Succumbing to Existential Angst
There’s this constant itch in the back of my head, reminding me that I need to be perfect, I have to be.
So many ideas left to die, so many drafts yet to edit. All for what? Perfection?
Every night I lie awake and every morning I sing myself to sleep. Asking myself over and over,
Am I not enough of a creation to be just the way I am?
Isn’t it enough to exist in this society as a broken human with a head full of dreams and a heart surging with passion?
Textbooks left me high and dry, teachers sighed at my scribbled notes at the edges of my school notes. I shut the door on my mother’s face and ignored my father’s pitiful glances. All my friends were ashamed of the way I dressed so I stayed in my room and wrote,
What is this dying need of acceptance that everyone else seems to excel in, which I fail to understand? Please enlighten me with your sick rules of morality and injustice…
I wrote till my wrist ached and my fingers were numb. I wrote to the point where there was no one else but me and my stubborn flaws. Staggering to my feet, I inhale the fresh dust of my own mind. I look down to find myself positioned up in the air supported by nothing but a void. I felt the taste of freedom on my tongue, already craving for more. Soon, I had to come back from that intoxicating trance. The thing is, I despise dwelling in the idea of being special or ‘to be like no other’ but what am I supposed to do if I also loathe fading amongst the crowd?
I closed my books shut and waited for some answer. Instead, questions kept piling up like files on a lazy employer’s desk. I couldn’t stop thinking about how ironical our lives turned out to be,
How is that we keep escaping from everything we claim to search for? And now we’re all just waiting for someone to stumble upon another planet to accept us, as we cannot help but seek ways to stay in denial on this Earth.
Or perhaps everything is purely meaningless and existential questions are just aimless thoughts of a mad man.
