It's this time of the year again. The time when you realize another year has passed, and you are a year older, closer to the inevitable end. Though it may sound gruesome, you know it is true, and I am not being ominous or pessimistic. Just thinking.
Yes, you guessed it, in a few days it's my birthday. And as I often do, I take a moment to look back and think over the time period between today and last year. And many times the only thing I can think of is "wow, who would have guessed..?"
Really, have you ever done this? Have you ever wondered about where and how you are now, looking back at your circumstances and wondering whether you could have done better? Or who knows, even worse? It is a strange and interesting process, it always brings up questions that demand an answer, and that causes a crisis, an internal crisis of the mind.
Do you know what "crisis" is? Often we just take a word and use it, having a "feeling" about its meaning, but not knowing its true value. It's only natural since language is something passed on to us, and therefore its understanding is strongly based on the understanding our teacher has. Add to that the fact that most of us never go through the process of searching deeper, and you have an alteration, a small alteration which, passed on through the ages, results in a great difference from the original meaning.
So, "crisis". The word comes from Greek ("κρίση", krísi) and means "judgement". So, in its base, the meaning is not bad, as judgement is there to set things right, to eliminate what is not good and restore balance. It is us who have come to view judgement as something wrong, because most of the time we are the ones being judged, and it is only easier and simpler to point fingers than to admit being at fault.
So this is what goes through my mind, and I imagine through all of your minds, when the time comes to look back and do the math. It is the time to judge the bad decisions from the good, to weigh the pros and the cons and to make a decision. A decision as simple and easy as it is complex and difficult.
It's my impression that our lives follow a binary path. At every point we are posed with a decision to make, and based on that decision we take a direction or another. It may seem at times that we are presented with a plethora of decisions or that we do not have a choice, but there are always two paths: accept or reject. It is almost as if we were a Markov Chain each, evolving in time, forming our own trace on the field of possible choices, determining ourselves as individuals and affecting other chains in a multivariate dynamic system. A Markov Chain, by the way, is a process of steps, decisions, where each step is dependent solely on the previous. And this is how we are: we can only proceed to the next step from the current, but the previous do not affect us immediately. The experience, the choices, every single step we have taken, has contributed to our being here, in this very moment, in this very state, but that's as far as it goes. What we do from now on, is based entirely on our current state.
So, as you may have guessed, transient periods do have this effect on me, where everything seems to merge into one big mass of correlated matters and issues. Perhaps it is due to the fact that I am a year older. It might be because of how things are around me, widely speaking. It might well be due to the nostalgia of those saint days when the world was not my problem and all I had to do was work on my homework and go play. Ah, well, I guess that's just the way it goes...
But I do feel kind of lucky. I got to know those days, the days when someone else was looking out for me, and I had the chance to be carefree and enjoy what every kid should. At the same time, I feel sorry and scared for those about to come, for those kids that are growing now and are facing what we are preparing for them. It is us who scare me, no one else. We live in a world where self-preservation and greed are ruling over common sense and respect, where people shoot each other out of boredom and where laws are "voted" by single individuals. Not a parliament where every individual votes for their sake, a parliament where one individual votes for all. Combine the previous, and see what comes out.
I am not going to talk about politics. I am actively avoiding it, although it has become really hard lately. But it cannot be denied that ours is not the world one would like his child to be born into. It is a beautiful world, an amazing world and it has every good thing in it. But it also has us, and we are doing our best to ruin it, for the interest of a handful of people. It is pride and stubbornness that will be the cause of our demise, and it is most certainly arrogance that will impede our clear judgement when the crisis strikes. I hope you got the wordplay.
Today I watched a video where a law was passed by a person voting all by himself. A few months ago I read about a World War II veteran beaten to death by teenagers who had been bored out of their heads. Last week there was the (still active at the time of writing) issue of Syria, with the great world forces ready to claw each other's eyes out. Last year I watched a video of a two-year old child being run over by a car in China. And here I am, trying to make a living for myself and my family... hoping to make my world a little better place.
So, happy early birthday to me! A week from now I will be older. Although... is it the years that make you feel old..?
So this is what goes through my mind, and I imagine through all of your minds, when the time comes to look back and do the math. It is the time to judge the bad decisions from the good, to weigh the pros and the cons and to make a decision. A decision as simple and easy as it is complex and difficult.
It's my impression that our lives follow a binary path. At every point we are posed with a decision to make, and based on that decision we take a direction or another. It may seem at times that we are presented with a plethora of decisions or that we do not have a choice, but there are always two paths: accept or reject. It is almost as if we were a Markov Chain each, evolving in time, forming our own trace on the field of possible choices, determining ourselves as individuals and affecting other chains in a multivariate dynamic system. A Markov Chain, by the way, is a process of steps, decisions, where each step is dependent solely on the previous. And this is how we are: we can only proceed to the next step from the current, but the previous do not affect us immediately. The experience, the choices, every single step we have taken, has contributed to our being here, in this very moment, in this very state, but that's as far as it goes. What we do from now on, is based entirely on our current state.
So, as you may have guessed, transient periods do have this effect on me, where everything seems to merge into one big mass of correlated matters and issues. Perhaps it is due to the fact that I am a year older. It might be because of how things are around me, widely speaking. It might well be due to the nostalgia of those saint days when the world was not my problem and all I had to do was work on my homework and go play. Ah, well, I guess that's just the way it goes...
But I do feel kind of lucky. I got to know those days, the days when someone else was looking out for me, and I had the chance to be carefree and enjoy what every kid should. At the same time, I feel sorry and scared for those about to come, for those kids that are growing now and are facing what we are preparing for them. It is us who scare me, no one else. We live in a world where self-preservation and greed are ruling over common sense and respect, where people shoot each other out of boredom and where laws are "voted" by single individuals. Not a parliament where every individual votes for their sake, a parliament where one individual votes for all. Combine the previous, and see what comes out.
I am not going to talk about politics. I am actively avoiding it, although it has become really hard lately. But it cannot be denied that ours is not the world one would like his child to be born into. It is a beautiful world, an amazing world and it has every good thing in it. But it also has us, and we are doing our best to ruin it, for the interest of a handful of people. It is pride and stubbornness that will be the cause of our demise, and it is most certainly arrogance that will impede our clear judgement when the crisis strikes. I hope you got the wordplay.
Today I watched a video where a law was passed by a person voting all by himself. A few months ago I read about a World War II veteran beaten to death by teenagers who had been bored out of their heads. Last week there was the (still active at the time of writing) issue of Syria, with the great world forces ready to claw each other's eyes out. Last year I watched a video of a two-year old child being run over by a car in China. And here I am, trying to make a living for myself and my family... hoping to make my world a little better place.
So, happy early birthday to me! A week from now I will be older. Although... is it the years that make you feel old..?
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