the know it all's dilemma

where do i go from here?

time is moving fast.
and by moving fast i mean it is flying at light speed.

its almost as if there is no time for existential worries or dramatic face-offs with universal truths.

but here we go.

i watched the first hour of “the subtle art” movie on my flight back to ucla.

it made me open this notebook and want to write about how entitled i am, about how disillusioned with reality i am, that i believe i deserve x, y, z, and everything.

but honestly i don’t wake up with much on my mind.

yet there is this sixth sense that was activated, setting the precedent that something is up.

i’ve fundamentally changed this year, and with the knowledge that i need not justify my place on this earth or prove my worth to anyone i am at a cease-fire with enemy number 1: the master of should.

this guy knows exactly what i should be doing at all times, and makes himself apparent and dissatisfied when i do anything else.

i’ve become a free spirit and evaded his clutches, yet i’m still firmly entrenched in a collective psyche full of shoulds.

and it irks me big time.

i don’t know what the right thing to do is.
i also know that i will never know what the right thing to do is.

all that i know is that when i go outside and move, when i charge up that hill, when i stop, speechless, and take in the view, i’m at a high i want to stay in forever.

i feel like a bird out of it’s cage.
i feel like the white tiger, free from the clutches of caste.

most of the legwork has been done by those who came before me.
but i like to believe i’ve taken the steps necessary to get closer to completing the rest.

so where do i go from here?
this has been the yearlong question.

at points, it feels like knowing this will save everything.
most of the time i know it won’t make a difference.

let go of knowing.
let go needing an answer to keep you going.
let go of the need for a perfect paragraph or phrase
let go of searching for an exit to this maze

i’ve been raised in a culture that values tangible metrics.

letting go means trusting in the intangible.
that the cracks will fill themselves.
that kintsugi is a lifestyle.

there’s this energy inside me that most desperately seeks a release but doesn’t know where to do it or how to or why it is there in the first place.

this fervor.
this urgency.

this trembling hand that furiously lets these words out of my insides.
this hand that begins to slow down as it becomes frighteningly apparent what it must do.

this hand must open itself up,
unclench its fist,
release the nails that bite into the insides of its palm.
this hand must unfold and never fold again.

it releases its tension.
gradually loosens its grip.
it begins to twitch.
it slowly morphs.

is it waving?

i have been given so much,
yet know so little.
truth can be so big,
yet so brittle.

i believe i know a lot about life.

people who’ve told me i’m mature for my age or have a good head on my shoulders have helped solidify this confidence.

but to be honest, this self-sustained epistemological superiority has led to my covering up of the fact that i genuinely am at the same place as everyone else.

i know nothing.

yet after considering truth after truth and virtually fooling myself into believing i’ve broken out of this cycle, i’ve only dug myself deeper in.

i’ve created a metric for meaning based on how good a definition i have of it.

this is sheer hypocrisy.
it’s a self-fulfilling process.
life cannot be optimized.
there is no silver bullet.

i am here.
i am living this moment.

this and only this i can be certain of.
the rest is a convolution of the networks and pipelines i’ve been fed or fed myself into.

all else feels like an illusion.
and this out-of-body in-body experience is, frankly, terrifying.
i get why phones have taken over the world and why machines rule our minds.

it’s a lot to take in.
and yet it’s not that much at all.

i am here, and that is all.

this is all we can be certain of.

not the definition of i, the meaning of here, the limits of all.
the phrase itself marks the boundary between known and unknown.

but now that i know this, where do i go?
and thus, the cycle begins anew.

it’s tough to get up and do the same things i used to do before wholly grasping the sheer limitlessness of nature and the limits of my actions.
after a while one begins to question their motivations.

why am i doing this?
why am i here?
what is this, what is here?

and so on ad nauseam.

and yet the struggle to fill this gap with meaning is fueling the very cycle i can’t seem to break out of.

what do i do, where do i go
why can’t i be an average joe?
who am i, who can i be?
why would the world ever choose me?

this piece, unlike others, does not hope to fool you with a perfectly positioned phrase, allowing you an easy escape, an exhale back to reality.

it doesn’t have a five-step process to fix things or a two-step time machine, though, by the incessant increase in indentation, it is evident it is trying its best to.

what it instead will do is ask you to think.

it implores you to wonder…

why?

the smallest moments, the greatest mirth.
the answer is near.
there is no justifying my place on earth.
for i am already here.