I am becoming increasingly aware of the fragility of life. I believe this to be a good ign. It means, perhaps, that I am learning more about this temporary state and my place in it. As yesterday I discussed my ideas and evolving understanding of failure, today I mean to tackle my evolving understanding of the status quo.
We all live within the status quo. We wake up and expect things will be as they were when we last slept. We assume routines and organize our lives on a schedule reflected by these routines. Even vacations—a break from the routine—are rote. Some of this is good and necessary to the functioning of a lasting society, but mostly it crimps our creativity in a way that makes the average person less than.
I’ve spoken often of my kids as consumers of culture vs. creators or expanders—this irks me on a soul level to be sure—but I’ve accepted how those things merely are and have made an open choice to avoid interruption of their way and path. Again, here we are talking about choice and status quo. Things are as they are and we musn’t change them to dramatically, right? Change is good but too much change?
This is the central gist of my thinking. Lately my dreams have been strangely post-apocalyptic. Not ‘Last of Us’ or ‘Walking Dead’ post-apocalyptic, but a different way of being in a world that essentially functions as a series of interconnected locales with human purpose largely refocused as internal v. external. In other words, I’m dreaming of thinking worlds where the masses care less about the bachelor than they do about understanding the basics of how and especially why to extend life. It may be that I’m dreaming of another self, or it may be nothing, or it may be that I am dying quite faster than I once assumed. Any of this could be why I am dreaming of the elsewhere. I’m convinced that I am taking the next step in reconnecting to the storyverse…. I’m also rambling.
Here’s the short of it: Today doesn’t have to look anything like yesterday or tomorrow. We are beings of choice. No matter how much we tie ourselves to things and responsibilities, we do so because we’ve decided that this is what life is supposed to look like. But the question/point is: Should it? It never has to.