What am I even doing?
Life’s just passing me by
Rodrigo Rivera
Another 700-word colossus staring at me, challenging me to be creative on-demand. Deadline in sight, I’m not terribly worried, but the uncertain prospect of coming up with something outstanding to say still manages to unnerve me. I’ll be in the same situation two weeks from now, and two weeks after that. It’s almost poetic, but not really.
What week am I even on? What’s changed since the last time I did this? What difference do 12 articles written make from 11? In what ways has my life fundamentally changed since the last time I wrote, other than some numbers going up or a progress bar growing a little bit?
Every day I get up after my third or fourth alarm, learn about new ways to use numbers to represent reality, have club meetings where I try to seem like I’m contributing more than I am, check off some items from my to-do list, add some more.
My dad used to tell me that most lives had already been lived; only things changing are the names of the actors, so perhaps the only people who get to live uniquely are the truly outstanding ones. I’m starting to think that I’m reliving the same days, with pre-scripted phrases and happenings, and only minor variations. Perhaps that’s just how routines work.
Every month or so I pull a couple all-nighters because I have overbooked myself. Then I get a slightly overpriced haircut. My parents call me, and suddenly the stuff I do during the day sounds about eight times cooler. I check my favorite webcomics when I’m reminded of their existence, and I pay my rent, which I see as the mandatory subscription I pay to exist in the US.
Calc I, Calc II, Calc III… Basic micro and macroecon, intermediate micro and macroecon… A harder class, a stronger job title, a harder song to learn, more knowledge and resources to do the same things. What is the point of them all? Higher jumps start to feel less intense, as if I was more joyful when I had less and knew less. When people ask me, I say that I couldn’t be happier with my life, but has that become something I believe instead of actually feeling?
The numbers start to blur with each other. Sure, there are changes, but even the changes become routinary. It is only when something new happens that I feel like I am fully living in the moment. My life has become so academic, so professional, so tropey. I’ve certainly matured a lot in the past two years, but was that at the expense of my capacity for excitement?
Have my motivations changed? Why am I doing this in the first place? Part of why I took a math-heavy major was because I would have grieved never understanding higher math. I write articles because I like getting to call a piece of art uniquely mine, and because my professor in freshman writing told me I have a unique style. I wanted to study in the US because I envisioned the life I would have here and I loved it more than I had ever loved anything.
In essence, I’m still there. I don’t think I’ll ever not be the passionate and excitable dreamer that I am on the inside. Then why do I just scroll and watch videos in the little free time I get? Actually, why do I have so little free time in the first place? What’s up with all the layers of responsibilities and expectations that dictate my actions more than my inner desires do?
When’s the last time I looked at the stars? What happened to my passion projects? When’s the last time I did something stupid for no reason? When’s the last time I cried?! I’ve stopped doing things I want, or rather convinced myself that I want all the things that just make me more interesting. Am I even interesting? Part of me believes I’ve just become good at pretending to be.
Ugh, what can I do to get away from this? I want to be more me. I want to start believing that I’m just as worthy, even if I didn’t do anything that I currently do. I want to take off all these layers and still be there.
You know what?! Fuck it. I’m going to start being more myself, whatever that means, and I’ll get back to you in a couple months. I’m sick of not following my own advice.