Paradoxical Musings: on carpe diem and predatory loans

The thing about the present is that it’s the future in a ninja outfit.

“Enjoy the present” is just a marketers ways of dressing up “invest in your future”. It’s a lot like being sold a predatory loan. In reality it’s not so much about throwing caution to the wind rather about choosing to have experiences; as opposed to being overly worried about unimportant moments that will hardly be remembered or reconsidered in your golden years. We’re sold an idea that enjoying the present is akin to not thinking about the future. Rather, I would interpret it as an active form of doing something for your future instead of worrying about it.

I worry way too much.

Despite having Evernote, a blog, a written journal, a digital journal, people to text woeful essays to and a myriad of other note taking apps all fashioned into place to ease inessential concerns that plague me; my worries spill out. They spill out my ears frothing and fussing until I am cocooned within my own self-loathing.

I worry about this too.

However, it is difficult to make such a positive investment without expending more focused thoughts and energies. This investment would need to ultimately result in a more rhythmic understanding of my own life through the steps taken to ensure it is a good one. The trick is to enjoy the thinking instead of being burdened by it.

Back to the predatory loan analogy; what’s interesting is that youth being a time for mistakes isn’t always seen as the same as youth being the time to grow through said mistakes. The mechanisms tend to be looked at more than the desired outcome. The fine print remains unexplained and ignored by all parties involved. One cannot grow by having a selfish semblance of what enjoying the present means. Nor can one sustain any level of growth without understanding that choosing not to experience on the grounds of a misguided attempt at maturity is just as bad.

I worry that I embody the latter more soundly than I would like.
Ultimately you are a personality type. You are a type of person informed by other types of people and technology and history and all the beautiful buzzes of communication that exist in this world. You are unlike others yet craving a level of sameness to feel satisfied that you’re taking the right steps. You want to experience but not to lose yourself. You want to find yourself but not to risk too much.

There’s not much else to say.

My latest posts