We Can't All Be Somebody

Some people sky dive to feel the thrill of life, while other people rock
climb. Some people volunteer at homeless shelters and soup kitchens to
feel of value to society, while other people teach children. Some people
create great monuments commemorating the human experience to feel the
sense of being larger than they are, while other people build business
empires. Some people spend their lives in school studying the complexity
and learning all of the detail of a chosen field to feel that they can
on some level out smart or master the world in which they live, while
others become lawyers. Some people govern powerful nations to feel
superior and powerful, while others speak for the multitudes who have no
one clear voice. Some people devote their lives to the raising of their
children to feel a sense of immortalizing themselves by passing on their
genes and their Ideals, while others run for political office. Some
people put on a badge and patrol the mean streets risking their own
lives to protect those who can not protect themselves in order to feel
like they are doing something important and making a real difference in
the world, while others become doctors. Some people live a life of
celibacy and total devotion to their God to feel as if they are worthy
of their own life, while others follow in their parents footsteps. Some
people make larger than life motion pictures to convey a deeper meaning
to life, while others write a poem or a song.

And then, there is me. I do almost nothing to be proud of other than
simply being superficially friendly and not having yet killed anybody.
And, strangely enough, I believe this to be my masterpiece. For do you
know how difficult it is to do virtually nothing? Do you know how hard
it is to watch everyone else around you moving past you in a hurried
frenzy while trying to get "somewhere" or do "something"? Do you know
how painful it is to see not only your peers, but those many years
younger than you filling their lives with a diverse variety of
challenging and exciting activities? Do you know how upsetting it is to
observe them bettering themselves in countless ways by going off to
school and coming back with degrees, traveling, going to parties,
meeting new people, discovering new interests, making new friends,
creating careers, finding religion, making money, dreaming of a better
future, reaching for the stars, moving on, moving away, changing their
hair styles, buying new clothes, receiving awards, acceptance, and
praise for what they do best? Do you know what a feat of human restraint
it is to deny ones self all of those things?

This is my art. This is my way. Most likely I will go my entire life
unrecognised, and unappreciated for exercising this bizarre ability.
Most likely the world will think less of me for doing practically
nothing with this gift of life I keep hidden in the closet of my mind
for a rainy day that never arrives. However, someday someone in the
distant future will realize the sheer, near imperceptible magnificence
of my life. They will write books and make movies about me. They will
study every mundane aspect and boring little bit of my banal life style,
searching for the defining moment of my quest for non-existence within a
living body. They will marvel at how I stood for nothing, believed in
nothing, imagined myself as nothing, thought the world and all those in
it to be nothing, created nothing lasting, and made as small of an
effort as possible in order not to make a difference.

As if caught in the sweep of a grand cosmic pendulum, we live in the age
of fame, where everyone wants to be a somebody, to be great, to be
remembered. Well, there will also be a time in which it swings the other
way, when being a nobody will be of the highest value. There will come a
time when my life will be highly envied. There will come a time when the
self aggrandizing and ego enhancing activities such as amassing wealth
and personal accreditations will be subject to personal shame and public
pity. Not just the obvious forms of this, but also the subtlest forms
(most prominently found connected to the countless nonprofit
organizations) will also be met with the same disdain and disapproval.

Yes, my friends, I am ahead of my time. So, next time when you look as I
do upon the do nothing, know nothing, and be nothing ruins of my dull
and uneventful life weep not for me, but instead for your future selves
who will struggle so desperately to be free of all the things you now
think of so highly.