It’s not your fault if you grew up in a dysfunctional home, and now find yourself going through life trying to find a niche to call home, as long as that niche is not with family. It’s not your fault if you grew up in a functional home and can’t relate to the restlessness and anger of those that have grown impatient and intolerant with the prejudices of the world. It’s not your fault if you grew up in an average home that was neither dysfunctional nor functional but struck an awkward but not destructive balance between the two and now find it difficult to understand what the fuss is all about.
It’s never your fault for how you were raised, but it is your fault if you choose to remain a product of your upbringing for the rest of your life. There is a point that we all reach in our lives when we become self-aware and uneasy about just being. That point is not reached when we turn 18, or when we turn 21, or any other age for that matter. That point is not defined by age, but instead it’s defined by our willingness to question what lies behind who we are and what we aspire to be.
We’ve turned life into a series of superficial milestones that leave us oblivious to the major gaps in our lives that occur while we’re waiting for that next milestone before we find a reason to act. We wait to turn 18 before contemplating the future, and then we wait to turn 21 before we expect to be taken seriously, and then we wait to get a job before we feel worthy, or we wait to get a degree before we believe we have something of value to contribute to this world. We wait until we get our first job, and then we wait for each pay day, and then we wait for the annual bonus, and we wait and wait and wait. And all this time we’re blaming the system and blaming society and blaming the world for being a rotten place that celebrates scum and punishes victims. But we fail to realise that in all this waiting we’re allowing the system to define who we are and what we’re capable of achieving, and then we become disillusioned and angry when we don’t find our place in that system that is supposed to see how significant we are, or when people fail to celebrate our milestones.
I’m not quite sure what the point of this post is. Perhaps it’s just a rant, or perhaps it’s just a brain dump. Perhaps it’s nothing. Perhaps it’s a small token of my struggle to rise above the system that has been restraining me all my life. Whatever it is, I suspect that there is some truth in between all the noise, and finding a moment in the chaos to stop and reflect on that hint of sanity in the noise is struggle that has plagued me for a long time now.
6 responses to “It’s not your fault…”
Lol – do you really want me to believe that you actually buy into the commercial crap of father’s day and mother’s day and valentine’s day…tsk tsk
Absolutely not! I loathe the concept let alone the commercialism. However, being surrounded by people that feel very strongly about ‘celebrating’ these days, it just dampens my mood because they refuse to see the glaring problem of the approach. 🙂 Same goes for birthdays, and I guess that’s one of the many reasons why I consider myself to be cynically jaded, even though I’m really not!
It almost seems to be that all your struggles has almost been a blessing in disguise – for you have made it so – to have gained deep insight and an incredible zest for life (sane or insane!). It’s hard to believe that you are far removed from academia – but then again, it’s often people like you who define the literary world from outside it.
I pray you have continued perseverance and bring insights … for those who pause, your ramblings are slightly more than that 😉
Thank you…you’re far too kind. Although I’ve made that ‘decision’ to write my book, I still debate whether or not it’s a worthwhile endeavour in my head. I still wonder if I really have something to offer the potential reader/s, or is it really just going to be a misguided self-indulgence that amounts to very little? Each time I share my thoughts about these doubts I automatically assume that it’s coming across as me fishing for affirmation, when it really isn’t. I guess I have yet to determine what would be my points of reference to determine if what I have to share is any different or significant compared to what is out there already.
What is “significance” to you? As in – in your experience and expectations – what do you define as significant? Maybe that’s the starting point…
I guess that is part of the problem. My take on what is significant in life is often very different compared to those around me, which is probably why I question the relevance of what I write about. Most people seem comfortable living obliviously, while I grow restless with the same. To answer your question more directly, I think being able to share something new, even if it be a new perspective on an old concept, would be significant enough for me to want to share it. I’m always wondering if I may just be regurgitating someone else’s thoughts that have been better expressed even though I may not be aware of it because I’m really not an avid reader of any sort. I can’t remember the last time I picked up a book and actually read more than 20 pages before putting it down hoping to get back to it at some point.
Perhaps my cynicism on a day like ‘father’s day’ is not a good mindset within which to contemplate these things. 🙁