One of the greatest gifts of growing older is realizing that everybody is making it up as they go along, and one of its curses is understanding that we are not exempt from that.
The confidence we once projected onto all those different people that we once perceived as grown-ups begins to look more and more like a not so carefully maintained illusion. Experience reveals that much of what we do is a performance, and that even the most put-together are often navigating life through trial and error.
As if that wasn't bad enough, this leads us to the conclusion that a lot of us don't even know what we want, either. We chase the ambitions that we are told will make us happy, careers that supposedly offer some semblance of security, and relationships that fit the narrowly defined timeline that society throws at us. Some insist it's all meaningless and refuse to have any goals at all; others cling to them in the hopes that they will get rewarded somehow.
There's no need to have an existential crisis in every waking moment, though! Not every moment needs to serve our deepest thoughts or lofty ambitions. In fact, it can be good for us to detach from it all and do something inconsequential. The triviality of scrolling through memes is perfect for that. This is not because it fulfills some existential longing, but because it doesn't have to. There are no expectations except that of providing the viewer with some amusement.
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4 months ago
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