Our lives are in rewind.
We constantly live in our past, obsessing more and more over fantasies and memories and wishes, while reacting slower and slower to the world. We may physically be stuck in the present, but our minds are constantly in rewind. Conversations and thoughts and dreams from ages ago resurface, as though they happened a moment ago. Our whole being is shaped by the rewind button, replaying things we choose to remember. And we're so conditioned to it that we can't get back to normal playback.
If hit you when you were younger, you'd hit me back and probably screech at me. But if I hit you now you'll just say stop it, asshole. And there will be a time when you'll just roll your eyes. And then not even that.
Even small details in rewind are enlarged, scrutinized and safely recorded forever.
So, in conclusion, life is a tape recorder/player.
And we wish we had a fast forward button, but we don't. And that good, because fast forward never sounds nice. Neither do we control time that is unchanging. Instead, we use rewind, in the form of memories since we are constantly in need of an escape from reality. In need of a device to interpret your own life in a million different ways, as though it is just another poem from the book lying untouched on your dusty table.
And the others? Their rewind buttons are books and music and games and paint and smoke and drugs; just anything but now.
And even though we wish to be independent and uncontrollable, we are just pawns in the hands of Life. Just millions of yards of tape fed into the tape recorder. Tapes that are played over and over again, tapes that still hang on by a millimeter hoping to get what they deserve for once. But they're delicate. One small mistake and you've got a messy tangle of tape that you don't know to sort out. And the ones that sort themselves out? They damage over time. To the point that their rewind buttons stop working on them too. And what is left is a damaged piece of tape, much like a person who lost all hope and dreams.
One that feels dispensable and useless, just hoping and waiting that there is someone at the other end feeling the same. To somehow regain touch with the recorder, to get back on track. But what needs to be realized is that the obsession with the track is over. There is no more orderly playing, no chronology, no track to begin with. The tape is only truly free when it realizes that it is in its truest form, finally, after getting stretched and pulled out of the cassette reel. Chaos it might be, but chaos is a ladder. One that helps you leave the pit of despair. One that will finally let you be who you are, to finally find your routine in your own imperfect way.
~VN
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