Words of wisdom from the Buddha
We are what we think
All that we are arises with out thoughts
With our thoughts we make the world
Speak or act with an impure mind
And trouble will follow you
As the wheel follows the ox that draws the cart
We are what we think
All that we are arises with our thoughts
With our thoughts we make the world
Speak or act with a pure mind
And happiness will follow you
As your shadow, unshakable.
I am a product of my generation.
A carbon copy clone of the social-media-outputting, technology obsessed, politically confused, degendered pre-adult, confused mess that is left of my generation.
They say the ones who committed suicide had no idea what to look forward to. But where exactly is it we’re supposed to be looking? This is the first generation of people who is actually entering into a time when it is worse than when our parents had it.
Enough of the blame game. Just fucking fix it. Stop trying to figure out why, and start focusing in on the future. Can we please?
DAMNIT WHY THE FUCK.
- sabrinakohls.tumblr.com
You know, for a long time I’ve been trying to find myself. I search and search for myself, for the perfect version of me, but to no avail. It seems no matter what I do, I elude myself. Sounds fishy, huh.
I think I have this false sense of reality in which I can one day just say “Aha! Found it! I found ‘myself.’” And then be me. Happy and free.
But it doesn’t work that way. It never has.
Discovering yourself is a process that takes your entire lifetime. It’s not something you can just do one day.
I think if anything, theatre draws me to it because it teaches me lessons. Lessons like the one I just shared. They are simple. But pure.
Lessons about people and about life. Things that Ed says, the director of the current show I’m working on, astound me. I took notes today because he kept saying them. This one thing he said today made me think. Well, everything he says makes me think, but this one in particular.
He said, “All characters have functions in a play.”
I got to thinking how that was a metaphor for life. “All characters have functions in a play.” I expanded on his thought by explaining to him that I think that function and the discovery of that function, is what makes the play, the action, and the language clearer for the audience.
Isn’t that something?
I mean, here I am, depressed because I don’t know what the fuck to do in life, and I’m working on a play. I know what I’m supposed to do. Or at least, what I’m doing. My function, as the character in the play that is my life, is to go to school and get good grades and do all the shit I’m already doing. This makes my action clearer. This makes my language clearer. This makes my life clearer.
Theatre astounds me. Kushner wasn’t even writing about me or about my issues. And yet, nearly 20 years later I am relating to his play.
Angels in America, of course, being written in the ’90s, was pre-9/11, pre-everything it feels like. The millenium was on everyone’s mind. People almost lost it. This play was written about a lost generation: Gen-X. Generation X lost themselves and their identities before this happened. They were stepping out of the Korean War and the Vietname War their parents had fought. And they were stepping out of WWII, whose parents were stepping out of WWI, and so on and so forth. A generation of people were lost.
Directly after the Cold War — a war in which no real battle, other than the battle of egos between two filthy rich monolithic countries, took place — this generation of people stepped out and said “Who the fuck are we? Our parents taught us to determine ‘who we are’ by our country and by our beliefs, but we have no unifying belief or country to stand under. What do we do? Who do we become?”
And my generation is experiencing it again.
Who the fuck are we? What will we do? Where will we go?
Caught under Louis’ “monolith” we stand alone, frightened, and naked in the stark light of day that is this new millennia, and we ask ourselves these questions.
There is no “Found it!” moment. There’s just living. Live like you know how to.
And hope and pray that it’s enough.
I am so afraid of not being able to find something to do.
I am legitimately afraid for the rest of my life of turning into someone I don’t want to be. Afraid of losing my mind. Stuck in the reality of the situation called my life.
I want to do something big. I am afraid of becoming a manager at Starbucks for the rest of my life. And directing in a community theatre. Becoming someone I see and wonder how they got there.
I want to do something. Please. Someone. Help me do something.
I feel like, as a 20 year old, I have to decide now whether I want to become the manager at Starbucks. Or if I want to direct. Or whatever it is I want to do. I don’t like that.
Quit dreaming about the life you don’t have…
and start living the life you do.
