I feel like our generation is dumbed-down beyond what we realized. I feel like people are so focused on being “okay,” that they forget to grow. I feel like I myself am succumbing to this pattern. Why is it so easy to allow an old way of thinking to influence you into a pattern you swore you would forget? Why do our minds change so sporadically that sometimes we forget what is real, who we are, and what we are? Why does the “me” I knew six months ago seem so far away from the “me” I see when I wake up every morning. Why are the things I think about today so foreign to who I was then? Why does an old apartment that was once a place of refuge, now reflect the statue of mediocrity and complacency in my life? Six months ago, the way of living for me was you wake up every morning, take a bus to a job you hate, get paid, go home to an apartment shared by a few close friends who are as annoyed with life as you are, so you delight in each other’s frustration. Escaping through coffee, poetry, music, Dexter, late night Wendy’s runs, bus rides with obscure small-town people, and dreams of what might happen down the road.
Why does the mind convince you that you are happy when in fact, you are dying inside? No, this is not a pathetic stream of depressing thoughts weaved together by the notes of Secondhand Serenade. But really, thinking closely at a situation, this sounds depressing. When you are in the midst of it, you sing to the tune of melodramatic sweetness, and mind-numbing sadness. So I ask again, why do one’s surroundings have such a profound effect on one’s psyche? Their entire demeanor, thought process, even the voice inflections are sometimes altered based on where you are living. Do we stick ourselves in molds that we created based on where we live and how that place defines us? Is that why living in a sub-ghetto neighborhood causes me to think twice before going out at night? Or why living in a small town in the middle of central Florida makes me want to sit in a coffee shop all day and write poetry? Or why walking down an immaculate burst of city lights makes me feel like I can do anything in the world? I guess we are all affected by where we live, but I don’t believe we have to be. I am a believer in being the same person no matter where we are, or who we are around. It is a constant self examination and realization which affirms who we are all over again, and Who we belong to. We struggle, we feel, we hurt, we cry, we laugh, we sing, we dance, we rejoice, we grow.
We live.
