"Isn’t that what being young is about, believing secretly that you would be the one person in the history of man that would live forever?"
- David Aames, Vanilla Sky
Boy, does that quote hit the nail on the head for me. I really believed that - quite exactly - when I was young, but it was more than that, too. I imagined the graduation speeches, and television interviews, and one-off dinners with prominent people that I would give; a gift of my extended wisdom, the sightlines of my brain that stretched farther than others for reasons that today I can only describe as "heroic". (Thanks go to Jung, who correctly saw that Superman is not arbitrary.)
It is sad to look back and see that such boundless dreams have been extinguished by nothing more than the passage of time, but such is life. The ultimate mystery is alive in the universe; what complaint regarding our existence can be brought forward that is not a misunderstanding? Indeed, I am fascinated by Leibniz' posit that we live in the best of all possible worlds, although my view of a "God" does not require that it be so. On the other hand, I am philosophically unsophisticated; perhaps a few years of concentrated reading on the subject would bring around one or another of my supporting positions.
What more is there to say? The thoughts of youth trail off now, although I try to hold on. We are what we used to be for only so long, and I - perhaps in contradiction - try each day to fall asleep a little wiser than I was when I woke up, even as I try to hold on to what I was. Which do I want more? I push on bravely because the past will fade regardless. I don't ultimately want complicated things; only to be happy.
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