The world is trying to regain its sense of morality, celebrate diversity, accept differences, reason with new explorations, and look for undying life or life beyond Earth. However, many people, are losing the essence of living, the reason for holding on, and a ravenous thirst for life.
“The world is becoming so small for one to even breathe some fresh air. Don’t you think?” Patrick asked his co-worker Anderson.
“Go to Jupiter then. There, you’ll be like a bacterium in the air,” Anderson replied.
That awakened a spark in Patrick because that would be an answer to his prayer. He would rather live with aliens instead of the people around him. What caused all that hatred of people?
Patrick grew up in a family of six, aspiring to be like his father, a veterinarian. But at the age of 14, his dream changed; he wanted to be a tailor, brand his name around the world, and become somebody. A dream nobody around him believed in, he was laughed at and asked to turn his back on it. He had to do what they had approved. He wasn’t able to make his own choice about what he wanted in life and keep his father’s name high. As an expressive person living in a calm, engulfing environment, he was bullied and regarded as a noisy person. As a result, those negative sayings crushed his soul because he held a desire to live up to his dream and eventually make people happy.
Many adolescents grow up thinking that life will be a straight line, that if you have an aspiration, then the universe is going to conspire to make it happen for you, and therefore your wish shall always come true. However, it didn’t go as planned. He was not a tailor as he wished nor a veterinarian as expected of him. So he was squashed in a small box, losing his flame, becoming ordinary—something he was terrified about. Regrettably, worse came to worst, and he lost faith.
After finishing high school, a precarious period of his life, Patrick spent his freshman year as a DJ in the neighborhood, going where life took him until he was arrested for making loud noises. In that same year, he lost his best friend in an accident, and it has been an unrecoverable wound since then. He asked himself how he had become a magnet for tragedy. Nothing in his life seemed to make sense. He tried so hard not to strangle himself with his own hands.
In college, he studied Information Technology; however great he was in the subject, he was not fulfilled during practice within three years. So he switched to being a sales commissioner for about eight years, which paid him good money but didn’t fill the thirst he had for a successful career. Prior to studying IT, Patrick joined a local football fan club and became an active member. On his 10th anniversary in the club, he was elected as the fan club president. He was very content and decided to quit his job to dedicate himself to the responsibility he was given. Unfortunately, he resigned after only five months on the grounds of working in a corrupt environment, the honour and contentment from that job weren’t enough to go against the purity of his spirit. So, he took on odd jobs that helped him to survive.
He would occasionally spend some time in bars but made no friends, only casual acquaintances over beer and equally casual topics. But nothing lasted for a while; people would look at him as a deranged person. Another struggle for Patrick was keeping a healthy relationship with women in his life. But there was one who checked on him from time to time because she knew how fragile he was about daily life. They’d talk for hours and hours about the injustice, dishonesty, and unfaithfulness of people. Every incident connected, and it awakened explosive behavior in him. His impulses became sharper and immediate.
Little by little, he was suffocating, like oxygen not reaching the lungs, unless he took cannabis—a natural herb, they say, which allowed him to incarnate in another dimension, where light encompassed all the darkness. Everything was soft and slow. It was calm, with enough space to breathe, reconnect, and be.
Although nights were quiet, they came with a high tide sensation, which didn’t allow him to sleep well unless he put on some music to make it silent. He could finally sleep to the slow rhythm of breath. Sometimes he went outside for a little dance where nobody was watching, just his naked body, open soul, and the wind in the dark.
Every morning was a successful pass he made to see another day. He woke up to loud noises from the window across the road. Like many people, he went out on a daily schedule but without any intent to enjoy life in all its colors. It was as if he was being consumed altogether, his energy being fed on by other organisms. He did that to keep his promise of supporting his family.
Many times he wished to die, but he was consoled by remembering what Anderson told him: how big the universe is, and it might allow life in it. One day he could be imbued in space, and just like other numberless atoms and microbial life, he’d be at the edge of sight.
He wanted to stand on some cozy equilibrium, but he rather fell to pieces, so he switched his sense of consciousness, the power of imagination. Walking like cloudy weather, it’s foggy; nobody could refract their eyes into him, just counting his steps on time. Four, three, two, one, go.
As he was getting comfortable with his withdrawal from earthly life, he disconnected himself from self-compassion and acceptance.
He had become more receptive to bad things happening to people; it made more sense than experiencing anything positive in this life. Negativity seemed like the true home of living.
What he found as the source was that his inner child was not being taken care of. He still wanted to jump up and down, spend sleepy days, shout in the street, and run in the rain; however, everything changed suddenly on his watch. Now all eyes are on him, dictating how to behave, look, walk, and talk a certain way. So he rose into a choked individual, far from finding his purpose. The odds were against his will. And as he brought the dark beneath his depth, it got bigger, it became heavy and constant.
He got far away from his family, in fact, from everybody because everyone who came into his life took something from his open heart and didn’t return it, except his mom, whom he’d go to because she was the only person he was sure about her love. One time, he heard her crying during a prayer in her room: “My God, what did I do wrong that you can’t be gracious about? I’m losing my son, and it’s my fault. I didn’t pay much attention to him. What kind of a parent am I?” It broke him, knowing that he was causing much pain to his mother. Yes, probably there should have been something she’d have done better, but how to fix it now?
How does he tell her that she’s helped him retain sanity? Every time the dark consumed him, he returned home to her, where stress and anxiety were a little less disturbing, where he was allowed to fail, cry, and be confused, where he was accepted for who he is.
One day he was in a bank, busy on his phone, but there was a TV show on, and during commercials, he heard a voice: “Do you ever notice how fascinating it is, no matter the atrocity that occurs in the four corners of the world, you survive to be in this exact moment?”
He realized that in everything he had tried to do in the last 42 years, nothing had gained power over him in defining him in a specific way. He had simply lived honest feelings from the emotions experienced in an intolerable world. He was never in a cage because he had never limited himself from trying anything new or starting all over. The only regret was that many moments from those years went by unnoticed because he was so eager to leave the world behind him, hurdling between time and space. Now he knows he’s limitless and has survived.
A transparent, honest, pure soul meeting the hostility of the world. He still needs a warm embrace to not keep falling backward. But meanwhile, he has decided to gracefully open his eyes to the moments.
