"Time delivers us all to the same end."
Recently I've been sort of thrust into contending with some serious things...
I mean, I've always been sort of running these thoughts in the back of my mind, "What would make my life meaningful?" and "Can I really believe that there's something other than nonexistence after death?" and trying to comprehend nonexistence...
Or less metaphysically, "What am I really going to become in life?"
See, I do always think about stuff like this, but for some reason lately it feels like there's a kind of...urgency about it. It's weird, but I don't feel like I can just shake it off and worry about something else anymore. So I've been sort of stuck thinking about these deep things--that need to be thought of, sure, but...
I guess what I'm really having an issue with is the concept of myself as an adult. I've defined myself as being a kid for so long that I really don't know if I can (or should) let go of it. But, graduating high school and leaving home in September, I feel like here, too, I am running out of excuses not to think about it.
So this one really disturbing moment, which I feel is sort of related, just happened a few minutes ago, here in Brooklyn...
I'm just chilling out here while my dad helps my grandmother with chores and stuff. So to entertain myself, I started looking at these old photographs my grandmother has taped to her cabinet. It was before my older sister was born. I don't know if my parents are married yet. It's some unrecognizable baby's first birthday and everyone is standing in front of the cake for a picture. There are only a few people in the picture I can recognize.
What really disturbed me, though, was seeing my dead grandfather...looking exactly like my father does now. He's wearing an outfit that I think my dad still wears, with Dad's watch and Dad's glasses and Dad's belly and Dad's camera hanging around his neck, with his posture the same way my father poses for pictures. I guess it's only genetics, and it's not that terrifying of a concept, but...this is an image of a man who is cemented in my head as "dead man", looking exactly like my father only with slightly grayer hair, and...well, I guess my mind played a trick on me.
But you know that scene in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (although they changed the atmosphere of the scene in the movie), where Moody shows Harry the photograph of the dead people in the Order and describes how each of them dies, and the people in the photograph just keep waving at him, and it's...kind of a disturbing moment? And then later there's a boggart that shows the image of the Weasleys all dead? I feel sort of like that...being forced to imagine the death of someone important to me. I guess either way I should pull it together before they show up and I have to explain this whole bloody thing to them, and they'll just end up pitying me like some baby......but then, is that what I secretly want, to keep being a kid? No...that's not right...that's not what I want at all...
I don't get it. It's never been this confusing before...
I guess I'm just as calm as usual, though.
I mean, I've always been sort of running these thoughts in the back of my mind, "What would make my life meaningful?" and "Can I really believe that there's something other than nonexistence after death?" and trying to comprehend nonexistence...
Or less metaphysically, "What am I really going to become in life?"
See, I do always think about stuff like this, but for some reason lately it feels like there's a kind of...urgency about it. It's weird, but I don't feel like I can just shake it off and worry about something else anymore. So I've been sort of stuck thinking about these deep things--that need to be thought of, sure, but...
I guess what I'm really having an issue with is the concept of myself as an adult. I've defined myself as being a kid for so long that I really don't know if I can (or should) let go of it. But, graduating high school and leaving home in September, I feel like here, too, I am running out of excuses not to think about it.
So this one really disturbing moment, which I feel is sort of related, just happened a few minutes ago, here in Brooklyn...
I'm just chilling out here while my dad helps my grandmother with chores and stuff. So to entertain myself, I started looking at these old photographs my grandmother has taped to her cabinet. It was before my older sister was born. I don't know if my parents are married yet. It's some unrecognizable baby's first birthday and everyone is standing in front of the cake for a picture. There are only a few people in the picture I can recognize.
What really disturbed me, though, was seeing my dead grandfather...looking exactly like my father does now. He's wearing an outfit that I think my dad still wears, with Dad's watch and Dad's glasses and Dad's belly and Dad's camera hanging around his neck, with his posture the same way my father poses for pictures. I guess it's only genetics, and it's not that terrifying of a concept, but...this is an image of a man who is cemented in my head as "dead man", looking exactly like my father only with slightly grayer hair, and...well, I guess my mind played a trick on me.
But you know that scene in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (although they changed the atmosphere of the scene in the movie), where Moody shows Harry the photograph of the dead people in the Order and describes how each of them dies, and the people in the photograph just keep waving at him, and it's...kind of a disturbing moment? And then later there's a boggart that shows the image of the Weasleys all dead? I feel sort of like that...being forced to imagine the death of someone important to me. I guess either way I should pull it together before they show up and I have to explain this whole bloody thing to them, and they'll just end up pitying me like some baby......but then, is that what I secretly want, to keep being a kid? No...that's not right...that's not what I want at all...
I don't get it. It's never been this confusing before...
I guess I'm just as calm as usual, though.