The Crushing Weight of Lofty Ideas
Ideas and dreams aren’t anywhere near as weightless as semantics wants to make them seem
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For the longest time, my least favorite topic in the world was probably my own past. As far as the reasons go, I no longer really remember them. But I strongly suspect I didn’t like thinking about all the silly things I used to believe when I was young and dumb, not to mention all the foolish mistakes I made with such shameless gusto.
Then I started aging, eventually coasting comfortably into middle age. And now it seems like I’m constantly finding myself looking back on certain things. Grabbing jars off of my mental shelf, unscrewing the lids, and looking at the memories inside — even the extra-chewy ones— before carefully putting them back exactly where they were so as not to disturb the dust.
As a result, I’m realizing I spent a large chunk of my youth carrying around a ton of baggage on my back, including burdens that really were never meant for me. But by far the heaviest things I insisted on keeping strapped to me at all times were far too many of my own lofty ideas, as ideas were as important to me back then as they are to me now.
I had a lot of feels about the way things were
To be more specific, I personally never liked how fast everything seems to move, even when it moved at half the speed it does now because I was still so young. I also distinctly recall thinking progress and technology were the problems. I was so sure that if everything would just stop, people would be happier, the future would be brighter, and the world would be a much better place to be, in general.
I was someone who would quite literally daydream until it hurt about stumbling through a wormhole so that I could go live in the past where I thought things were simpler, better, and more beautiful. I fantasized about that whole Y2K thing actually happening so we could all regress back to what I was sure was a simpler time and was wistfully disappointed when it didn’t.
Things change, and so did I. You will, too, whether you think that you will or not. When life starts happening to you (and…
