A different blog of sorts…
I know most of my blog posts are about various activities in my life and my struggles with Crohn’s disease etc, but I feel like writing about something else that’s been plaguing my mind just a tad too much recently….existentialism.
This whole idea that we are not getting any younger, at the age of 21 I really don’t want to get much older, and yet I don’t want to ‘end’ either. I suppose its an attempt to come to terms with the finality of life, or mortality, of the fact that we are only on this earth for 80+ something years (if we are lucky) and then that’s that.
Many people spend at least 1/4 of their lives being educated. When we read facts like ‘we spend x days of our lives sitting on the toilet, or waiting at traffic lights, or reading the news’ it makes me think…why am I wasting my time with all of this?
I suppose I envy babies, because they have more time left here than I.
I guess in a way I understand why people decide to believe in a god, or a creator or super-power of some sort, because we don’t want to believe that all we have is our limited years on earth and then nothing. We want to believe that one day, when we do leave this earth, we will be going somewhere..there is something that comes ‘next’. I don’t know if I quite believe in a god or anything, but I guess I WANT to believe in something because I want to know what comes next. I want to make the absolute most of my [at least, hopefully] 60+ years left on earth. I guess this idea that nothing really matters at the end of the day because eventually everyone just ‘leaves’ is really affecting me at the moment. After all, we come here with nothing, and we leave with nothing - all we have is a finite period in which to make our mark on the world, even though once we’re gone, we’ll never be able to revisit the world (in that capacity at least) and see what we contributed and see how our lives affected/ were affected by the society in which we lived in.
Right now I feel that I’m not scared of death when death comes, because perhaps I see the next step as an adventure. I’m not thinking about some fantasy of walking up to the pearly gates or hanging out in some heavenly backyard with my grandparents and other dec’d relatives and friends. I’m interested in what comes next, if one day I will be ‘reborn’ (not that I’d actually ‘know’ as my current person) I’d just like to see…what will happen.
We were born to die. Delta Goodrem sang a song “Born to try” and we are, yes, we are born to try to make the most of our finite time on this earth, because we never quite know when it will end but we do know that one fact, that it will end.
In my life at the moment, things are going really quite well. I recently turned 21 (in fact my party was a month ago today!), I have a great, caring and committed boyfriend and lots of lovely, fun friends who I enjoy going out with and partying and drinking with. Additionally, I’m in my fourth year of uni and things are really going quite well in general for me. My crohn’s disease is of course active, but I had my remicade infusion 2 days ago and am feeling better (hopefully it will last at least 5-6 weeks!). I guess the fact that I’m in a really good place at the moment makes me think that I really don’t want things to end, I also think that I’m questioning what I’ve done with my life the past few years, have I wasted time not making the most of my life?
I realise that I’m here on this earth and I’m here for a finite period and it will end eventually. It scares me. It scares me that I will lose people around me as well. What I want is to make the most of things, and I really hope to do my best to really make the most of my life. I’m going to travel more and try and see more of the world. I want to make sure my career gets happening and is successful. I want to get married in a few years and start a family and make sure I have a good, strong, close family life. I want to live the high life. I want to live in the glory days.
I know things won’t always go the way I want to, and often they don’t go the way I want. I do however have a slightly idealised view of the way I want my life to pan out, so that I can truly accept the finite nature of it and be content, or okay, or even happy with this.
I have a feeling I’ll be writing more about this, but here’s a start. I look forward to a time in the hopefully near future when this doesn’t bother me as much as it currently is.
- Au Revoir
[Making the most of life].
