I’ve been meaning to write about the complexity of decisions. But my inspiration has shifted yet again.
I once heard someone respond to the question of what was her first novel about: “you know, as all first novels are – everything… and nothing”. That’s how I feel every time I write. Once you put the ripe, all-encompassing feeling down to words – it looses its pulse, its raison d’être.
Recently I have been greatly inspired by Salvador Dali. Actually, I’ve been in that phase on and off since “Little Ashes”, but some recent happenings have urged me to revisit his whole philosophy. The twistedness he regarded life with, the challenge he posed to stagnant and narrow thinking. Like in the words of one of my favorites, Albert Camus: “The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion”.
My parents used to say (or hope) that my sharp angles would be altered by time and I would become something more of a lady. I’m afraid this process is happening in reverse. Time has made me more critical, more demanding; I am less immune to bullshitting and idiots. And I am terribly thirsty for original people and unique ideas. It has been so long since someone has shaken up my little mind bubble and challenged me.
So many out there are pretending to be unique fucking snowflakes, whereas he/she is just another “creative” ad designer or self-convinced über talented hipster walking around babbling about Kierkegaard’s philosophy. People are so obsessed about their individual identity, about what expresses them best and at the same time they feel insecure if their belongings and affiliations are challenged in any way. It’s an interesting time we live in – the mishmash of individuality and group psychology; the strive for individual and the longing for commonality. It seems to me that recently the hardest challenge of all is to stay real, uninfluenced, uncompromised by the perceptions of what is in and not acting accordingly.
That is why we adore the pure minds, the ones who step out of the conformity bubble and “live life on the edge of life”. On a tightrope. Today those, who follow their inner call, are regarded almost as some sort of gurus, messiahs of the new and the true. Look at the most prominent people of our day – they are the living proof of this principle. They refused to follow the herd; they were looked at as crazy wackos at their very beginnings and eventually grew to become these contemporary messiahs of their fields.
My life has been based very much on the ideas expressed by (RIP) Steve Jobs at his Stanford speech: your job is going to take up at least 70% of your life. OK, that’s me talking, AT LEAST 50%, right? So how on earth can you settle? I say never rest until you have found something that makes you ecstatic. “Sing with rapture and dance like a dervish” – that’s the feeling we all should aim for (ok, sorry for this bit of vomiting sunshine).
Challenge yourself. Ask for more. Want more. Because living your life in any other way is simply unacceptable.
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