Being human can be scary. It’s not as simple as it is with animals, where everyone has a role in the pride of lions, or in the flock of birds. Being human, there’s a whole lot of grey area between the black and white that’s so easy to get caught up in. As we grow we find our way, in a manner, we try to keep our heads above water in the vast open ocean that is life. But then what happens when everything you’ve ever known becomes just a small piece of an even bigger picture? Things that seemed so important, things that held merit in your life, all of a sudden seem silly and suddenly insignificant. Priorities change, other things become important, you grow, you keep going, life goes on. The only constant thing in life is change, at any moment, in the blink of an eye everything can switch up on you. It’s a matter of examining what you have left to work with, what your options are, and figuring out the next move. It’s not a race, finding your pace is a part of it, until you find that something that fits.
Life is like a 5000 piece puzzle, so many options, so many places to start. What I’ve always loved about puzzles is that there are so many ways to go about piecing it together. There’s no right or wrong place to start. Most begin by building the borders, and then slowly piece together until we reach the middle and ultimately complete the puzzle. The bitch about most 5000 piece puzzles, but also the beauty of it, is that there are so many minute details, so many pieces look alike with one another, yet there are differences, they have a place if you look hard enough. Some people will get frustrated and move onto another section of the puzzle, others will ask for help, then there are those who sadly give up all together.
“Oscar Wilde said that if you know what you want to be, then you inevitably become it – that is your punishment, but if you never know, then you can be anything. There is a truth to that. We are not nouns, we are verbs. I am not a thing – an actor, a writer – I am a person who does things – I write, I act – and I never know what I am going to do next. I think you can be imprisoned if you think of yourself as a noun.” – Stephen Fry
I remember when I was little, how often I was asked what I wanted to be when I grew up. I never had something standard, one dream. I wanted to be everything, everyday something different. The only thing that remained a constant my entire life was this need to write that I have, in whatever way, shape, or form that I can. To this day, I don’t know what I want to be. I used to envy friends and acquaintances who seemed to have it all together, they always knew what they wanted to be, and they became it. But let’s say they achieved their goals at 30-35….that’s not even half the puzzle completed, it can’t be. So what’s the next piece in the puzzle, where do you go from there? Your an Actor now….now what? Or are you a person that acts…and possibly so much more? Sure there is a sense of security that comes along with achieving your dream, as long as that’s not all there is. Some people strive their whole lives for something, and then when they achieve it, then it’s like…what next? Some get stuck, some move onto the next item on their bucket-list. The latter is ideal, I’ve seen the former eat away at people that I cared about, and people I only knew for a moment. It’s all about finding the next piece to the puzzle. When working with actual 5000pc puzzles, you complete one section, and then realize theres another 3000 pieces, a third of which look alike, just remember…DON’T PANIC. You have to sift through your options until you find a place to start, and build from there. Life is the same way. I spent years going to college because “I had to,” and when I say years, I mean seven. Seven years, three schools, three majors. Only to decide to drop out in the end because school didn’t feel right for me, and I think I knew it all along. I was just afraid to say it because it’s what I was “supposed” to do. Yet no matter how hard I tried to make that damn piece fit into the puzzle…it just wouldn’t sit right. That’s the beauty in it, I guess. Not knowing what you want to be, means you can be anything. Everyone has their own method of piecing together their puzzles, and everyone’s puzzle is different. There isn’t really a right or wrong way to go about it from the moment that no two people are the same, and that’s magical.
Until someone comes along, someone who’s puzzle is not all different from our own. Sometimes a large important part of our puzzles remains incomplete until this person comes around…they’re the piece that fits that blank space. Sometimes it appears that it’s the piece we’ve been looking for, it appears to fit, but something doesn’t sit quite right with you and you eventually set it aside. Until you find the piece that fits perfectly. These people stick around, and we begin to build the rest of our puzzles together.
To be Human is such a miraculous thing, and it’s sad when people can’t or won’t see it.