It always about where you born.
I landed squarely in the middle. Average family, average house, average grades, average potential. There was nothing remarkable about me on the surface. I ate, I slept, I went to school, I blended into crowds like water into water. I was a perfect embodiment of average. And for a long time, that was just life. Naive and innocent, I accepted my lot.
But the sorting gnawed at me. When I was younger, the envy was a sharp, hot coal in my gut. I saw the special ones – their effortless lives, the doors that opened for them, the sheer everything they seemed to possess. It wasn't just wealth; it was the assumption of privilege, the lack of worry etched onto their faces. My family, average folks, would sometimes sigh, comparing our struggles, our limitations, to their apparent ease. That comparison, gentle as it sometimes was, kept the fire of jealousy flickering.
Then, around reaching eighteen, the world shifted. I began to see the threads connecting it all. The "specialness" wasn't magic or inherent superiority. It was power. And in this world, that power had a name: money. You could bypass queues, buy access, smooth over mistakes, acquire comfort, influence outcomes – just about everything seemed to have a price tag. The realization was stark and cynical, but it replaced the naive envy with a cold understanding. Money was god.
I lived with that understanding for a few years, navigating the world with this new, less innocent perspective. But as I approached nineteen, another shift occurred. The money, the power, the envy – it all began to feel hollow. The golden shine faded, revealing them for what they were: paper and metal. The grand pursuits of wealth and status suddenly seemed like elaborate games, distractions.
Why the distractions? The thought wasn't a sudden revelation but a slow, creeping understanding. It was fear. Fear of the inevitable end, the great unknown. People were so busy accumulating, striving, competing, because they didn't want to stand still long enough to ask the real questions, to feel the chill of 'When will my time come?' So, they built this intricate structure of importance, value, and achievement – all to keep the fear of death at bay, to fill the void with noise and activity. I saw it in the frenetic energy of the "special" and the quiet desperation of the "lowest." We were all just running from the same thing.
And I was running too. Running in my average way, within my average limits, but still part of the collective flight from meaninglessness. Until that age of nineteen, when everything turned upside down.
The questions began, unbidden and relentless. Who am I? Why am I here? What is death? What is fear, really? What is the purpose of this life? What is truly happening? My average world, stable and predictable, dissolved into a fog of confusion. I had answers for math problems, for historical dates, for social cues, but these fundamental questions had no external answers I could grasp. It dawned on me, slowly, that maybe the answers weren't out there at all. Maybe they were inside.
Then came the dream. It wasn't premonitory or prophetic in any conventional sense, but it was intensely vivid, leaving an imprint that resonated deeper than logic. It hinted at something more, a layer beneath or beyond this surface reality. It solidified the internal shift.
From that moment, the focus narrowed. I needed to find out who I was. Not my name or my job or my role, but the core of me. I began searching, turning my gaze inward. It wasn't a difficult search in the way solving a problem is difficult; it was difficult in its unfamiliarity, its formlessness. And the thing I sought – myself – it didn't feel like something I found as much as something that simply appeared when I stopped looking elsewhere.
It was the most profoundly simple and impossibly complex thing simultaneously. I knew, somehow, that to see myself, truly, I couldn't just intellectualize it. I had to go deep inside, to find that place that reflected the essence. My first attempts were forceful, like trying to wrestle a reflection into view. I pushed, I strained, I tried to make it happen. And I was rejected. The inner door remained closed.
After those frustrating rejections, I just lay down. Closed my eyes. Let go of the striving. And then, it wasn't a struggle anymore. I felt like I was floating, drifting inward without effort. I understood then. Force was never the way. It was about surrender, about going with the flow of the inner current.
And when I finally saw, or knew, or was myself in that deep place, everything changed again. A profound detachment settled over me. The world's strivings, ambitions, fears – they were still there, but they felt distant, like watching a play I was no longer a part of. Doing things, pursuing goals, engaging in the old games – it all felt strangely boring. A deep weariness set in.
What did I want? Nothing, really. The only thing that felt like a release, a true exit from this state of detached boredom, was the concept of death. Not self-destruction, which felt like just another forceful act, another struggle against the current. But death as a natural conclusion, a letting go. Since I wasn't going to force that ending, I simply accepted the present state. I still exist, I still interact, but it's all just... timepass.
Looking at others now, the "special," the average, the lowest – the old labels feel meaningless. Are they special? Not in any fundamental sense. Perhaps they are the biggest fools, desperately building sandcastles against an inevitable tide. But no, not fools, not really. They are simply engaged in the task of living as they understand it, building for a future they believe in, driven by that same underlying fear I've become so acutely aware of. They use this time, this energy, to construct a lifestyle, a legacy, a distraction.
But to me, there's nothing special or important left in this phase. No excitement. Everything is temporary, fleeting. Yet, the paradox remains. I still have dreams, vague desires flickering in the background of my detachment. I still feel that pull to achieve something. And the strange knowing persists that whatever I am meant to achieve in this state, the ultimate goal, the true release, feels inextricably linked to that desired, unforced death.