#wanlu

[113014] wanlu

I never knew what kind of things got me sidetracked in life. I guess they were usually things that made me happy; wasting time is poison in a treasure to me, and they wonder why I couldn't use it well.

*warning, word vomit and emotional turmoil in trying to form coherent thoughts. 

tik. tok. tik. tok. tik. tok.

I love living.

When I say living, I mean breathing in the toxins this world has to offer. Like I get to bask in the light the sun sends down. And I get to swim and drink the water that derives from elemental bonding. And I get to grow! My cells continue to multiply and divide and I continue blossom and I'm just a large bundle of inherited DNA portrayal in the web of society-

-then there's that metaphorical living where the cliche quota goes on to say: "you're alive, but are you really living?"

One of the common themes in my expressive writing tend to be this underlying fear of the future and the flaws in my living, which is totally applicable right now. Basically the problem with living is that you only get one life to live and I'm stuck balancing on the tight tope between YOLO and standard success (whatever that means).

So in the adult world, to name a few, let's say there's the working class that deals with the 9-5 work hours and then another group that deals with failure after failure to become something abstract like an artist or musician despite the odds of them making it being eh.

tik. tok. tik. tok. tik.

Some days I want to be something my parents would be proud of. Not saying they wouldn't be proud of me otherwise, but like many parents, they want what's best for their children because in some cases, the goal to life is prosperity and security. 

Some days I want to be something the whole world would be proud of. Not saying that the whole world would ever be proud of me, but like many people, I want to make a mark in this earth. Something that screams, "everyone loved me at one point for this reason" or "I get to say I did this because others didn't". 

But most days, I want to be something that I would be proud of. Not saying that I don't have any pride in myself (I may have too much), but maybe you feel the same when I say this. I grew up wanting to have it easy; to magically become beautiful or intelligent or skilled and it just never happened immediately. There are times I always try to look for a purpose in everything I do, and when I can't find a purpose, everything seems pointless. 

I can't imagine what death looks like because it hasn't happened. So I'm pretty sure I'm still living. The more time that passes, the more I realize that I am absolutely, positively, definitely living and that I have an allotted amount of time to do things or else at one point, I may not be able to do them anymore. 

tik. tok. tik. tok. 

Procrastination is definitely not a clinical disease but I can assure you it penetrates your skin and flows through your bloodstream and makes you convulse in similar patterns. It gets to your head and it's unhealthy and it's practically poisonous to the body and mind. I would consider it a self-destructive addiction, a defect in the ability to get things done. 

But what do you want to get done?

tik. tok. tik. 

I think I spread myself too thin. I don't know the differences between what I like to do and what I know I can do and what I should do for society because after all, the goal is prosperity and security right?

Are those really your goals?

tik. tok. 

I think I can do things later by doing what I like now because I can't measure later. And in the mindset that I don't know what happens in the future, I will only continue to doubt God's plans for me and continue to set myself up for a failure I was destined to avoid.

I'm very good at avoiding.

tik.

I still love to live though. I still love to see people smile and spend my time doing the things I love because why the hell not. They say don't waste time for a future you don't know but am I the one to dictate it? I think my priorities fog up growing up. But maybe my windshield's just spraying water to wipe it again, I don't know. I don't get the desired results from not getting things done. But I will say I've done a lot of cool things in my life, and I don't know if I can tell you at the top of my head any of those things I regret.

I think I'm addicted to perpetual happiness, but I wonder why I always bear heartbreak. 

"t-"

time management. I am the most impatient yet laziest person I know. 

Use your time with utmost love and care- with or without a clock. 

ThankYouWanLu

112414 [wanlu]

We don't know who coined the term "lost generation" for us, but whoever it was, we could only wish to ask them what it was we were trying to find. Or is it that we have a sense of direction but feel there is nowhere to go.

A/N I do not like generalizing people and condensing individualism into an object of conformity all too much, though it makes it much easier to talk about a mass population. I'd to like to begin this post by noting that when I say "society blah blah blah", I must remind the reader that you are society. And when I categorize people and people don't like it, I'd like to make that a reason for the individual to extract themselves outside of the conformity and make bigger and better changes for a better society. So that society no longer has a negative connotation.

Growing up is hard.

People my age, older, younger-

okay, maybe everyone. We're all suffering a little bit. Whether it's anxiety, depression, stress, loneliness, longing...

I think we're all aware of these issues that have been embedded in our day-to-day living, but I don't think we've ever evaluated our options in terms of how to deal with them healthily. I think we found ways to cope, which is awesome, but I don't think eradicating the problem is a solution; I don't want to not ever feel a certain way because feelings are the basis of who we are.

Now, they call us the lost generation for a lot of reasons. Things are moving faster than our ability to understand them and we're kind of stuck in this oh we're moving ahead!... but I seem to sprinting towards the finish line with no shoes... and no pants.... and no legs.

I absolutely do not know what I'm going to do in the future. We're battling a demanding environment full of arbitrary expectations that want us to do standard things like get degrees, find jobs, be successful, but be everything you want to be-

-wait. Was being successful and being who I want to be in the same sentence? Is that even a thing?

They'll ask you what you want to be in the future, and you'll reply a police officer because you want to put away the bad guys and help people. But then you realized that you couldn't afford it and it lead to tough decisions and then you became the bad guy because you couldn't help anyone- not even yourself.

