Budo's Dreams

What's the point?

17.4.16

Have you ever stayed up late and night and asked yourself what's the point to it all? Budo did. (Budo is the name of my favourite character, from my favourite book, but I'll be using his name to represent someone else, who's name I shall not put it.) Anyway, that's how Budo spent most nights. In fact, that's what Budo is doing tonight. Gazing out of a window to a black night full of stars and thinking, 'does my life even make a difference?' And there's a good reason behind it too. Sure, the teachers and parents out there will say, 'but you can be anything; you can be a champion,' but really, how often do people become champions? Not that often. So, without a second though, Budo knows that the most likely thing he'll end up doing in ten years time is working some dead end job he hates, struggling with life long debt from student loans, living in a dull house with boring neighbours where nothing ever happens; except that one neighbour that everyone hates for no apparent reason - though he might spend most of his time worrying if he is that neighbour - and thinking to himself, 'how does this have any affect on the world?'
Well, truth be told, it doesn't. While sure, if you were to die now, by far your family and friends would suffer and miss you a load, but I mean, in terms of bigger things, like the whole world, what impact would that make? That's what Budo wonders.
Sure, some people made a difference. Ghandi, and his work, made a difference for his people and the rest of the world. Martin Luther King Jr too. But how many MLK's or Ghandi's are we gonna get before the world ends? Or, did we have loads, but we never listened to their work? Is there some quiet child in the back of the class silently protesting because they know there's injustice out there, only for the education system, for their mothers and fathers, friends and enemies, society, to break them down? How many children has the system broken before they realise their potential? Budo wonders if he's one of those kids.
Maybe Budo is the opposite to those kids. He doesn't want to fight the system. He already knows what the system is, and what it does. No, Budo doesn't want to fight it - he wants to escape it. That's why, late at night, all alone, Budo asks himself, What's the point?
"How long will I be here, before the universe decides my life makes no difference, and kills me?"
"If my life has no meaning, no purpose, then why am I here?"
"Is this punishment? Is this hell?"
Budo ask himself a lot of questions; but no answers appear.
Sure, maybe one day you'll sit in a class and they'll show one of those motivational videos with those guys who shout a lot and don't really motivate you at all. But the thing that's always the same, is what they show you: athletes, boxers, basketball players, footballers; anything to do with fitness, or that correlates to it. You'd never see a motivational video about someone sitting behind a desk, working hard; a scientist or a lawyer. Oh no, it's always something about pushing your physical abilities. But what most people never seem to notice, but Budo notices, is, what impact does being able to shoot a ball throw a net, being able to run 100m really fast, being about to punch someone for a long time until they pass out, have on the rest of the world? You can't cure illnesses by knocking them out. You can't stop world hunger but shooting a ball threw a net. You can't start world peace by kicking a ball into a net. No, the world needs work. It doesn't need champions.
Maybe that's why we don't get a champion very often.
We just don't need them.
What we need are politicians and doctors and scientists and businessmen and lawyers and...
But it doesn't make a difference, does it?
You think the world will change, because of a doctor?
You think singlehandedly a scientist will cure the world of illness?
That on his own a politician will start world peace?
No.
Because like champions, we don't need them either.
"But what do we need?" Budo doesn't know.
So here, like most nights, Budo will lay. Questioning the universe. Questioning his life. Wondering if any of it has any meaning, until the graceful moment, of sleep.
"Goodbye, Budo."
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