Throwback

This is something I wrote a few years back. Although my life has changed substantially since then, and I've made great strides towards following my dreams, I feel there's still ground to be covered. I hope you enjoy!

How do I break free?

How do I break free from the confines of my own limitations? How do I get out of my own way and let my creativity flow? I have too many things on my mind right now, I can't give the attention that each problem warrants.

On one hand, I need to find a job. I have to work, my kids have to eat, I have to pay my bills.

But on the other hand, I don't want to jump into anything that is going to drown my soul once again. I don't want a job that’s going to take all my time and energy, leaving me drained.

I don't want to work so much that I never see my kids. I don't want to work so much that I don't have time to write or express myself creatively. These are things, I've discovered, that most people don't think or care too much about.

It's a good job. It pays how much? You can work all the overtime you want? You'll never see your kids? You won't be able to write or read or play your guitar? Who cares about those other things, this job will give you money! And with that money you can buy things you don't need, and do things that don't really interest you. Your life can revolve around work, and you can become a zombie like the rest of us.

Don't worry about those desires you have to write, to play the guitar, to watch films. Desires ignored will eventually leave you alone. They'll get fainter and fainter and over time you won't even hear them anymore. Trust me, I know.

Then you can live vicariously through others. You can project all your shortcomings and disappointments onto your children, making them as insecure and frightened to follow their dreams as you were. Such is the way of the man who has abandoned his hopes and dreams. This is the life-cycle of the zombie. Become a zombie, infect your children and they will grow up and infect their children, your grandchildren, and they will in turn grow up and infect theirs. Someone needs to break this cycle.

I say enough is enough. There's been enough infection spread. I say we don't let our dreams die. I say we guard them from death and infection. I say we stand up to the infection of conformity. I say we have settled too long with normal, with the "status quo.”

I have become alive again, and I'll be damned if I'm going to settle for anything less than following my heart and pursuing those things that were placed in me, maybe even before I was born.

I say no to conformity.

I say no to what the hordes of zombies expect from me.

I say yes to absolution from the sin of complacency.

I choose life.

I choose to live and reject merely existing.

I run after those sunspots of creativity waiting to burst forth out of me.

Will you come with me?

Are you satisfied with your existence?

Come with me if you want to live.