You replied to someone once that you wanted to be a writer and a humanitarian and they told you that if becoming a starving artist was your goal, you wouldn't be able to feed anyone else that was starving.

Examples, instances out of an eternity, but far from lies. And I think we're held up on this societal pedestal, waiting to be knocked down by either God's cue to cut the crap or our own mother leaving the 100th message on the answering machine to do the same.

I'm crawling my way through high school and ohoho, there's more. There will be forks down education's road. And there will be more challenges in the river of all things social life. And a financial struggle is always a suffocating one. And there will be all things moral mayhem in trying to decipher the rights and wrongs and if it weren't for a persistent moral GPS, I would be forever stuck in limbo.

I'd like to refer to the wanlu: We don't know who coined the term "lost generation" for us, but whoever it was, we could only wish to ask them what it was we were trying to find. Or is it that we have a sense of direction but feel there is nowhere to go.

I don't think too many people will argue with me in saying that we all want to live a good life (interpret it how you will). We all have goals, even if you think you are aimless. Maybe your goal is to be free and having no specific direction be your direction. And that's okay.

I liked to think that the main problem of the youth is that we didn't know what we were looking for. Which is partially true; a lot of the times we don't know what we want to do. But then a new problem arises and I think that we all have a sense of ideas. We all have dreams. But the worst part is, is that sometimes, due to circumstance and perceived limitations,

we think those dreams don't have a place for us. And that's really sad.

I would like to believe in the constant hope that not only is there a dream, but that we are a part of that dream. Dumbledore's wise words, "It does not due to dwell on dreams and forget to live." Dreams vs. reality; the best use of either is to have them live in symbiosis in your life.

I would also like to believe that we can refine our dreams and that it is never too late to make even the smallest changes in order to take your last breath thinking somehow, I did it. I did not settle for less, but I settled for a purpose. And I am okay with it.

ThankYouWanLu

112314 [wanlu]

I spent my whole life trying to figure out things that didn’t want to be figured out. It never occurred to me that trying to understand could warp me crooked.

Initially I took this photo for the whole urban-esque scenery. Then I took this in admiration of the people around me (creepy I know omg) I looked at the people walking in front of me and thought, “They are a mere 6 feet away from me but this is as close as we will ever get. Unless fate brings us together again, I will never truly know them.” The people in front of me just walked the same sidewalk as me; we were on the same block in the same city and of all the square milage on this earth, we somehow managed to be right here in this very moment.

Never mind them though, the above was merely a 10 second thought that quickly drifted away. To be honest, without knowing them or having ever talked to them, I didn’t really care about them. Who would care so much about some stranger? 

But then things took a turn in my mess of a brain by a sudden realization: there are people in my life I cherish so much and think I understand so well. But do I really know them? God, fate, whatever it is, put people in my life for me to live alongside (reasons unknown). But times get tough and we are forced to find ways to move forward and evaluate the things we thought we knew. 

This might be my know-it-all persona trying to emerge, but for the majority of my life, I do a great amount of over-thinking and questioning for my own psychological capacity. One may even find it crazy. I can assure you though, that my sanity has been intact thus far and I am not running around pointing fingers at my friends for being bad people, because they are far from that.

I think what I’m trying to say is… I don’t think we’ll ever truly know the people around us. I did not take the chance to get to know the people walking on the sidewalk and learn about the dreams they had or what they were going to have for dinner (pretty sure you wouldn’t either). But I lived with my mother my whole life, and I had a best friend for 10 years. I also had some valuable short-lived friendships.

I still don’t understand my parents as well as I could. I can blame culture shock and generation gap. And I can tell them that they'll never get it. But I'll never get their experiences the way they lived it. I will never understand the pain and the strength.

I still don’t understand the friends I “knew” for my whole life. I will never understand their will to stick around or what connected us in the first place. I still don't know how to read their mind. I will never understand the person they are when we are apart.

I still don’t understand the people I drifted away from. I will never understand the intensity and strength of those friendships. I will never understand the deeper conscience and who they are as people the way time seems to help catalyze. I will never get to understand the person they are when we are still together.

I came to a rather inconclusive conclusion(?) that I will definitely never ever truly know someone or understand different things because they’re not supposed to be completely understood (surprise surprise). Nature doesn’t live in blacks and whites. We all share a physical earth, but we each have our own unique Narnias. Our own grayscales.

I tried so hard to answer questions like, “why?” and “how?”. But the more I did that, the more it tore me apart. It led me to make poor decisions in regards to the people in the moment- in the now.

I could say this can go for academic learning also. Though curiosity leads to discovery which leads to progress which leads to fundamental living, we can never be satisfied with the current- but don't get too caught up on finding the end because even science is an endless tunnel. 

I guess this was a mere analysis, a round-about food for thought, about how we’ll never really know. But that’s okay. It’s okay to make sure your own world is yours, and you don’t need to be invited into someone else’s. People have their reasons; we've ought to consider the privacy of the individual.

More important than knowing someone, is loving them. Because although time and place can bind connection, love cannot be bound. I love my family, my friends, and humanity. I love God, I love living.

I don’t understand love either, but here I am, living and loving strangers.

ThankYouWanLu

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