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The Path to One’s Life
To exist in the contemporary age
“To sing, to laugh, to dream, to walk in my own way and be alone, free, with an eye to see things as they are, a voice that means manhood — to cock my hat where I choose — At a word, a Yes, a No, to fight — or write.” — Edmond Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac, Act II, Scene 8, 1897 *
As you may have noticed for some time now (or read on social media), it’s not that difficult to get caught up in the everyday grind, letting external factors decide for you, and to forget what truly matters. You may have realized that your main agenda at work and in life has turned into the pursuit of constant adequacy with the zeitgeist, holding as a defect or failure everything that deviates from some abstract mean. You may feel anxious when you approach the edges of the mainstream, worried that you might cross a line, somehow troubled by everything that is not already traced on a plan, and eventually of everything that you would have not already experienced.
Simultaneously, you are exposed to endless perceived options, unexpected opportunities and threats, so every choice raises the doubt to miss something, especially since everything has to happen during this lifetime, there is only one life to live, not seven, you are not a cat. We live in a “yolo + fomo” world (Miller, 2020).
Jim Gaffigan, the American stand-up comedian, humorously expressed this sense of confusion when he explained why going to Starbucks…
