I think life has spheres. What I mean by that is that life has different stages where you perform different roles for different people. Not only do I, according to Shakespeare at least, strut and fret my hour upon the stage, but I do it on three or four stages. I just run between the stages, and my act on one doesn’t really affect the acting on another.
I was thinking about this, or over-thinking as the case may be, earlier when I compared my life with Mark with my life as a student. My life with Mark goes on rails, and everything is fine and wonderful except for the occasional down-pour of conflict. My life as a student… well, I have covered that extensively before. One example is here.
Then there is the life with my parents, which is in a rut and is entirely predictable, as I wrote about the other day in the linked post. We do not seem to be able to break out of the bad script that we’ve been given, not matter how much we want to.
And finally, there’s the life with my friends. Friends like Abbie and Ben and Stephen, who, let’s be honest, are the only ones that count these days. There’s the shadow of Maria hanging over us, and I feel bad that we seem to lose touch more and more. I owe that girl so much, and I don’t want to lose contact. But like with my parents, it seems like we’re running a predictable script that we can’t break out from.
These different stages, I handle them like a row of spinning plates on sticks. I keep rushing to each to keep the plate on the up because if one falls, then maybe it will knock over the others. That’s a profoundly fatalistic view of things isn’t it? But what is the alternative? To go into each stage like a bull in a china shop and risk everything on the other stages as well? The things on the stages where things are going well?
I am confused. This adult life seems to be too complicated. I sometimes wish I was like fifteen again when I was more sure about everything. I could declare my views and opinions to the world, or at least pretend to with the usual bravado of the all-knowing fifteen year old. Did I believe my declarations of certainty?
But then again, I only had two stages to act on then, didn’t I? School and parents. Maybe that is why things seem so simple. I didn’t have to juggle so much. Or is this just a whining? But then I stumble across something, I am breathless, and want to see it all, and add a whole new set of stages. It adds another set of plates to juggle, and I can’t wait to see it all. Like the little girl in Interview with the Vampire said: I want some more. Or more positively, there are a hundred thousand things to see. Or as the lyric of the posted song rightly say: Unbelievable sights, Indescribable feeling, Soaring, tumbling, freewheeling, Through an endless diamond sky.
On some days I feel like I’m getting nowhere, and on others – like today – I feel like there’s too much to do, and I’ll never have time to do it all in one single lifetime. I want science to find a way to extend life to like five hundred years, and then maybe I’ll be able to do one per cent of all the things out there in that life-span.
I don’t know which feeling is correct: the pessimistic one or the optimistic one. I suspect that it’s the latter, and that it is only shackles on the mind that prevents me from trying to experience it all. And I want to experience it all, and write about it all. When I look back on my life, I want to say “I lived a good life”. Until then, the options are endless, the sky is the limit. Hell, maybe not even the sky.
Colinology 
I think the answer is to be a realist with optimistic tendencies. To use the spinning plates analogy, you need to relinquish the paint spinning you can’t control and leave it in others hands. It is nigh onto impossible to control other people, focus on what you have reasonable control and, as the slogan says, take it one step and one day at a time.
I think that the so called “realism” of people is mostly just rationalised fear of doing things. I mean, there can be good reasons for not doing things because doing things carries an inherent risk. But if you always shy away from risk, then you will never get a reward. You may achieve equilibrium, mental or otherwise, but I’m not sure that’s enough in order to grow. I don’t know.
I’ll answer this in more detail tomorrow, once I’m sober again. I wanted to do it all and do it very quickly. There are dangers embedded in that path. I get the feeling you’re inclined to the same way of doing things. You’re committing to marriage at 18…
It’s worked for me because I’ve always been aware there’s a price and a price I’m willing to pay. As long as you’re comfortable with that, you’ll be okay. No climbing up the walls and blaming Mark when you meet the Duke’s son who falls madly in love with you 😉 You choose it, you own it. You’re responsible for it. Never indulge in what ‘could have been’ had you chosen differently.
But there comes a point when you have to stop thinking about doing, and just do. I spend far too much time overthinking things. Sometimes I need to break out of that mold and just go and do. So, this is right. This is the right thing to do. Overthinking and worries be damned. 🙂
We grow and change. Sometimes that means we get a new social group, and we leave off one that we had before. I only have two friends that I knew when I was graduating high school, and I’m not that close to either of them, but that works well because none of us are now the people we were when we were closer. And when you get married, you kind of have to expect everything that isn’t you-and-Mark to become less important. When I was married, it was hard for me to be close friends with single people because I didn’t feel like I had anything in common with them. It’s still easier for me to relate to people who are in a steady relationship.