MESSAGES TO WHO (1)

(April 18th 2022)

Isn't it strange, how one little thing, can motivate an old hand to spring to life again? How simple, mundane tasks can inspire such deep thought and reflection? I think so. Writing is something I fall in and out of love with. I find I write best when I am sad, heartbroken and hopeless. Isn't that tragic? My most beautiful works form when I, myself, am incomplete and shattered. I think it's good sometimes, that I don't write so much anymore. It means I am happy, that every emotion I feel is felt and expressed by simply living and communicating with those around me; that I do not need to empty my heart on the page for it to be real. It makes me sad too though; sad that I will forget the feelings I don't feel the need to document - to romanticise and fictionalise. It makes me sad that a beautiful talent is ignited by loneliness and grown from rock bottom. I try to write when I am happy but it bores me. It doesn't pull my soul together like it does when I feel lost. Perhaps I understand my happiness, so I do not feel like I need to work through it, to examine every angle, for it to become physical and a task to analyse.

What motivated me to write today is not that I am reflective of my happiness. It is that, in some way or another, I feel lost. The path forward isn't so clear anymore and I'm not sure whether I should veer left or right in that upcoming fork. I decided long ago, but I backtracked. Fell off the beaten path and tended to other pastures. I'm glad of that; I am happier and healthier for it. But I left an unfinished sentence behind me and I'm unsure of how to continue. I don't regret dropping out of college but i don't want to be a sales assistant for the rest of my life. I'm not so sure of my skillset, in the way that I was when I was 18. My plan shattered into millions of pieces and there are endless directions I can go. Yet none seem good enough, promising enough or exciting enough. I fear this is because I do not truly believe in myself anymore. I will find a fault in each path because I do not want to take it in fear that I will not go the distance, in fear that I will be mediocre or fail. True independence is a scary thing. But does it really matter what I decide on? In writing a letter as part of our census this year, it dawned on me that, one day, I will be no more. Does the stress of my career really matter? Is it essential to my happiness and my development? In 100 years, it won't matter what I chose to do and what path I took right here. I don't know whether that is comforting or terrifying.

In truth, I am not motivated by career and financial success anymore. I used to believe that this was the only was to achieve fulfilment and the fact that I was capable, meant that I should. No. Instead, I am motivated by love; by pleasure and joy. I don't want to climb the ladder, I want to see the world, I don't care for corporate success or targets. I want to spend every second I have experiencing some sort of love or joy and I am lost as to how anyone disagrees with me. That is what I find when I comb through job applications and apprenticeships and every possible avenue; that it is all so bleak. That I have less than 100 years left in me and I don't want to spend most of that slaving away to capital greed and pretending, to myself, that I am fulfilled and successful. I live in a system that doesn't really allow for my desires; or alternatively, I'm too scared to step outside the boundaries of what is normal and expected. I wouldn't know where to start. I'd cripple at the thought of others seeing my wanderlust as a lack of intelligence and capability; but why? Why am I so concerned with what others think when all I desire is the freedom to roam and explore? Why have we, as humans, turned our experience on this earth to corporate greed and competitiveness? I was never excited to finish university because it meant that my freedom was over and it was time to partake in the real world. It was time to live for work with a measly 3 out of 52 weeks off. I told myself my dream was a PhD, because I thought that meant I could stay in my academic bubble forever - because it was better than starting the 9-5 I dreaded. I chose the lesser of two evils without realising I do not have to submit to this. I realise this now, yet have no idea how to proceed with it.