Meaning?

He is a shade of himself.  He feels that life is something to walk through, always with his palms held outward to protect himself, always on guard.  He does not seem to care when he is hurt; it is simply another file to add to his collection.  It makes him wonder why he keeps himself alive, and he always comes back to the same conclusion:  he wants to see the end.  He treats everything as something to be watched and observed, not as something to handle in his own hands.  He wants to be independent of everyone and everything, but he cannot do that until he has money to call his own and a space to make his own.

            When he listens to music, it is always of the sad variety.  He will listen to songs with titles such as “Hallelujah,” “Almost Lover,” “Desperado,” and “Lost.”  He wants meaning, but he wants that meaning to be something real.  He wants a purpose, but his tendency to analyze and assess constantly makes him see all aspects of life as meaningless.  And so he waits.  He waits for something to come along that will interest him—something that he will want to have and understand.

The world he lives in makes him feel guilty to be alive, to be taking up space.  He sees those around him as spoiled, stuck-up idiots.  They are not so smart as to be rewarded, and they are useless more than anything else.  He wonders why they try, either.  Perhaps it is for his own reason, but he thinks that maybe it is unique for every person.  Some feel that life is something to enjoy, that it is something to be taken advantage of; they say to “grab life by the horns” and twist it to your own amusement.  Others feel that they can make a difference, that they can change something.  They want to make something into an entirely new thing that is better and more their own than the thing that it once was.  Others are like him; they search and search, watching and waiting for the moment that will bring meaning—because surely it has not come yet.

            He often finds himself with tears in his eyes or welling under his cheeks.  He feels the urge to cry when he is faced with the confusion of life, but that is only because he is a teenager.  And even as he writes this, he wonders if maybe he is wrong.  He thinks this after everything he thinks because he knows it is the one dogma that can almost always be proven true.  As time progresses, he begins to see that life holds only the meaning that we as people give to it.  And so, he decides that he wants life to have no meaning because he is afraid that he will fail if there is meaning.  He has felt throughout his life what it is to fail, and he hates that feeling.  He hates the dejection, coldness, and badness that comes with failure.  And so he wanders, adding to his pool of ideas and experiences so that he can show that he has learned much in his lifetime.

            He hates the idiocy that he sees in others.  He hates that his brothers hate certain people because of the way that they look and the connotations that their people have inadvertently obtained.  He hates that his parents are trying to give life to a failing institution that is not worth what they try to give it.  He has to concede to these people every day, and he feels so fake, so like a hypocrite that it is painful at times.  He wonders “Why?” constantly, and yet he cannot stand any of the answers he gets.  They are all so ridiculously useless that he feels empty almost constantly.  That is what it is to be without a purpose—empty.  There is a hole in his chest that he constantly seeks to fill, and yet he is never satisfied with what he finds and tries to place into that empty place; it is always rejected.

            And so he waits.  He does not know what it is that he waits for, but he hopes it will come.  He hopes that someday something will happen that actually matters.  He longs for that day, that day when he will have a purpose.