EPT
Fear of not spending precious time the way it ought to be spent, like, totally objectively.
Fear of regret.
Fear of regret.
Yeah, that’s it. Regret.
I picture myself – and I know that I am not the only one – x amount of years down the line, wishing that “shit, I should not have wasted those precious years, man.”
Wasted them, doing what, exactly?
…Shit. Enjoying life, I guess.
In this town, I see so much pleasure and love. Like, all of my peers are in some way or another living their dreams… I say peers, and it is an interesting choice of word, since our ages can differ greatly. I sometimes hear myself speak of a span of ages concerning my peers – Usually I’ll talk about “18-28”, but that’s admittedly just to make it rhetorically sexy. 18-Death is probably more true. We all washed ashore in these mountains at a given point, and we now live here in the same kind of carpe-diem paradise, doing what we love to do and struggling, oh, struggling so hard to not feel guilt in the meantime.
Fear of guilt?
I also often talk about a certain type of citizen who seems to have washed away this emotion, and I always feel like the detergent has been investing their time in a sustainable future regardless of which path they should end up on… Jesus, the vagueness of words going on here. I guess what I’m getting at is that most of us would probably agree that the quotidien tends to be pleasurable to the point where it would be easy to one day wake up and be 40, and still be waiting the same tables as one did at 18, or cleaning the same chalets, or driving the same busses. Fair enough, right? But then there is the concern that ones path might – for example – merge with that of someone else’s, and that perhaps a long-term-secure-life-with-children-and-security will be desired… And suddenly, no one can find anything positive to say about the waitress-life, housekeeping-life or taxi-life.
So yeah, fear of not investing one’s time properly… Even though I’m having the time of my life. I sometimes, right after my breakfast and coffee, find myself lounging in some relaxed and pleasurable activity (and yes, this includes ski-touring, rock-climbing, snowboarding, trail-running, whatever), and thinking “shouldn’t I be doing some more productive with my time? At the fucking hight of my capability? 25 years old, intelligent, driven, beautiful. Here I am on some mountain, strapped into some gear, not doing anything that will matter in 100 years.”
It can’t be true… I want to believe that a mosaic will shape itself naturally – that life will not be divided into a before/after, a playtime/worktime, that suddenly a path will emerge that my 25-year old self would have considered worthy of the future.
Maybe the fear of falling is linked to the fear of possibly wasting ones time… When I am climbing I tend to hear that voice, that fear surging up from inside of some deep and ancient place in my brain, asking me what the fuck I am doing? Even though, technically, I know that I am safe. Sure, I may be situated several meters above my latest quickdraw, and the possibility of injury may be very real… But that voice in my head screaming death and mayhem does not seem very logical. Just as the voice that creeps in at night, asking if I shouldn’t be in some school-bench in the process of becoming something that will make me rich, seems equally void of logic, because I already am feeling rich. And afraid. But happy (?)
