What are you living for? Do you have “THE purpose” in life? You know, the one that defines you and your existence on this planet?! Everyone is shouting how you are supposed to figure it out, have THE goal of your life, and confidently go towards it, step by step, brick by brick. Sometimes life seems like not about the actual living, but trying to follow the perfect model, formula, “rules” of living. And you do it day after day, and you are supposed to be “happy” and “fulfilled,” but all it does is leaving you feeling fake, an imposter. You are not living your life. You are playing the game called Life. It is all pretending.
Living a life: what does it actually feel like? Enjoying life without the “must-have” purpose or passion or far-reaching goal? What is life all about? What is the purpose of life if you do not have a purpose?
I have recently watched new Disney movie Clouds, and it affected me profoundly, struck pretty hard. It is a movie about a kid with cancer, terminal stage. He is questioning his purpose of little time he has left on this planet. The story touched me to the deepest mostly because of how it makes us question what we are all doing here. We can be so caught up with things to do, things to accomplish by certain age, things to prove to ourselves and others that we forget about the very question: so what? if you were given a terminal diagnosis, what would you do? what would you focus on? would you still care about money? appearance? status? promotion? Is that what life is all about? Just think about it. What would you actually do if you were given a few months to live?
Fuck, sometimes I ask myself: do you really need to know you are dying to realize it is time to start LIVING?! Why cannot we be born with this realization that life is painfully short, and that you have a definite amount of time, so stop wasting your time, energy, emotions, thoughts on bullshit. Things that will never matter had you less than a year to live.
Even though I am an atheist, when I come across a story, a book, or movie about someone who dies young, but leaves an invaluable legacy behind, I always feel this person was “sent” to our planet for a short period of time to teach us something greater than us. Angels, do you exist?
Apart from these “messengers,” I also believe in ART. I believe it can unite people. It can make us relate to each other. It makes us pause our game of life. Art breaks the rules of any set game.
That’s why I am so obsessed with books, and poetry, and movies, and music, and any artistic expression. It surpasses our ego, our mind, brain, any man-made entity. It is something we cannot touch or explain, but it is the biggest achievement of humanity.
Art is life. No rules, no games. Pure, raw, and painfully beautiful.