Late 20s

To quote the venerable Mr. Bueller “life moves pretty fast...” this may seem trite to some but to those of us on the verge of 30, it’s a warning. It’s a call to action and it’s a scary one. Especially if we haven’t quite figured it all out like Ferris Bueller had in highschool.

I’ve spent my entire 20s in a band with my friends from highschool. Middling in small bars with other bands far below our standards of mid/late 20s music snobbery.

To me, my 20s have been the great humbling. Some cosmic lesson that I needed to learn in the longest most agonizing way possible. In my teens I thought I was going places and that the world was mine for the taking. I thought I could get by with what little amount of talent I was born with and the charm I had so painfully thought I had been gifted. I thought for sure at 17 that I was going to become as big as a King of Leon or maybe date Taylor Swift. I was what the kids call “delusional” .

The thing about it is, I think that’s ok. I believe that most of the greats have been given this Delusion. Think, Kanye West, for example. Sure he may verge on the Narcissistic, megalomaniacal wild mood swing part of the spectrum. But beyond that his delusions have brought him to the extreme ends of success.

A true visionary, must have little to no regard for the limits supposed upon them my anyone else but themselves.

No, I’m not saying I’m as talented as Kanye West. What I’m saying is that IF I don’t believe that I am. Nobody else ever will.

This great Humbling has brought me to contemplate my true insignificance in this belt of stars and it is immense. So, too, is yours my dear, readers. Don’t let that scare you. With the gift of Insignificance comes the reality of the blank canvas.

It doesn’t take a Joe Rogan DMT trip to really see the brilliance of insignificance. Because if we just zoom out and really see what we are as a spec on a spec on a spec of dust. Hurling through the cosmos at an astronomical clip. We can then see that we are all on an even playing field. All we have is our delusions. All we have is our belief in ourselves and the blank canvas with which we can draw ourselves in whichever Kanye-esque way we see fit!

Maybe at 17 I had more figured out than I thought I did at 27. Sure I had A LOT to learn. But, I did learn a lot. Sure I have never dated Taylor Swift. Neither have you (unless you have, go you!). Sure, I still have a long way to go, but, I’m so happy to know that wherever I go, I will get there because I believed I could. I won’t let the insignificance scare me anymore because we are all afflicted with it. Who we become is a result of who we believe we deserve to become.

There was this poster of a kitten hanging from a star in my highschool English class. It had the obvious caption “shoot for moon, even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.”

How stupid, how perfect.