Monday, April 25, 2011

don't worry why i'm gonna be just like them

when i stop to think about it, i decide that whoever came up with the old adage, "you can be whatever you want to be," must not have been very bright. he was probably the one who came up with "opportunities are endless" and "anything is possible" too. i'm not saying that any of those are wrong, just that they're incomplete thoughts. it's like saying that the titanic was a grand ship, and its passengers had the time of their lives on her. well, yeah, they did. up until the whole hitting the glacier and dying part, that is.

i'm not trying to tell anyone that they can't be who or what they want, but i think that everyone has been assigned a role, a part that you alone can play. everyone has one future that was made especially for them. you are meant to be just one thing. you go through life, holding up every possibility to the light, trying on all the opportunities for size, but there is only one perfect fit. 

you can't be anything you want to be. you can be one thing, one thing you were designed to do, and that could be anything, but it's really not your choice. you don't walk down a hallway full of open doors waiting for you to choose. the hallway's still  there, as are the doors, but they're all closed. they're all locked. and you have an unmarked key, so you try it in the door marked doctor, but it won't open. you try it in the door marked teacher, but it doesn't fit in there either. you try it in a million other doors: pilot, artist, author, janitor, president, astronaut, fireman... but none of them fit. and then one day when you've just about given up hope that your key opens anything, you'll stumble on the door with the lock that accepts it lovingly. and then you'll know exactly what you were meant to do.

when you grow up being told that a million doors are open for you, the initial shock of seeing all the closed off opportunities can be crippling. but if you grow up thinking that you are made for just one thing, that the choice was already made, the design set in place, and all you have to do is find it, it doesn't seem so bad. reality wouldn't be so hard to face if we weren't all brought up on lies.

thing is, i can sit here spewing nonsense about truth and lies all day long, but when it comes right down to it, i'm no different than anyone else. when my brothers come up to me with a drawing or a story or a science project and proclaim for a day that they will be an artist, author, inventor, chemist... i find myself telling them "you can be whatever you want to be." i find myself handing out rose-tinted glasses to children with the best of them, telling them not to take them off until it's too late. i'm spinning my own web of lies and complaining that i can no longer see the truth.

*Just Like Them - All

11 comments:

  1. anonymous hippopotamusApril 26, 2011 at 5:24 AM

    i love this!!!!

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  2. i know you mean that because of your excessive use of punctuation.

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  3. anonymous hippopotamusApril 27, 2011 at 3:28 PM

    blah! you aren't allowed to make fun of me on your blog. loser!

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  4. -_-

    sad thing is you find this out late into the game

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  5. yeah cause we live off of the lies we're fed when we're little for so long.

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  6. You can be whatever you want to be, it just doesn't mean that you should. I don't think the doors are necessarily closed, it's just that when you get in, the air is too thick, or the sun is too bright, or the people are too shallow, or the walls are too grey. Or maybe your joints cripple and cramp and you just can't take that step forward, until you find the perfect room, that is. So, the doors are open for you, but can you go in? That's the question.

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  7. that's basically what i was saying, though. trying the keys in the doors is trying the different jobs/futures, and keys sometimes go into locks but won't open them, and that's like trying the different things that seem like a fit, but then they're not. if you can't go into the door then it's basically the same as being locked but with a different metaphor i guess.

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  8. what.ever.
    the point is, you have this great big meltdown when you realize it's so difficult to be anything. and the trauma of this meltdown will scar you to the point of apprehension and self-doubt. and this happens in your college years so you have this great weight gain, depression, dip in grades, and general social avoidance. and then you just wither up and die, a pathetic shadow of the vibrant child you were.

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  9. anonymous hippopotamusApril 29, 2011 at 2:41 AM

    looool r.'s second comment is hilarious!

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  10. if by hilarious you mean absolutely true, then i wholeheartedly agree.

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  11. Yeah, Razan's comment is terrifyingly accurate, down to a T.

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