Ten Minas

what's the point

 

Why build when it might fail?

Why sweat to see it through?

Why should you bother with it, when it might not last?

Why work so hard, to have it all fall on deaf ears, be ignored or easily forgotten?

Why sacrifice yourself in this cruel way? Why do it?

What’s the point?

For what?

 

Why build without certainty that you’ll make a difference? 

Why build and bother wasting your time in the first place?

Why care and expand the effort?

Why open yourself up to waves and waves of criticism that are sure to come?

What’s the point? For any of it.

Why should you even bother?

 

It’s easy to pretend these thoughts don’t haunt your mind. 

It’s convenient to pretend that these questions don’t exist or never come up. 

It seems easy to ignore them. Easy to distract yourself with bright shiny things and problems that need your immediate and undivided attention. But if you stop and search your mind once in a while, you’ll discover that those questions seem to creep up again and again, and usually during your weakest moments. They relentlessly press you for answers.

And what will you say?

What is the point?

 

Life is not easy. 

It was never supposed to be black and white. You won’t discover your purpose written on a stone wall and you can’t take it to the bank.

If you are asking yourself these questions, you are probably fishing for something. Fishing and exploring. Looking for  an easy excuse to quit. To walk away. 

And you probably won’t need much effort or have to search for too long. The world is full of quitters and excuses are predesigned and come predestined. Those who quit form a very supportive and understanding community.

Anything and everything, no matter how trivial or petty, can always serve us well if we want to quit. After all, it’s a hell of a lot easier to give up and destroy, than it is to persist and patently, painstakingly build. 

Much easier.

 

But quitting is so damn fun.

It tempts us with finality.

Quitting offers us an immediate sense of relief and the luxury of many years of feeling sorry for ourrselves.

And who wouldn’t love that?

And that’s the point

Maybe you have an opportunity to do something special here.

Maybe you have a chance to dance and sing because you are able.

Not because you have to, but because you can.

The value of your life and what will come if you see it through shouldn’t be dismissed so quickly.

Neither should your capacity to build and unite. Your capacity to hope and love.

Nor should your passions be negotiated away or traded for a pension plan, or some promise of great retirement savings.

Maybe you need to come to grips with the fact that if you quit and stop to sweat to see your dreams through, you will find yourself in the exact same place after as before. You will be the same person and you’ll have the exact same time to fill. Except now after quitting, instead of struggling and pushing, you will be bitching, moaning and complaining.

 

So thats the point?

Know if you’re tired or on a dead end road.

Decide to pay now or pay later.

Struggle now or bitch later.

 

Don’t ignore the questions.

Face them.

Your dreams won’t build themselves.

Your work won’t create itself.

 

the illusion of retirement

 

The very idea of retirement is now not only outdated, but outright barbarous.

We have been preconditioned and desperately long for retirement. We all pine for the days when we don’t have to file into work anymore, into our real or imagined cubicles, to follow a set of predetermined systems and procedures, in order to achieve a set of measureable predetermined results.

And for what?

We work so hard to pay off our mortgage, to educate our children, to have a healthy investment portfolio, and to maximize our retirement package. If you’re lucky.

But for what?

We salivate and await our curtain call. We wait for our moment to finally rest. To retire. To finally get to the important things of life. Our moment of greatness. That moment of anticipated glory and majesty, of doing, and being everything we promised ourselves we would be, when the day would finally come.

Retirement.

The grand finale of illusion.

The truth is, there really is no retirement.

There is only living and then the rest is silence.

Living requires work. Living involves pain. Living calls for sacrifice. It calls for perpetual sweat and toil.

There is always something. Something to do. Something to overcome. A promise to fulfill.

It doesn’t matter how old you are, or what health condition you find yourself in. It doesn’t matter, because life demands and nudges all of us, to keep expressing the simple truth and glory of being alive.

But how do we treat wisdom and the glory of being alive?

When you get old. When you retire. When you finally learn something worthwhile to share and leave behind, the world no longer finds a use for you.

The next generation of dreamers gets to work reinventing a somewhat worn but still a well-built wheel. But they never ask about the road ahead.

The road ahead.

They work so efficiently and so tirelessly, and so blindly, I hasten to add, just like you did, to get a head, to build that perfect thingamajig, and to steal precious time from the things you promised yourself you would finally get to, when you had the chance, and definitely, when you retired.

I hope you were lucky.

I hope you loved and accepted love in turn. That you build a loving family and that the wisdom of your old age is not a burden, but has become a beacon and a celebration of a well lived life.

Those didn’t are usually being locked up.

They are in a prison.

They sit alone, in retirement homes, in hospital beds, in dark basements, waiting and hoping that someone, anyone, will come and spend some time with them.

So much wisdom wasted.

So much wisdom locked up and hidden from the world.

So many songs yet unsung.

But the young will always remain restless and misdirected. It’s the human condition. They chase bright shiny objects and are so easily distracted by the simplest flutter of a butterfly.

They too are alone.

They live inside their headphones. Inside their social media compounds. They guard their feelings. They hide. They run. They take shelter inside the countless photos of things they do not really care about. They take pride in accomplishments they will soon forget. They are agitated, impatient, and hungry in their search for meaning.

They are everywhere.

They are no different than you and I.

I wish they could leave their prison.

I wish they could visit wisdom. To go where wisdom lives. Abandoned. Forgotten. Retired.

If we could only get them talking.

That would be a marvelous sight.

A fulfillment of a dream. A promise delivered. A beautiful and magical sight of hope.

I for one still believe.

I believe in wisdom.

I just no longer believe in retirement.