What does adulthood spell for us? Is it a stage that we dread, or a phase that brings out the best in us? We usually enter this chapter of life with a promising hope for success and a fulfilling path to a meaningful existence. However, we are often confronted with an obscure idea of what this “success” means or even looks like. We are left confused and most of the time, empty.
The younger version of ourselves brought us wonders of what adulthood is like and what is in store for us. Looking back, during my formative years, I was surrounded by people whose mindset was fixed on gaining wealth as a measure of success. At an early age, many people made me believe that the path to happiness is success, not the other way around.
For most parents, they instill in their children’s minds that they must study hard to get a job that pays well. Many children are encouraged to pursue a degree that would have them land a lucrative profession. On the other hand, they are discouraged to consider courses that cater to artistic expressions. Thus, there are times that children feel like they are deprived of choices that might lead them to their own concept of success.
Many of us spend our years of existence with the complicated and vague view about what life should be and what success should mean in the modern world. Take social media for example. A social media platform is designed to help others better connect with friends, family, relatives, loved ones. It widens our connection, but feeds us with just a glimpse of what is on the surface of another person’s life. As we scroll up and down, swipe left and right, we can see the glamour that the person wants us to see — a new house, a new car, a cute pet, a loving partner, a job promotion, a newly opened business, a published work, a memorable dinner with a celebrity, a fancy vacation outside the country. The list can go on.
Our logic and commons sense tells us that these are but a part of the person’s existence. However, we readily believe that it is the totality of their lives. We believe that perhaps they are having the time of their lives, and there is nothing that could go wrong with their lives. Social media as a tool for better connection has left us with false illusion as to the reality of everyone’s daily life. That is why it shocks us if one celebrity decides to kick the bucket at an early age. How tragic it is that a man who was smiling while eating dinner with his family in the photo or a video he posted two days ago would take his own life, or a child star who started off with a promising career and was loved by many audience suddenly falls victim to drugs or bankruptcy. We are horrified with what happened, and we baffle with the idea that a person whom we thought has it all would fall into despair and tragedy.
With the vague idea of success, we feel that it necessary for us compete with others. We are compelled to show other people that we are winning in life, that we have to manifest in our life the example of what success looks like. For most of us, a successful individual is someone who should be admired or envied.
Sadly, we have created a society where showing our vulnerability is a mortal sin. Showing our human flaws will certainly break the ideal picture that we are painting for the eyes of others. We are born to this world flawed, and no matter how hard we try to make ourselves better, there is a high likelihood that we will be committing many mistakes in our lifetime. We are born with conflicting emotions such as admiration and anger, joy and sadness, hope and disappointment. Oftentimes, we feel disgust and self-pity, when we cannot attain a successful life. When things do not fall into place, we seek for validation, the need to be loved, the need for understanding and patience, and the need for warmth. In a progressive and a competitive world, however, there is no room to show these emotions.
We must always smile in our pictures, we should show others the lovely meal we are having, we must tell others how many books we have read or written, we must share our new songs, we have to share to the world that we excel in our field, that the world must know that we have the best partners and we are lucky to have them.
There is no room for us to vent our frustration about dissatisfaction in our current jobs, the tragedy for the path we did not pursue, the failing relationship we are trying to hide, the sickness or death of a close relative, the financial problems we deal with everyday, the sleepless nights we have spent worrying, or the melancholy brought about by the modern standards. There is simple no room for us to show any of these. We are too tough and too clever for misfortune. After all, why would we share our woes and misery to others when we cannot do anything about it?
There is a fear in our heart that opening up our misfortune to others will also reveal our vulnerability, and this would allow people to judge our failures in one aspect of our lives as our failure to be an exemplary person. Charles Darwin introduced the concept of “survival of the fittest” — that those who are weak will perish and those who are strong will survive. We fear that our flaws as a person equate to the weakness of our existence, and by opening up to the world, we permit the society to judge us, to take advantage of us, to pity us, or simply kill us slowly with humiliation. In the end, we either keep it in, or we die slowly and quietly into obscurity.
As Eugenia Kuyda, the founder of the software company called Luca, once said in an interview with Quartz, “Most of the social networks, they are promoting you to be a star, to be this cool person with a lot of amazing photos that show how many miles you ran this year, how many books you’ve read, and how many amazing connections you made, and nobody is allowed to be vulnerable anymore. No one is actually saying what is going on with themselves very openly.”
Keeping this vulnerability locked inside our hearts, we continue to walk our own path. Along the way, we develop vices and addiction in order to distract ourselves from the haunting calls of our dark clouds. We smile, even if our hearts are heavy. We act as if everything is merry and fine, even if we our drowning in the sea of our own sorrows. We share happy memories instead of showing what is really going on with our life.
Just like the bluebird in Charles Bukowski’s poem entitled “Bluebird”, in the comforts of our home, in the middle of a long and lonely nights, we are restless, we take our masks off and let the haunting songs in our heart sing with nobody to hear, sympathize with, or even appreciate. A song nice enough to make other people weep.
We acknowledge the pains and frustrations, but never allow the baggage to get out of our caged heart. We sleep with the sorrows and despair and move on to the next day, until the cage becomes so heavy that we cannot carry it any longer. Like a ticking time bomb, we break down, we get angry at the world for not treating us right and for confusing us with all the false hopes and promises of the illusion given us when we were young. Others succumb to deep depression and choose to end it all, while others ruin their lives and suffer the prejudice of society. We are but children in the body of an adult trying to act as if we know what we are doing.
Everyone is susceptible to this vulnerability the madness that comes with it. And when I say everyone, that includes you and me. We have to acknowledge as Michel de Montaigne once put it, “Kings and philosophers shit - and so do ladies.”
Charles Bukowski’s “Bluebird”
https://medium.com/poem-of-the-day/charles-bukowski-bluebird-f4e80e5000ef
Quartz’s The story of Replika, the AI app that becomes you
The story of Replika, the AI app that becomes you
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