The Duality of Me(n)
11/17/22
// disclaimer: the following is a personal post which contains raw thought and emotion transferred directly to text. too few are willing to publicly display their true, genuine feelings on the basis they can be used against them, an opinion with which i've always disagreed. i hope someone reading relates and ideally feels some slight relief knowing another has felt the same before.
As the final year of my time at university comes to a close, a single resounding thought has echoed in my head these past few weeks: I was both wrong and right on nothing and everything. The fact is excruciatingly painful to admit. Insecurities perpetuate every move I make these days – actions which I would have previously completed automatically now give me reason for pause. Yet, simultaneously, I find myself rashly blitzing through other decisions on which I likely should have pondered further before acting. My dreams are all identical; sequences of endless variety but one single constant: in each and every one, I am running for my life. From what changes every night, but in the morning, I wake and wonder why they never change, why I never stop running. Deep down, I know I’m running from myself, from the internal confrontation I know is ever approaching and completely unavoidable.
Half of me is hotblooded, immeasurably bored, and insatiably hungry for the new. The daily monotony of indistinguishable classes, of the same interactions with the same people, of identical emotions to those felt prior: they must end. Senioritis, that’s with what my mother would diagnose me. Maybe she’s right. Or, maybe it’s something more. For the first time, I see a path to my loftiest goals. I found peers I respect, people far more intelligent than me who I can learn from, and they are all located in a land of limitless capital and power (if you know where to look). There is a chess board in front of me representing the start of my life, and I’m white – first to move. Innovate or die. Swim ceaselessly like a shark, lest I drown. Conquer or be conquered.
My other half is stubborn. He is comfortable. He doesn’t want change: he’s perfectly content. He’s envious of the majority of his friends who all still have at least one more year of university in front of them. The idea of being alone again – intimidating. Endless possibilities represent the opportunity for endless mistakes. Why mix things up? He understands, manipulates, and controls his current life. He knows the exact minimum effort required to excel and saves the rest of his energy for himself. His game is not chess but Monopoly, and he owns Park Place. His goal is not to conquer and defeat, merely to acquire and defend. The rest of the world doesn’t concern him, only the now, the immediate, what he can see and touch and know.
I am a walking paradox, a singular duality, an infinite dichotomy.
What to do… Should I cast off one side; release a part of me and relentlessly pursue the other? Learn to live with both? Ignore it all? A fourth option I haven’t considered? Honestly, I have no idea what the right course of action is, but I’ll write again when I figure it out. Until then.