Why our own life stories are so uninteresting?
Do you daydream about being born in the world of Wizards and Witches like Harry Potter? Or showing off your Ninja skills in the shinobi world of Naruto? Or of fighting the WhiteWalkers with dragon glass? Or hearing ‘Let the Hunger Games begin!’ for real? Or maybe just to have someone’s ‘Okay?’ to be replied with an ‘Okay.’
If you ask me, I have been doing that a thousand times over since years. I keep imagining about being a part of all these stories with characters that are dearer to me than the real people. And in doing so, I often wonder what’s so wrong with our own life stories that they don’t feel as good to live in.
Perhaps our generation lacks solid personal stories in spite of the whole individuality showdown because our lives have become disintegrated as we continue to live with our segregated selves whose different parts connect to different communities and beliefs. The overall gap in understanding each other is born more out of incomplete expression rather than an inaccurate one. Consequently, we fail to find a place where we are completely accepted with all our choices. And the loneliness begins!
The pain of being alone is completely out of this world, isn’t it? — Naruto
We live in such episodic manner that we might as well be living in the Pokemon world, I mean there’s so much happening everywhere, it feels like coming across a new Pokemon every day. We keep dreaming to master ’em all because we are told that limits don’t exist, that we can be who we want to be. Only as it turns out, we don’t get to be all that, because the internet says that thousands across the world have already crossed our level at it. And demotivation begins!
The difference between stupidity and genius, is that genius has its limits. — Neji Hyuga
Coming to friendships, the thing that we have really lost is the ‘growing-together’ part. Most of us leave our homes to study elsewhere and rarely return to the same place for a job either. We don’t get to be those town kids any longer, whom every other kid, uncle and aunty in the neighbourhood recognize. Even though we have adapted and learned with partial success to maintain relations while staying apart and cherishing the possible meetups from time to time, I feel that this change from growing-together to get-together still creates a lot of difference in the depth of our bonds. And even if we have fun with the people around us and keep making new friends, none of it matters in the long run, we leave when we have to and never look back or reunite. And the disconnectedness begins!
It is only through the eyes of others that our lives have any meaning. — Haku
Our life is becoming more and more like our social media newsfeed, we are continuously scrolling through and a lot is getting lost from our minds and from our hearts... We are forgetful beings and with the never-look-back attitude that we seem to have adopted lately, we are eventually forgetting our past selves and are headed towards the point where we don’t understand who we are any more. And the existential crisis begin!
While you’re alive, you need a reason for your existence. Being unable to find one is the same as being dead. — Naruto
If you look at any fiction (with a long enough time frame) that you treasure, you are sure to find a loop characteristic to the plot, perhaps that’s the most important part, the looking back, the refinding and then reconnecting… because that reminds us who we were and what led to who we are today. Our past is important too, living only in the present will never make sense in true terms. You gotta know where your present hails from. However, the recent trend of our life stories has become more of branched, splitting into a hundred directions and only growing forward, eventually, we reach one of the ends and can’t trace back to where it all began. As of today, we are living in a global society where we are all trying to be a ‘someone’ while we all have become a ‘no-one’ for everyone.
