Warning: I wrote a lot this time, I guess.
This is a heavily heated topic about how the world sucks. I sure everyone has to agree that the world sucks in one way or another, although the extent to which it sucks may vary from person to person I'm sure everyone thinks this way sometime in their life. If you have never thought this way before, go ahead prove me wrong. Though I'm bringing up this topic for a different reason. I'm here to talk about the opposite. Most people right now consider life to be boring and they would rather live in that fantasy world of their dreams where they play the protagonist that always wins. However, this is not the way to go.
Let's start with what's wrong with that fantasy world. If you always win, you will not know defeat. That might sound like a good thing but let's be honest. Failure is better than winning. When you win you learn nothing, when you fail you have the opportunity to learn everything. One needs to seize this opportunity by the hand and learn from their mistakes. When you always win, you learn nothing and remain dumb and ignorant forever. With this always winning world, when something upsets you it will simply cease to exist or never have existed at all. If this was the case with the real world, the world would have ended long ago. If we look to our mistakes as our achievements in life instead of our failures, the world looks different.
Take a step back, look at your life, what do you see? I worthless human striving for something so high yet they can't reach it? A being setting their goals to where no improvement is gained? Or that possibility that you see someone that is setting their goals in the right spot? I'll tell you to change your goals to that person that set's goals just about their reach, then all they have to do is push themselves to stretch a bit to reach it. You may think changing is quite hard. It might be but the point is not to give up. When you make a piece of art, it's always good to take a step back from your work while you're working on it. Take a second to look at the whole picture and re-adjust. When you take that moment to look back, if it looks a bit bad do you scrap the whole thing? No, you simply try to fix your mistakes. Now let's take a scenario of the whole thing is bad.
In art one might say, this is too bad and not fixable, I'll just have to scrap this. Though this is where art and real life differ, you should never give up. In art you can start a new one, but in real life, you only have that one canvas. You were only given one canvas to work with, you are not getting another one. This is not the time to mess up, this is your chance to shine, if it means changing everything maybe it's for the better. If you were given a dilapidated canvas it doesn't matter. As long as you have one you can make something, maybe you can even utilize the materiality of the messed up canvas to your advantage. Create something different then others.
You may hear people say, the world is fair. In my eyes, it's not true. People get different opportunities and some live better lives than others. Although this isn't the point, we only have one life and we need to live it to the extent that we can, when our lives end, you should not be sad that you ran out of time. Your life ends for a reason, it means you are done. While the piece may look incomplete to you, it's done, and it's over. It's time to put down the brush. Even that chance that your piece is actually unfinished, maybe the person next to you, or even the people next to you glanced over and have been inspired. This inspiration is the spark of hope. You've given something to the world that can't be taken away.
Maybe you've already done enough with your life. Although, it's never okay to use that as a reason to end your life. Putting down your brush intentionally doesn't mean you're done, it mean's you've given up. You need to wait patiently for the teacher to put down your brush. Only he can tell you when you are done, no one else, and if you sit there waiting for the teacher to say you are done, yet he never comes, you are not done. You are sitting on your life doing nothing. Death by old age is everyone's dream. Wisdom comes with old age. Once enough wisdom is accumulated, your death becomes inevitable. Maybe death shouldn't be associated as such a bad word or it will seem that my post ends on a dark note. Why not lighten up the mood? You have that chance in your life, drive your life forward and upward.
I like the metaphor you use to describe life, as "our only canvas." It implies that we only get one try, but that we also have the opportunity to control and shape ourselves, by repainting and developing the details.
ReplyDeleteOne thing that I personally have difficulty understanding is why people will continue to live in a disparate state even when they have the full capacity to improve their lives. For example, my mother often complains about when she misplaces objects in my house, but she refuses to actually organize the house enough to prevent herself from losing things in the first place.
Some people believe the are emotionally damaged beyond repair. Others believe their problems are caused by other people, and not them. Personally, I reject both points of view as excuses made by people who are too afraid to approach their problems. I do not find these excuses reasonable, because basically what they are saying is, "My life sucks, I'm not going to do anything about it, and I expect you to listen to me complain about it." Such a point of view is not only diminutive to oneself, but also inconsiderate to those around you.
So we all have to keep working on our canvases, for ourselves, for others, and for the fate of humanity. After all, why else do we even exist?