This week i will hit the olde "double 3's" and like with all anniversaries of me breaking my mum's tail bone i get thinking. Thinking too much probably. This year i find myself understanding many of those who have inspired me a little bit more than i have in the past.
i don't have heroes but there are a great number of people who i feel have inspired me. Most of them are artists on some level. Of them, most seem to have gotten lost somewhere along the way in their adult lives, sometimes leading to their early demise, other times leading them to obscurity in their later years.
What happened? i now believe it comes from being an aging idealist. As a young idealist you see things around you and realize that they could (and should) be better. As a young idealist you've got a lot of piss & vinegar and more importantly, you've got a lot of life ahead of you. You talk the talk, you walk the walk, you fight the fight, and you believe that things can (and will) get better.
Somewhere along the way, the young idealist loses the "young" and is left just an idealist. As time passes some things may improve. In fact, the idealist may have even helped in bringing about some of those improvements. Unfortunately, the idealist still sees all that could be improved, all that can be improved, all that could be, and all that should be, and wonders why aren't these things happening.
Humans frequently see their lives as moving towards the day when they cease to respirate. They see that as the deadline for all that is to happen. In adulthood you start realizing that there is less and less time ahead of you. Less time to do all those things you wanted to do. Despite this, the list of things you would like to do seems to grow longer everyday.
In youth we are lead to believe that once you are an adult you will have more control. More control over your life and more control over the world around you and how things are done. The older you get the more you realize that it's just a fluidly shifting scenario where there is little net change. You gain control over some aspects of your life yet lose control over other aspects.
Things change far too slowly for the idealist and as that made-up deadline creeps closer every day patience decreases proportionately. The question comes up: how to deal with this? How does one deal with the disappointment? Do you trudge on or stop trying? Do you lose faith? Do you drink it away? Do you retract back into your own little world?
No matter what, the idealist cannot carry on the same way indefinitely. At some point things change. Sometimes the answers you are looking for don't exist. How do you make peace with what you learn as you get older?
i think i now understand those idealists a bit better now. i understand their latter works. i understand why some of them got lost along the way. They've become a bit more real to me.
i keep thinking of the Red Hot Chili Pepper's lyric "the best that I can ever be is just like you a human being". All too frequently people get disappointed when they realize that their heroes are really just human beings. i'm starting to think that someday, just maybe, some of my inspirations may become heroes. i hope i can continue to learn from what they have done. i hope i can become a little more human.
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