Chapter 6: Alive or Dead
How do you know whether you are alive or dead? Is it your beating heart? Or is it that you have your 5 senses. Sometimes even with a beating heart, it's almost like you are just dead in this world. This cruel unfair world, that's blind to the saints and sinners. It doesn't discriminate who it deals judgement or punishment to. Nor does it reward everyone for their effort.
Some get their lucky break by accident and then they can reap the reward. Others, well they just simply fail. They give up their sky-high dreams and try to settle with the cold ground that they stand on. They could no longer reach for the sky. They could only watch those with success either with envy or with satisfaction.
That's the strange thing about humans. We either want someone to succeed so that in our mind it would be our success, it would be our victory, and it would be our escape from this mundane cruel world of failures. At the same time, we envy those with success, hoping that they trip and fail. Hoping that they too also give up on their dreams like us so that we can get that sweet satisfaction that yes. Yes, we were right to give up. Yes, we were right to grow up. And yes... we aren't quitters but a realist.
Afraid of confronting the truth, we think it’s easier to see others fail, to see others in the same exact situation as us. Rather see people fly high in the sky, we want to clip their wings so they can be on the ground as us. Afraid to admit our inadequacy and frighten to admit our wrongdoings.
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We want everyone else to be dead like us. To live in our ordinary lives, to not reach the sky and become an existence that we deemed as far away. Existences that we feel are superior and petrified at the thought of being inferior.
In the end, all we want is to be comforted by the lies and failures of others. Not seeing the truth or aware of our success. Not understanding that our self-worth doesn't come from comparing with others but by what we define it as. We don't understand that we are still alive even in the darkest of days. We let the darkness consume us and by doing so we want others to be consumed by the darkness. So that everyone is the same so that no one is better than anyone else.
However, in a world of billions of people, there's bound to be people better than you. So why is it that we compare to others for our success, why is it that we let our self-esteemed be defined by the success or failure of another. Can you be as smart as Einstein? Or as brilliant as Socrates? Can you draw a Mona Lisa? Maybe not. But you can do other things. You have your own set of skills and your own worth and purpose in this world. So why compare yourself to another. Everyone in this world is different because we are complex.
If you want to be alive then see your own worth. Understand your values and your achievements. Don't let the darkness consume you or lose who you are just by outcomes of others.