“By the time a person has achieved years adequate for choosing a direction, the die is cast and the moment has long since passed which determined the future.” – Zelda Fitzgerald
I think it’s safe to say that I certainly do not live my life in a very safe manner. Wait, that sentence just sounded retarded. But it makes perfect literal sense in terms of what I’m saying. It’s true – I take a lot of risks, some calculated, but more often than not, I ignore such “calculations” and stick with what I want to do/think I should do/think I can get away with. The latter which sounds absolutely terrible, although thus far I have turned out quite “alright”. Point is, I wholeheartedly agree with the above quote, and I am living my life and making my “big decisions” as I see fit – not in the most “sensible” and “safe” manner at all. Instead, doing what I think will lead to where I’d like to be. I think that if I can’t dream big and try to fly towards such dreams up in the clouds at age 19, then there will be no more-appropriate time to do so.
I’m beyond grateful and appreciative towards my parents’ encouragement and support of me, even in times when they disagree with my decisions; I know there are many, many parents out there who simply do not provide such freedom and constant support towards their children. I’ve noticed (and mum’s also told me) that people are either in positive awe of how brilliant it is, or in absolute shock and horror towards my parents with regards to the fact that my sister and I pursue such “unconventional” pathways – and all with their full backing and support! Other parents that my family knows have either high-5’d us for sticking to our guns and going for it, or have taken it upon themselves to try and convince me that music is a stupid course of study that will lead to nowhere, and no career. They’d list all the reasons why I should study law or whatever instead (this is back at high school when I hadn’t decided on my university degree yet), and how I should just keep music as a hobby, etc. It’s as if the decision is so fucking obvious that only an outright idiot would choose otherwise. Even though I am always polite and try to deflect and then divert such conversations, it always maddens me, right to the very core. I just want to say who the hell do you think you are?! Don’t treat me like a fucking idiot; you say that as if I hadn’t thought of all of the above already, etc. Anyway, I don’t even know how that train of thought got here, because then I got distracted and have been reading something completely irrelevant for the past half an hour. Point is, I’m glad I still have a lot of things that I look forward to, because of the path I’ve chosen. Rather than having chosen one which I dread to face the end of.
Yesterday, with just a towel-bag of essentials, I set off for a very long drive out to a friend’s family house, south-west of mine. The weather hovered from very cloudy, sunny, and then cloudy, spitting rain, sunny, then back to the clouds and eventually decent rainfall. Photographically equipped with only a Canon point-and-shoot in the back pocket of my denim cut-offs, I didn’t take that many photos. The countryside experience is more about the intertwined smell of freshness, cow dung and grass in the air, the bugs that crawl on you, and the thorns, sand and mud on your feet. All in all it made for an interesting day – most certainly a very adventurous drive as I wasn’t quite sure where I was going to end up – with great company, great conversation, great food and great fun. In other words, a bloody great day:
And I wouldn’t have it any other way.