We as people are not ineffectual. Nor are we impervious to harm. I suppose the latter sentiment can be lost on the young, with impetus notions of being able to survive anything. As younger people we drank more, ate less healthily, stayed up later, had more sex, did myriad foolish things. We seemed to be inexorably drawn towards the limits of consumption and contemplation.
With the world gaping in front of us like the yawning mouth of an indescribable monstrosity, we hid within our means and shook our fists, we rattled our cages with ferocity and vociferousness. We drank deep the time of wasted youth and were content to delude and dilute ourselves.
And as life began to take its toll; get its hits in as it were, we began to notice that we were veering into previously set paths. As much as we cried against the establishment, we became established. As much as we fought against the current, we were caught up in currency. We started thinking back on all the old adages, the ones that have lasted through the ages and countless generations. With a profound fear, we came to the stark realization that we were actually beginning to identify with some of these dusty platitudes, not the least of which being that youth is wasted on the young.
Now, nearing my mid-thirties, I find myself thinking back on where I figured I would be when I reached this age. There was once a sentiment of an elusive idealism; wherein I thought my revalations would end up changing the world. Carrying a beacon of intellect and recognition with me, I would storm the gates of ignorance and intolerance and shake darkened palaces to the ground. I would defy the system. Then, there was a moment in which my small pond was let loose into a tumultuous ocean, and I began to realize the immensity of the world, and gathered a grain of perspective as to my place within it. I became complacent and grew content with teetering on the verge of irrelevance and obscurity.
Still, even as the seemingly overwhelming notion came upon me that I was the victim of delusions of grandeur; a legend in my own mind as it were, certain other realizations have gradually come back to me. I have carried forward a mantra that had always served me well in my youth, when the world was large and terrible, but still accessible; even the smallest of pebbles makes ripples in the ocean.
Now, having matured (as much as that notion makes me want to suppress a gag reflex) I feel I still have that same sense of purpose- that explosive determination that propells me forward and makes me want to continue getting up every morning to be me. Although these days it is possibly less explosive, and perhaps more fine-tuned. Whether that comes from wisdom or tentativeness, I cannot say. Regardless, I am encouraged by the thought of having any such effect on the world around me, albeit minuscule.
I am furthermore encouraged by the prospect of being able to impart what little knowledge I have gathered onto my children, and subsequently I am warmed by the thought that their actions will also have an effect on the world around them.
As such, things come full circle. The clarity of youth, at least in my case, gave way to a certain tepid despair, and then arose into something more calculated; I could even say profound, guardedly. I realized that there is no obscurity, there is no shimmering void beyond the edge of the cliff. There is your voice, your imprint on the world, and there is no measurement for its effectiveness or its potency. Every individual has an effect on the world around them, whether they realize it or choose not to.
We as people are not ineffectual. Nor are we impervious to harm, pain or despair. But by the stark essence of the human condition, we can be catalysts for one another and still accomplish great things, once we realize that by nature, the shape and size of our effect on the world matters less than the true reality: that we each have a defined and beautiful effect on one another and on our surroundings. And those effects resonate and carry, and echo sweetly thereafter.
