This is harder than I thought it would be. There comes a
time after you shift to a new place when the weight of everything that has
changed suddenly hits you like a train. In the beginning I was excited. I was
nervous but I was eager. Every hardship was a learning experience. Now, I ask
myself what is it that I’m trying to do. What am I trying to achieve? I feel
scared. I feel lonely. I want the comfort of home, of people who I can openly
talk to. I want the food, I want my bed. I feel so drained out of energy now.
In the movie, The
United Stated of Leland, Ryan Gosling’s character murders a disabled boy
because he could not take how unhappy he was. I must admit that I somehow get
that. Not that I support taking anybody’s life for whatever reasons, but I understand
what he was trying to say. I see unhappiness around me all the time. How do I
ignore the little girl who lives under a tarpaulin sheet with her family beside
railway tracks? How do I ignore the blind old man, who stutters about rattling
a plastic box full of coins, his grandchild holding his hand? How do I ignore
the woman lying on the staircase at the entrance of the railway station, her
eyes staring vacantly? How do I ignore the thousands of people scurrying about
like ants every single day of their lives, struggling to survive, suffering to
earn their daily bread? I can only grit my teeth and let the gut-wrenching
guilt fade away. I can only swallow the lump that forms in my throat. It’s not
fair. It’s not.
It saddens me that we spend half our time stuck in traffic
jams, standing in crowded trains, waiting in long queues for everything.
Sometimes it gets too much. Sometimes I need to shut my eyes and go somewhere
far away.
And then there are your own monsters in your head. Your own insecurities,
inadequacies, self-doubts and the everyday challenges you have to overcome. Little
strips of paper make us run around, make us kill each other, make us turn
into inhuman demons. We are like parasites, consuming all of the resources
nature has given us, and polluting every place we go to, and then moving on to
other areas, only to pollute them as well. We are selfish and greedy and
malicious. We are these insignificant organisms living on a hot, overpopulated
planet floating through a universe so big, we don’t even matter. We are mortal, delusional beings just completing our time in the world. Carl Sagan once
said, “We are like butterflies, who live for a day, but think it is forever.”
Is it worth it? Is anything worth it?
