It's both beautiful and scary doing something new. It's either the fear or the joy that outlines these moments in permanence. Maybe both in equal measure. Maybe it's the joy that carves them and the fear that bakes them hard. So they stick out like speed bumps in the road. All Our firsts are some of the biggest most memorable moments of our lives. The first kiss. The first fight. The first pathetic over too quick apology. All becoming beautiful smoke in a box; buffeted around in our heads by the winds of nostalgia and our current state of minds. The past changes constantly and is as changeable as our future so it seems; all controlled by our present. Then as you get older it seems you hit a confidence, the unknown in each of these new moments gets smaller and smaller and the more similarities you notice; the more you learn. The kiss isn't as wet or sloppy, the fight is avoided and you remember to think of maths equations rather than let yourself get carried away. The situations become instantly "better" but sadly more forgettable. Repetition teaches us we will be ok and I suppose this is when we start to notice the difference between us and those younger than us. Recognising ourselves before we understood how things really were. Obviously things do get better, it's not all doom and gloom. Learning from mistakes opens up doors to us and hopefully new opportunities we weren't ready for before.
But recently it seems these things have changed completely. The age is nothing without the experiences and if you are in a world where you have no experience you become that thing you used to be. Sure you can see certain things more clearly. People are people, you can see them and read them and tell the difference between people you like and people you don't. When people are happy or sad, kind or cruel. We are all the same after all. This makes a big difference but the fear of the unknown is still there. For me it has been felt most sharply with the idea of working. Doing a job defines a large part of you, you earn your place and the respect and confidence that comes with it. Looking for a job in a world with different rules is brand new. It's scary. We live in an age where the world is one big community: even the villages without power have the internet circling just above their heads. It may yet be fantastic, time will tell. But it makes our pool infinitely bigger. It's a world where you can get anywhere and yet to succeed without the propping up of the self you worked hard to establish; forced to rely on everything you are right now as a blank page. Leaving a trail of brand new impressions, is hard. Sitting in front of a computer screen typing the two page document that will determine if you are one of the list of people called back or not... Handing it over and simulaneously clawing at some way to make an impression. This stripping back of experience will stay with me for the rest of my life.
It made me think: what is the fear made up of? There is the basics; the money, It all revolves around the money. I simply need more of it. Then the mild yet brutally powerful form of paranoia, "what if I'm just not good enough?". Followed ultimately by the arrogance: "I am a professional! I can bloody well wait your tables!?". But it seems to me that there is something beneath all that. You are in a new place as you were before the knowledge brought by experience-yet with the expectations of an adult. The new experience becomes trying to be successful in a place where you have no value. It's maybe the age but the fear of a new experience mingles with a common feeling at this point in life: The desire to mean something. The need to be seen as worth while, as useful and impressive in some way. We want to leave a mark in a world so saturated with people scratching at the wall it's almost gone. I spoke to the owner of a coffee shop who claimed to be the first on the street: "now you can't walk five paces without seeing a moustached man with a gourmet coffee machine." It struck me that everywhere I had been looking for work there was more competition than I cared to even register. The place was saturated. How do we make ourselves noticed when the population has gone from those in our local area to the 8 billion that make up our planet. It seems impossible to stand out from the crowd. Then I was looking at it: the fear that was baking this first into the rest of my life. How can I ever be different or special when so many other brilliant people are shining as brightly as they can and still being faced with: "I'll put it on the pile with the rest". It almost overwhelmed me. We are a world rapidly heading towards putting our differences aside and becoming one population. It's a beautiful thing which when compared to the length of our history is inevitably only a hop, skip and a war away. However it means evolving. To deal with new problems and new challenges. No longer is simply having a skill going to be good enough. We are all desperate to leave behind something of importance. Be it an empire or a child that didn't turn out to kill anyone or start a genocide. But we all feel the burn, the need to make a difference. To leave a mark. So how do we leave a mark when our village contains 8 billion people? It's not enough to be artisan, gourmet or organic any more. So what's next? Do we evolve to accept that we are all one and as long as we are happy and loved it's fine? Or do we find a new way to carve our names on the history books. To bake it hard and solid like a speed bump to those in the future to learn from?
Somone I know and respect thinks that: "we optimise whatever skills, abilities, competencies and intelligence we have to make a difference in our own spheres of influence?" And: "that it's not about leaving the deepest mark and standing out from the crowd, it's about leaving a mark in the hearts of individuals that knew us."
I would like to say I agreed as it sounds like I would be a much happier person. It's a well put beautiful sentiment. It would certainly take away the fear from the new situations we were in by removing the pressure to be successful in each new situation. A kind of 'what happens happens' situation. However it doesn't feel totally like this. The fear is there and it is real and when I was offered two jobs even though I had already flown to Tasmania the joy was also present. Maybe one day the fear will slip away and just the joy of a new situation will remain but I am not sure that's how it's supposed to be. It seems that we need both to really burn a memory into who we are.
I would like to say I agreed as it sounds like I would be a much happier person. It's a well put beautiful sentiment. It would certainly take away the fear from the new situations we were in by removing the pressure to be successful in each new situation. A kind of 'what happens happens' situation. However it doesn't feel totally like this. The fear is there and it is real and when I was offered two jobs even though I had already flown to Tasmania the joy was also present. Maybe one day the fear will slip away and just the joy of a new situation will remain but I am not sure that's how it's supposed to be. It seems that we need both to really burn a memory into who we are.