Tempest
I’ve always wondered what it felt to be that one guy: the popular one. The one guy who was always at the center of everything. The one guy who was surrounded by his crew, always laughing and governing as the highest caste the society. I’ve never been anything than more than a a discrete and transparent person ever since I’ve been a child. Now that I’m over 60 years old this year, I’ve come to question this envy I felt as a child and still felt during a large part of my life. But there is a probability that my line of thought adapted to my being a spectator rather than an actor, I might have needed to find excuses for being weak.
Do people, who have achieved success in society, really enjoy or appreciate rightfully their statuses? Or do they underestimate how fortunate they are? It feels like there is a unbridgeable gap between both positions. Each one provides its own benefits, the actor gets the privilege to stand out among the crowd, whereas the spectator remains unknown by being sideways.
Contrary to what society and most cultures convey, there is little pleasure in achieving one’s goal. The first reason is the inability of the human perspective to focus on multiple subjects at the same time. While one puts all his efforts into accomplishing a goal, one cannot take the time to appreciate what one is doing. Although the path to one’s goal is more precious that achieving one’s goal, the path in itself brings lots of uncertainty, making the journey less enjoyable than what the romantic saying promises. Conversely, if one stops for a moment to see how things are happening then one disappoints oneself for not being entirely focused toward one’s goal.
So which one should be chosen? Acting without the benefit of its own action? Observing but being excluded outside of the living world? There is a saying from ancient wisdom that praised a still life.
Suave est…
The philosopher likes to stand still. He likes watching others striving for riches, fame, etc. Not only the strivers won’t necessarily achieve success (you never have enough), but even in the case they do, they will have nothing but their successes to enjoy. On the contrary, the observer has been laying sideways. From there, he has been looking into everything, he has lazily but surely understood the ways of the world. While the striver, in his obsession for constant productivity - even in his personnel life, has put all his effort to extract himself from the crowds and has finally ended up being a stranger to the world for all these years.
In an era when billions of people desperately attempt to communicate and reach out to other people through social networks, individuality has kept increasing. They post pictures, videos, or communicate with strangers. They also spend time sending messages and communicate with people they know. But most of the acquaintances are none but perfect strangers with whom they speak with familiarity out of habits but not because of genuine bonds. Indeed, they do not mean what they say and there is little honesty in their words.
The first step might be to quit this network that pushes people to behave stereotypically and adopt the exact same way of thinking. Second is honesty with others. People spend most of their times doing things they don’t like with people they are not interested in. Go for something that has always intrigued you, not for something that makes you think people will like you because you follow implicit patterns conveyed by our society. People will like you or not either way for other reasons, so why not go for something that has at least bears some truthfulness.