The Universe Doesn't Care.
As I reach a crossroads in my life, I keep expecting the universe to open doors for me.
I really shouldn’t.
It’s not like I deserve the help. Years and years of comfortable stagnation have led to easy answers, mostly to questions unasked, and I’m perfectly okay with that.
Powers that be shouldn’t feel obligated to help me out.
I didn’t have a reason for feeling expectant, either. I just assumed it worked that way for me.
Might be where this whole thing starts, with a messy sort of realization about my need to come to terms with the fact I’m not the center of the universe. My challenges (or lack thereof) might seem substantial in regard to my own personal introspection, but they paint a poor picture of my personal growth as a whole.
I rarely learned anything from my mistakes other than to not make the same mistakes again. It’s basically a fairytale ending without a moral tie-in. I should be offended over this poorly written fanfiction of my life. Shit, there’s not even homage paid to the author. Just millennial flavored self-pity.
On top of that, successes and failures leave the same cosmic footprint, and the universe doesn’t care about any of it.
Divorce? Nope. Hurricane? Nah. Death? No thanks.
So, back to my first thought: Why aren’t these doors opening when I reach them? Why do I expect them to?
I think I give myself too much credit. At one point or another, I centralized life around me and, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve found myself to be a rather bland main character. Needy, lazy, despondent, spiteful. Left leaning, right speaking, edgy without committing to being fully nihilistic.
Boring.
As you might expect, the clump of flawed sentiments I’m parading around as ultimately leads to uninteresting plot points.
Plus, the universe still doesn’t care.
I’m not mad. I’m just tired.
Tired of being boring. Bored with being tired.
I keep telling myself it could be worse, but what is worse than boredom with one’s self?
Existential crisis.
How does that happen?
It’s quiet. Too quiet. I start feeling inklings of self-pity seeking asylum, wriggling through the drudgery of my daily life in meager hope of anchoring within my self-centered thoughts. Rather than use boredom constructively, I’ve weaponized it. I’m good at making myself feel bad. It’s easy.
I just ask myself, ‘Would things be different if…?’
But we know one thing, right?
The universe doesn’t care. Beyond us, after a lengthy period of time, our mistakes probably don’t matter.
The only reason I pick at the differences in the ‘what if’ scenario is for the sake of fictional musing. Ideas for future projects, albeit hazy and undeveloped ones. Fiction from nonfiction, where truth is stranger than fiction ever has a chance to be. Nomenclature content, the likes of which defines what is real from what is imagined. It’s a learning experience in the measurement of opinion.
We are more than our memories. We are the very thoughts we cherish. We are the makings of fiction.
And it’s quiet all the time. So quiet, one might pretend to forget how loud silence can be.
How loud? It’s deafening in some superfluous sense, a sea of white noise. Aside from that, silence is a place of dwelling we conveniently forget when everything in our existence is otherwise okay. Silence is where our minds go when we venture too far from ordinary everyday musings we’re typically rooted in.
Does it feel safe? Sure. In moderation.
But silence isn’t a place I want to linger in. It’s not meant to feel inclusive and it certainly doesn’t. It’s without beginning and end. The shape is representative of the person existing in it and I, as noted, am too boring to create more than a semipermanent imprint. Silence will win the war.
A drop in the bucket or a star in the sky.
In any case, silence has no room for the unremarkable, and just like the universe, silence doesn’t care about me or you or anything else.
So, yeah. I’m here in silence for a brief stay, trying to remember to care. I don’t want to open any new doors, but I’ll do it anyway. I tell myself it’s worthwhile to create the opportunities waiting to be taken and when they’re available to me, I’ll regret not taking them sooner, in bigger and broader strokes.
Starting only requires me to sift through life garbage for something genuinely thought-provoking. When I find it, I’ll make use of it.
I might even attempt to be mindful of who I am. The unremarkable, boring, not-so-great me. While the universe doesn’t care, I should.
Sometimes, privately, I think I already do. Why else would I be scared?
Cheers, Kat