"We can't choose where we come from, but we can choose where we go from there." - Stephen Chbosky - The Perks of being a Wallflower
Normally I wouldn’t associate my thoughts and their distribution into the world in the same breath but as this is my first blog post, it symbolises a much needed beginning to that integration.
Welcome. Hello. Guten Tag.
My life is something I’m both content with and at the same time find myself sub-consciously seeking escapism from. Listening to music at a certain volume or finding a good enough book are just some of the ways but recently I’ve properly discovered the dissatisfaction I feel in the everyday, like there’s a stagnant element that I can’t shake because I feel like I’m not moving forward or backward.
Just stuck in the middle.
*cue the untimely singing of the Stealers Wheel song.*
I realise that you don’t know me and you don’t know how I think because only I can do that. However I’m sure there are ways we think alike, for example I know I’m not the only person to want someone to genuinely ask me how I’m doing or makes awkward eye-contact with a help-desk employee in a Supermarket instead of raising my hand or my voice when my bag of crisps isn’t recognised in the baggage area.
All the small and big things of the everyday are terrifying in their own way.
So that is why I am here.
To talk about the big, little, fat, thin, tall and short quirks of life from My Perspective.
As a basis I can attest to being a young person in this age of technology, twisted politics, historical movements and environmental crisis, and know that this is neither easy or bearable at times.
At other times it feels revolutionary to be alive.
But during a global pandemic, it’s sometimes hard to see where I fit into the mix and how my existence will make an impact in the long run on things that matter.
A recent example I can give (well as recent as you can before COVID 19 messed it all up) is the time I spent participating in the Fridays For Future campaign to protest Climate Injustices. Attending protests during school hours and making signs from broken pieces of cardboard made me feel accomplished in its own way since I knew I was contributing to a greater purpose that was ultimately aiding the fight against climate change. At the same time, the pride I felt whilst walking beside so many other young people, all with the same goal, provided this sense of whole-ness that I find myself missing in the following months stuck at home with only the company of a weekly Zoom call from my friends to keep me social.
So I end up wishing back to those moments of validation that I was, in fact, doing something worthwhile. On other days, I sit up from my bed at 5pm after whole-season binge watch and wonder if I’ll ever make good decisions again.
It comes and goes.
Although, as the world continues to pick up that pace and the mood changes from day to day, the sense of escapism I feel still lingers. So I keep listening to the likes of Arlo Parks, Alexi Murdoch and Bruno Major at deafening levels and distracting myself from the impending future that is awaiting me in the form of a gap year and the possibility of University afterwards in the wake of a global pandemic.
Hey, at least it’ll be interesting. 🙂
For Wanderers and Wonderers 