Thoreau’d, Less Taken
Solitude and Modern Man’s Games
After high school, I jumped off the conveyor belt— I didn’t go to college or the military upon graduating high school, as is custom for young people in my socioeconomic class. Instead, I elected to take a “gap” period, and in doing so, “dropped the ball.” That is, I stopped playing the games I was told to play. The capitalist game, the social pyramid climb. They tasted bitter to me. Acrid, all this energy invested in the future.
Like Thoreau all those years ago, I left society in search of a better game; a better ball to behold. My despair at the thought of a compartmentalized, right angled style of in-the-box living, along with a personal contempt for the statist, pseudo-patriotic, pseudo-intellectual …show more content…
Knowing that I will not be satisfied with a life of conformity in my pursuits is an emotional burden on my parents, for obvious reasons. Conformity is safety, and all parents want their children to be safe. I have made sparse economic gains, and in this, have dropped the ball in a far more tangible sense. This too weighs surely on their minds. However, I think in time they will come to understand that my decision is rooted in the wisdom of uncertainty, the understanding that there is, fully, no real knowing beyond the present moment, other than in some way, knowing the inevitability of ultimate mortality.
This decision of mine to reflect, face stark realities and ask myself existential questions has, in a way, forced the people close to me to examine their own realities and come to terms with their mortality as well. Although it may not be pretty at times, it seems far better to face and accept the reality of blatant facts such as death, so that we may live as if we were alive instead of just waiting around for the hand of God to
Solitude and Modern Man’s Games
After high school, I jumped off the conveyor belt— I didn’t go to college or the military upon graduating high school, as is custom for young people in my socioeconomic class. Instead, I elected to take a “gap” period, and in doing so, “dropped the ball.” That is, I stopped playing the games I was told to play. The capitalist game, the social pyramid climb. They tasted bitter to me. Acrid, all this energy invested in the future.
Like Thoreau all those years ago, I left society in search of a better game; a better ball to behold. My despair at the thought of a compartmentalized, right angled style of in-the-box living, along with a personal contempt for the statist, pseudo-patriotic, pseudo-intellectual …show more content…
Knowing that I will not be satisfied with a life of conformity in my pursuits is an emotional burden on my parents, for obvious reasons. Conformity is safety, and all parents want their children to be safe. I have made sparse economic gains, and in this, have dropped the ball in a far more tangible sense. This too weighs surely on their minds. However, I think in time they will come to understand that my decision is rooted in the wisdom of uncertainty, the understanding that there is, fully, no real knowing beyond the present moment, other than in some way, knowing the inevitability of ultimate mortality.
This decision of mine to reflect, face stark realities and ask myself existential questions has, in a way, forced the people close to me to examine their own realities and come to terms with their mortality as well. Although it may not be pretty at times, it seems far better to face and accept the reality of blatant facts such as death, so that we may live as if we were alive instead of just waiting around for the hand of God to