Chasing Papers
A Short Essay on the Grand Chase of Life
I have been taught to chase after things all my life — papers mostly. A dazzling report card, a beautiful certificate, money. It’s mostly what people in my society knows and craves, I do admit they are pretty attractive things.
We were taught to chase this and that to lead a successful life, to do this and that to win the race, when there is no race to be won. Life is Tetris, stop playing it like chess. It is a game we play with ourselves, with there being only one winner — death. Did you fulfill whatever you want to do when the Game Over flashes across your screen?
Maybe there is a sort of solace in chasing something forever. The fact that there isn’t a clear closure is a relief. Because many times when once you’ve attained something, you’re lost, not knowing what to do next.
Maybe that’s why you see humans on the proverbial hamster wheel, working for the next paycheck, doing what they have been doing for the past few years, decades even, not trying something new, not thinking of new paths they can take to make their current lives more enjoyable. Whenever I see that in the adults around me, I am saddened and afraid my life would be the same.
Humans were not meant to live as long as we could now, that’s why cancer is such a bitch — it is the result of our extended life, the last laugh from the grim reaper, a laugh at how we can never defy him, how we all belong to him eventually.
Our bodies are just melting vessels. Why are we putting up a competitive front and fight each other as to who is “better”?
In the book Paper Towns by John Green, Margo and Quentin was in a sky-scrapper overlooking their bustling city, where Margo laments:
You see how fake it all is. It’s not even hard enough to be made out of plastic. It’s a paper town. I mean look at it, Quentin— look at all those cul-de-sacs, those streets that turn in on themselves, all the houses that were built to fall apart. All those paper people living in their paper houses, burning the future to stay warm.
We are all paper people, facades of different kinds over our faces, sometimes deceiving to the whole world we are living happy lives when we are dying inside. Pretending we got it all figured out when we are just making it up as it goes. Being aloof when we are afraid.
My dream is to see the world with more compassion and less competition. As much as these rat-races spur us on, most of the times it destroys us and those around us, as we struggle to find out who we are, and what we should do. Instead of drawing impetus to succeed from the desire to beat another person, shouldn’t we all derive it from wanting to make the world a better place?
Money comes and goes, time only goes.
There are better benchmarks to a fulfilling life than money or followers or likes or any kind of these numbers. As Bob Marley said,
“ Money is numbers, and numbers never end. If it takes money to be happy, your search for happiness will never end.”
I talk as if I have everything figured out, but these are just ramblings of another confused guy. Maybe I’m too idealistic, but what’s a world without ideals, am I right?
Cheers, everybody. Have a good day :)
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