I Am What I Am But I Don't Know For Sure What That Is

A Story by gomjordan23

I am no philosopher but I have discovered that one of the great universal paradoxes that a person encounters is the choice between what you want to do and what you should do. My choice is between being responsible or being selfish and trying to regain some sense of self; making an effort to reclaim the boyhood that had long ago washed out to sea like a message written in sand. When you come from a family that is made up solely of your parents, you have an indescribable feeling of indebtedness to them, even though they have done nothing, said nothing, to give you this feeling. They have given so much, very little of which was actually necessary. They would, and will, continue giving if it means making me happy. That is their nature. But is being happy part of my nature? Am I capable of feeling happiness? Is it strictly a fool’s errand?

I am aware that my particular predicament is that the choice between doing what I want and what I ought is not my choice to make. It is misleading to even call it a choice at all. It isn’t. There is no choice in the matter. Free will does not factor in. I know I’ll take the "mature" path so why do I still play it over and over again in my mind, torturing myself with what ifs. I know I will take this path even though it means giving up on my dream. What I don’t know is if my dream is even my dream. Is it just an appetizing escape clause from the real world? Just something I picked up along the way in some misguided attempt to fake normalcy, to fit in. Is this just another effort to stir up feelings which I’m not sure exist? Perhaps those feelings do exist and I am beating myself up over this because I am too scared to explore them. But perhaps not.

I have been trapped in that strange purgatory between childhood and adulthood for so long that I don’t know if I can truly make the next leap, the transition, the evolution, the way everyone around me already has or eventually will. They will do this because it is what normal people do. But what if I’m stuck in the world that exists between these two planes? Will I always feel as empty as the void in which I'm stuck? Will I always feel as though I don’t feel? I feel so much inside but at the same time I feel nothing at all. It’s as if I’m drowning but I don’t struggle because the feeling of water entering my lungs is the most I have truly felt in so long.

I am constantly weighing the pros and cons of my options even though in my mind I know there is no decision to really be made. My fate had been sealed long ago like some sort of internal time capsule, yet I still have not fully resigned to it. I long for one last sip of what couldn't even truly be described as freedom.

I am the one who put these shackles on my soul, a prisoner to myself.

Somehow I just always knew this was the way that things would play out. Like a lion that willfully swallows his pride instead of his prey and surrenders himself to zoo keepers for one of their exhibits. Or in my case a cubicle. The difference is that the lion’s eyes will glaze over once enough time has passed. He will soon forget the promise of all that he gave away, that sense of greater possibilities that awaited him in that somewhere from which he came. I can only hope that whatever fire is in my eyes, in my soul, will eventually extinguish as well. I less than patiently await, almost long for, the same tamed, glazed over gaze of my jungle-born compatriot, whose fate seems intertwined with my own.

I am unsure if I’m cut out to live a life where I simply go through the motions and exist purely on a day to day basis. I think so highly of myself that I have this unshakable feeling that I was meant for much, much more. But because every coin has two sides, I also think so little of myself that I often question whether or not I’m good enough, competent enough, to first find out and then to achieve whatever this purpose for my existence may be.

In truly every sense I am lost.

A man who longs to have the freedom from responsibility of a child but at the same time despises anyone who dares treat him like the child he yearns to be. I am a lonely little boy, lost on an island, an island where I have shipwrecked myself. The me-against-the-world approach that I thought was necessary for any modicum of success, has isolated me from all the things I now think, know, are truly important.

It’s too late for me. I am alone and even though I will never be okay with this, on some level I have come to terms with it. Yes, I relish the silence but I also find it apropos that I will be forever an outcast with only my thoughts as company.

I am an oyster without a pearl developing inside. Lacking the material within that gives us all our worth to the world in which we live, the purpose for our existence. Sometimes, I feel in the depths of myself that something is developing, but that feeling never lasts and I am left wondering if it ever really existed or if maybe I simply ate too much at dinner. And it is with that lingering feeling, I wait, not knowing if or when loneliness and doubt, my Walrus and my Carpenter, will eventually consume me.

I still long for that one sign that there is something greater out there that I can always come back to as a reminder that it is worthwhile to trudge on.

I am overwhelmed by questions but answers are a much more precious commodity. Life goes on, that is a fact. It is the only fact that I’m really sure of.