Continuing the long sequence of posts I make before a big transition in my life, I wanted to share a memory that happened during my time when I was back home.
I guess I'm no stranger to ruminating on death and what seems to be the finiteness of our existence here. Assuming there's nothing really "out there" after death then it is true what Macbeth says - we have just a moment on the stage before our time is up. I had these thoughts in the back of my mind during my dad's 70th birthday especially in the sense that, practically speaking, I probably don't have that much time left with him.
I think he's had a pretty good life though, all things considered. He's worked hard to support our family and, even had some rough times where he lost his job, but ultimately ended up in a pretty good place. That being said, the memory I want to record is when we all went out for his birthday dinner (which felt awkward btw, I don't think our general extended family gets along well...but that's another issue) and got home to my parents place. We had some cake for a bit and then my brother and my sister both ended up leaving with their S.O's and it was just me, parents and grandma alone.
I suppose I realized it then that I felt kind of sad. I'm not sure I really cared about having a family of my own, I thought mine was alright, but it was sad to see my brother and sister leave to go back to their own homes (not that they have a true "family" yet). It made me realize that the days when we were younger and all kind of stayed together with our parents were over and not coming back. Even a few Christmas' ago, we'd all just hangout back at home and play video games together - but someone my siblings have chosen to move on.
I'm not sure how I feel about my own feelings - it seems like (as I've observed many times before) like an inability for me to move on and embrace change. But do I really need to? I'm not sure why people want to go out and start their own families if their current one is fine. I'd be OK with having a causal S.O. in my life but I don't really care about starting my own family or having kids. In my view, the only thing could possibly matter in life is having a positive impact on society and/or discovering some kind of knowledge (in fundamental sciences, for example). Having kids just kicks the can down the road, though it would make sense if you yourself did not have many opportunities (as my parents did). However, I think most of my peers in this generation had any opportunity available to them as they wanted - so why just pass the buck down to our potential offspring? We have the chance to do something great now, so why shy away from doing it?
Maybe this all sounds selfish, and, that might be right. Maybe you can do something great and also have kids (though this seems questionable). I just never thought that much about optimizing just for going out and seeking other people to be around - maybe I've been lucky to just have formed genuine relationships without trying that much. Maybe I shouldn't be so harsh to judge others. At the end of the day, getting through this existence is hard, and we probably need to feel some connection to others to get through it all. It's just sad that the nature of family relationships will inevitably change as time goes on.
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