“What is it that you want to achieve in life?”, they ask with immense curiosity.
“What are your dreams?”
I am questioned in forums and seminars, one after the other. Asked by my friends, my peers, and sometimes even my children.
I am always inherently ashamed when I get asked these questions.
Ashamed, because I have no appropriate answer that can satisfy them.
Ashamed because my answers are radically opposite of what the appropriate answers should be.
Ashamed that I cannot explain this to them that I have tasted the nectar of emptiness.
That I have peered into the abyss, once maybe twice even if it was just for a few moments.
Instead of achieving something in life, I actually want to do the exact opposite.
To figuratively downsize.
To shed the burdens and labels that I have been carrying around.
Why accumulate more chains around my ankles when I can barely walk when my dream is to instead dive into the empty abyss of mindlessness?
Those formulas learned in my childhood.
Those social cues on what makes me a guy slightly more attractive to the opposite sex.
The ability to successfully mask what I am feeling inside, be it happiness or otherwise.
I want to drop it all.
Don’t you want to get a promotion?
No. If you promote me to being a manager, I’ll go find another job. I just don’t want to be responsible for managing people, in fact managing anything significant.
Don’t you want to help hundreds, maybe thousands by dreaming big instead of your pathetic attempts at feeding one or two random people? Why limit your vast potential?
No. The commercialization of empathy doesn’t work for me. I want to stop trying to get somewhere and instead look in their eyes and talk to them, even if it is for a few minutes a day.
Don’t you want to be a good effective leader?
No. I don’t want to lead anyone, period.
The answer cannot be and should not be negative as long as I want to exist in this society, and yet,
Why do I want to answer it that way?
Such a loser, unambitious, coward. You have no goals at all. You don’t want to better yourself. That’s such a lame attitude in life.
“Don’t you dare call me that! I’ll f***ing rip your head off”?
And there it is….
Someday, I’ll be able to shed the biggest burden of them all.
My ego, that still gets deeply offended at every small slight —
Perceived or otherwise…
