Some people are destined to live lives that are short and glorious, where they burn with an intensity unparelled until they extinguish themselves and take their place in the stars.
And others are destined to live long, monotonous and by all accounts, pretty safe lives, with intermittent flashes, but more often that not, a nondescript journey that causes barely a murmur.
I had this debate with a friend once. If you could choose which life to live, would you live a short but glorious one, or a long and boring one. When I was a teen, all I thought about was being a rock star, and how cool it would be to stand on the pedestal of the super-typical, worshipped and misunderstood in equal parts by all. I think it was all the hubris that came with being a teenager, the need to be understood and yet misunderstood, the need to be loved and yet hated.
Pardon me speaking in opposites again, but if you still remember what being a teen was like, you might understand what I'm talking about, because adolescence is a confluence of opposites that produces angsty and confused people. People who rail against the world but have no idea what they are railing about. The classic rebel without a cause, immortalised by the stylised head of Che Guevara printed on shirts everywhere. On an unrelated note, I seriously wonder what he would think about his face being printed on tight pink shirts worn by gays.
Now that I have left adolescence behind, I actually want a long and more "boring" life. I could be an smartass and attempt to preach something I learnt from COM207, basically Thanatos (the fear of death), as being one of the primary motivations for wanting so, but nobody loves a smartass. I'm actually trying to hint that nobody likes the new dean. Oh shit, did I just do more than hint? I didn't say anything ok. Thanatos, thanatos.
But anyway, I think this might be the start of a process that sees me degenerate into the people I don't want to be, also known as my parents. Like seriously, who could be more uncool. Or that was what I used to think as a teenager. I wanted to be Kurt Cobain, although he probably never really stayed conscious long enough to wash his hair. I think that was part of the whole rocker cool druggie image.
I used to think that with life offering so many crazy possibilities, how could one settle for the safe and boring? But with the onset of adulthood, the fire is gone, replaced by a new stability. The need to be misunderstood is gone, because I have accepted myself so I don't really need a false identity for myself to hide behind anymore.
No more rockstarz@hotmail.com for me. In fact that is beginning to look really juvenile. Don't you wish you could change your primary/secondary school emails sometimes. Thank goodness I had the sense to use my own name even back then in primary school, when it was about as cool as peanut butter.
Besides, there is another reason to accept the safe life that I appreciate more now, that being money doesn't drop from the sky. In the past, if you were desperately short of money, you still had your parents. But in the future, this cheat code no longer works. Unless you get married to a human ATM.
Some days, I still wish I was that rock star. But such days are becoming fewer and farther between.