This is My Convinction. Is It Yours?

As I walked home today, I realized that me–and people like me–are like lonely rocks that sit unmoved in a river. Allow me to explain.

Imagine life and all of it’s interactions–people growing up, becoming influenced, learning, meeting other people, having kids, influencing the world–all that stuff. Imagine all of that as a body of water, or in this case, a river that flows and travels in a certain direction. Kind of like how most people are; they just go with the flow and as a result, they are rewarded with being a part of a greater collective that supports them. Of course, the “river” may diverge and form separate bodies along the way, but even then, those separate bodies of water only form other rivers, some more narrow or wider than others.

People like me are rocks. We’re somehow dropped into the middle of the river and we just sit there, not really moving along with it. Now undoubtedly we are influenced by the river; the river erodes us and sculpts us into a form that is different than how we began when we were first “dropped,” but regardless, we are still separate from the river in that it courses around us and continues hardly unchanged by our presence.

And that is thus, the agony of being a rock; becoming so influenced by the river that gracefully dances around us, changes us and yet, we have no effect on the river and no hope of ever changing it or traveling with it to whatever destination it has.

Of course, it isn’t ALWAYS lonely being a rock. Occasionally, something unusual may drift down the river (for instance, a small animal). And frequently that unusual thing will hold onto the rock–especially if the rock’s shape is accommodating–because it’s afraid of being swept away by the quickness of the river. It finds comfort and safety with rock. And of course, the rock enjoys having the company. But eventually that unusual thing discovers that perhaps the river isn’t so scary and lets go of the rock to join the stream.

Alas, the rock is lonely again.

It is the fate of all rocks to one day erode into nothingness. To be worn down until they exist no longer. Such is my fate. And the agony of being some sort of stand alone entity is the reason I’m going to kill myself. But not until I finish chronicling my struggle as a rock.