AN ODE TO YOUR DREAMS

( 十七 ) shed light

shed light.

AT ONE POINT BEFORE YOU had lost your reign over your own life, there was a time when you pondered on the existence of things. Not just your own existence, but generally every single thing in the world. It was a point when you had the privilege of time to question things; to see the world and its multiple facets. Still, at the end of your musings, you have found that behind the existence of every single thing, you have found nothing.

It was a paradoxical statement, but first and foremost, the things that we know to exist are things created by humans. The fluorescent bulb lighting up buildings was the invention of Thomas Edison ( with the help of previous inventors that paved the way for such an idea turned into reality ). The element Neptunium was created by Edwin McMillan and Philip Abelson in the year of 1940. The word "green-eyed" was invented by Shakespeare in Othello, which is defined as jealousy. The point is, most of the things that exist are created by man—"created" being defined as (i) to invent concrete objects out of an idea, and (ii) words to describe both abstract and concrete things.

All of the things we know originate as simply things. They were just "nothing" right before it, not in the sense that it is not there, but because we hold no knowledge regarding its aspects other than what we had perceived. And by the time that man places a label on that certain thing, that is the only time it will exist to us—because we can perceive it and we "know" what it is.

To put it simply, most things are just a social construct. And to you, it meant that most things simply exist as concepts.

A tree is only a tree because we know of it to be a tree. Why? Because some dude decided to call it that and everyone just agreed. From then on, we call those tall, hard plants that are used to mass produce pencils as "trees".
Yes, it exists, but individuals have found that a system will not thrive without its classifications and standards. We call a tree a "tree" because we cannot simply identify it with the pronoun "that". It would be confusing.

Thus, the "existence" of everything. They're all based on the subjective. Illusions. Abstract.

Now add all of that concept with the fact that you are going to die at an early age. Everything existed in concepts. You'll disappear from this world at 19. Does anything truly matter within this world wherein humans hold onto these concepts in order to stray away from the insanity brought about by living a long life? You wouldn't live long anyway, so what was the point of holding onto these concepts? These "things"?

"Let's say that..." You pinch the ends of your fingers as you sit on the cream-colored sofa inside the counselor's office.

She stares at you with a minuscule smile, waiting patiently for you to continue. She nods her head. "Yes?"

You avert your gaze from her to look at the window to your right. It's bright and it almost blinds you as you continue to look into it. You take a deep breath and continue speaking, though slowly. "Let's say that, someone's going to die soon. It could be from a disease, or more specifically, their... destiny. It's alright for them to do what they want, right? It's alright for them to enjoy things."

You see her brows furrow and a frown slowly slips through her mouth, turning her previous smile upsaide down. She pushes the glasses on the bridge of her nose as she responds. "Yes, of course it's alright for them to enjoy things, assuming that what they're doing doesn't harm themself or others. If they're going to lose their life soon, then don't they at least deserve to enjoy what is right in front of them? But..."