Parasites

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?