Rifling my garbage of memories, kind of auditing my choices and mistakes I’ve made, I realized how many speedbumps, potholes, ditches and wrong turns there had been en route to Shitlifetown, where I’ve taken up lodging. Why did I keep going like that?
I just couldn’t apply the brakes and stop for any course correction. I had no map for my life in front of me either. Okay that’s a dishonest excuse, I guess. Nobody got it except freakin’ Nostradamus. But still so many people make it to Disneyland in season.
Fact is, they made use of their compass and I pawned it off upon hard times. Compass comes in different makes – purpose, happiness, faith, religion, etc. – and is never precise. Mine sure wasn’t. I was seeking my true North and no compass showed it. Others, men and women of the world, put their trust in their compass and followed it even if the damn dial wouldn’t move at all.
In the end, they did get somewhere better than Shitlifetown. Doesn’t matter if the purpose was hollow, happiness shallow, faith deluded or religion out and out demented. Many of them simply didn’t bother about their true North and doggedly drove on towards some fucking North that their faulty compass dictated and behold! they’ve got something to show for it, the men and women of the world! Me, I got nothing but half-assed nihilism and agnosticism.
Given the cocoon of existence within which we pass our lives with no absolutes, is it then better to hold onto some faulty compass, any compass, than none at all? Who knows, I’d have arrived at some shiny happy place as well, where R.E.M’s ‘Shiny Happy People’ loops in the background.
3 comments
@Yoges Compasses guided ships that without direction or a star to steer her by could still find their way to a destination. A faulty (broken) compass would ergo render the ship lost.
I get that metaphor — or is it a simile? Anyway. When we have lost our way sometimes a faulty compass is better than none at all. True North lies in a person’s positivity, intentional or not.
But there are those who lose their way. Beset by fog, and Kraken, and pirate ships, and tempests, without a working compass we fall off the edge of the world.
I envy those who find their way — compass or not — because the world is full of unforeseen sabotages. The worst is ourselves.
Happy sailing, friend. Find friendly shores and a heart home to drop your anchor.
Hello sequesther314! Thanks for your comment and your goodwill.
I agree where you say true North lies in positivity. No worthy goal can be aimed at without having developed a positive life-affirming outlook first. If only there was a switch to turn positivity on.
Following the sea thematic, in some circles of sailors it is said that, in presence of the classical sirens, the best course of action is to navigate blindfolded and deaf until far from them, rendering themselves immune to their dangerous chanting and able to regain their will and their trip after some time.
They would draw a map to quickly identify the area where the creatures could be on the trip back, and would correct the course with due time to successfully avoid them.