To Make of Men

By Khushi Seth

"What will I make of myself?", I wonder oft, disparaged by a nagging sense of supposed "self-realisation". Realisation that in a world so progressive, progressive to the point it's almost fickle, I must abide by the binding hands of time, the clock dictating my every move- a rigorous routine; should I ever hope of leaving behind the slightest mark.

Realisation that with ideals so frivolous, ever-changing as do paths of oscillating heat waves, or as unpredictable as that of subatomic particles in the quantum world, I must have certainty of the mind; as sure and firm as a mathematical constant- set in stone, permanently etched upon the world; my world.

Realisation that life isn't a race, where you have to run as fast as you can nor is it a rational and fairly collected game of Monopoly that men play as part of a capitalist society-just and unbending, (because when have we ever been able to say this world is fair); rather it is like a baton relay- you work your way up to a certain point only to have someone else take the baton forward who passes it to their successor, and so on and so forth. Because that's the only cogent way of maintaining consistency in one's life, is it not? Is that not what we've been taught? 

To pace on a hamster wheel our entire lives, and yet be told, "Time is of the essence".

'Tis the irony of the very Earth we live on.

Newtonian mechanics fails to apply to us, one of its key fundamental principles- "Every action has an equal and opposite reaction"; because we see men toiling away day and night, their blood and sweat, only to starve on the streets, whilst others barely lift a finger and have already attained the life we so desire.

"What will I make of myself?" 

All my life I've been told the significance of academia, or rather academic expectations to further a career in my adult years, have a "stable" income and lead a "settled" life.

And yet, here I am writing this apparently spout piece of prose, with mere days left for my examinations to commence, and I am extremely anxious- anxious to the point I can't sleep and

yet somehow simultaneously, not so anxious that I may actually start working. It's absurd.

It feels like the world is taking a step forth everyday and I'm just standing there, stationary- gawping foolishly at the movement around me. And yet somehow, I've been told, all men feel this way. It isn't me alone. 

So how can the world be advancing when all men are standing still? 

Well, I've come to believe it's a matter of perception.

What is success? Is it a big home, wealth and fame and a dozen servants to do one's bidding? Is it being married to someone who understands your very esse and being? Is it receiving credit and validation for your relentless academic pursuit? 

You see, the answer is not solitary in nature.

Picture this, a starving man, scrawny and pale, scavenging for food. To him, a nameless passerby who can spare him a few cents to buy some cheap bread, is the epitome of success. The figurative class division between two sects of society. But to that passerby, who has the luxury of attainable daily meals, a millionaire is the ultimate goal.

My point? From the lens of our very eyes, we will remain ever stagnant, panting behind our expectations, and our set pedestal, who ironically feels the same way about his life and idol.

It's like an inertial and non-inertial frame of reference. You see how fast other people are moving with respect to whether you're at rest or in motion.

Then maybe, to truly "make something of ourselves", we need to change our frame of reference rather than our speed to see where we stand in all actuality.

And maybe 

Just maybe 

Step out of this hamster wheel for a bit. 

"The world does not wait for anybody", and "Nobody waits for you". But forget not, that you too are the world to someone, like someone's the world to you.

So how then, can we unerringly tell,

what we are to make of men?

By Khushi Seth