take days, months, even years just to smell the air. We know them purely as walking through the seasons. Yet, it’s not always the cool summer breeze or whichever favorite season you prefer.
Those lucky souls who have survived the storm have become the figment of the imagination. Regardless of how impossible it may seem, they’re exactly where they want and needed to be, and they can do what we — who are still walking, yearn for the most: slow their pace.
They’re there, and we can only admire from afar.
Often we retrace their steps instead of our own, no matter how much we convince ourselves that it doesn’t really matter. Everyone has different paths, although they become aligned every once in a while. I just haven’t been able to figure out after all this time, what’s driving our impulse to deviate from our course. What compels us to follow those treacherous impetuses, to begin with.
At times, the sound of someone else’s footfall bothers me. It perturbs my own shaky steps, but I‘ve never been able to answer why. I become discombobulated to their thumps as if the very dust that sticks to the surface of their shoes induces echoes only I can hear. At times, I feel the sudden urge to peruse the victory of others to the very detail. That is, my demon number one.
During my walk, I often find my thoughts soaring miles beyond me. I admire it, truly. It covets to discover ways of knowing the unknown. I naively admit that I was always fond of the idea of ‘reaching’ somewhere.
That is exactly what I fill my head with most of the time. I often look through the earth’s marvelous places, filled with nonpareil wonders and strangers I haven’t yet greeted. That, is my demon number two: wishing my days away instead of doing something about it. I’m scintillating an unquenchable thirst of places I only thought I knew, but have never reached.
I’m quite familiar with the understanding of our inability to live alone. I simply imply that a bit different. I acknowledge our itch — appetence, to attract the kind of love that we unequivocally would outgrow.
Often we dwell on as simple as longing for the spaces between our fingers to be filled. Some wish for that with such a rush; as soon as possible even if possibility was never in the equation. Our hearts would give away our trust that easy, for we were so set on having a hand to hold, despite how hard they would hit.
It seems never-ending, doesn’t it? The walk itself was never designed to alleviate any difficulty whatsoever. It’s supposed to be easy. After all, we only needed to walk. But walking with little information on how we can get there or exactly where we should be setting our headings to seems a little wayward, don’t you think?
Oh, you’re quite right. How can I forget? We, humans, are blessed with the ability to reframe our senseless thoughts to function a bit further. My particular way would be to seek happiness. Anything that I can find, anything at all. What keeps me elated last week was movies of different genres even though I’m supposed to be doing an all-nighter. My gaiety today was caused by witnessing someone else’s act of kindness which I chose to be the thing that would fuel my content.
What desolate me the most would be my void. No matter how persistent I seek things I define euphoric, my unwinding abyss couldn’t find its match. The lacuna makes me feel as if there were more hours in a day, where I would feel most empty no matter how ecstatically happy I was. Happiness never finds its way to stay, never mine to keep. That’s my demon number four.
The year is ending soon, yet I am nowhere near my destination. Even nowhere of knowing where I should finally cease my steps. But that is not what I’m after.
Day by day I see others sprinting, running within their line whilst I’m here battling my demons. I always look at how others are doing and beating myself down alongside my weaknesses for not making a single step. I felt so lost for so many days.
I thought they had taken the best of me. I thought they’ve finally won. But then I thought to myself, it’s okay to crawl every once in a while, right?
Today, I’ll stay a bit longer than I used to. I’ll tweak with who I am, shift my core to find my most comfortable shape. I’ll love myself for what I am; embracing my insecurities in the process. I’ll prepare myself as best as I can because tomorrow, and the day after that, and probably a few phases afterward,
