Potential and Perception

I’ve never been one to take risks in any part of my life. Somehow, I’ve always taken the safe road, and unlike the Frost poem, I’m not the better off for having done it. Even small things, I seem unwilling to extend past a limited view of what is safe and comfortable — and now I can’t help but feel that I’m not living up to whatever potential I’m supposed to have. Surrounded by barriers of my own design, it feels like no matter how much is accomplished, how much is gained, how much is experienced, everything is somehow limited, muted, dulled. Barring any transcendence to another form or other transference of consciousness, we all have a limited number of minutes and seconds.

Infinite possibilities collapse every moment to form the existence we live, and every moment we have the ability to shape what we are to become, and in a limited way, affect everything else in the universe. The question of perception in all of this is whether or not everything we’re supposed to be is being lived out by taking the safe, well trodden path, or if we’re cheating ourselves. Is there such a thing as potential, or is it just an idea to help feed the drive to keep away from complacency? Is the way to happiness some form of success, or is that just taking away from the time we have to enjoy ourselves?

Maybe it’s just that some part of me wants to think how I’ll be remembered or thought about when I’m not around to say anything. Maybe everyone thinks that they’re more complex or have more inside, or something that is worth remembering which doesn’t always bubble to the surface. Maybe immortality is having children, maybe your works, maybe nothing.

No answers, only questions … The easiest way to describe it was the glib “half the fun is the journey.” So long and thanks for the existentialism?