What happens now, is the question.
I’ve likely experienced the most “stressful” experience in my life, but where do I go from here?
The smoke is settling – but I have anxiety, something I haven’t experienced before. My chest will randomly outdo itself, almost as if in a state of flight (in reference to fight or flight response), for no really discernible reason.
Then there’s the feeling of loneliness. It’s not typical loneliness. It’s more like isolation. The feeling that there will always be a difference between myself and the other’s around me. This comes with good and bad sides. By the time this whole ordeal was settling and coming to a close, I was coming to the comfortable realization that I’ve always been different from everyone else.
But before it felt good. It felt great knowing that I was different, and that this was a tool that I could use to do better in the world. It was the realization that I WAS so different, that maybe that I could be that 1/100-1000-10000 person that could do things differently, because I simply didn’t care about the same things, and that made it a possibility to do things that “ordinary” people wouldn’t. The fact that I didn’t care, and wanted to do positive things, would ultimately lead to positive outcomes – and this still holds true, but…
Now it’s different – or so I think. I think time works in everyone’s favor, and no one wants to dwell on something too long. This will go away with time, but it’s the present, and I have to deal with things: presently.
I feel scared. Scared that I don’t live in the same world that I thought I lived in growing up.
I guess growing up, I thought people lived to do good things, to help others, and essentially “live for others”, and to work hard for yourself – and from that, that’s what you get to keep. Looking back though, when I was a kid, I think all of us were kinda like that. But now, it’s just so different. The stark contrast between that world, and the world we live in now… Like wow. Maybe that’s why I’m such good friends with Reid. Because we’re still like that with each other, and we had that relationship growing up.
But Reid and I are so different also. He and I, I think are the only ones who were able to live by that (among very select others), and grow with each other with this ideal. And I think that’s why we’re both so unique. We’re so different, one a long haired bassist who’s devoted his life to music. Someone who wears tight jeans, sometimes wears his insanely long hair in a pony tail, and is comfortable gigging, and doing what he can for money and me, an engineer who’s fighting in the realm of the mainstream. Working the regular work week, driving a car, having disposable income and trying to battle among the other employees to save money for a… retirement (I guess?)? Tête-à-tête though, we’re the same.
It’s a weird world to live in, and I’m just trying to figure out where I sit and how this new world looks like. It’s a different world, where I’m worried self interest is king, and when people are acting in self interest, that’s when this red tape I’ve imposed on myself becomes such a hurdle. Where organization’s look at it as an opportunity to easily eliminate candidacy, and where people use it to stratify social class – all of this a result of (what I feel to be) a group of individuals who operated with less virtuous intention.
I want to be back to the old me where I didn’t feel so anxious and reluctant, and I will – trust me, it’s just a matter of figuring out how it will happen. But right now, career, love and travel – it’s all feels like a haze through the looking glass.
So where will it go?
Well I guess the only thing is to keep your head down and say fuck it. It certainly sounds scary and lonely, but maybe it won’t be.
Thoughts of a ho… Now you know…
