if you build it, they will come

"fitter, happier, more productive..." droned a robot in a radiohead song. renton from trainspotting pondered whether to "choose life, choose a job, choose a career, choose a family..." he did, eventually. i never really believe that i had a choice. not, at least, with family and friends who range from moderately to highly successful in creating fabulous lives for themselve. it is only a choice because i have decided to sustain this life i've been provided that i'm enjoying immensely. i'm even lucky that at 21, i'm not yet fully responsible for myself, and yet here i am, complaining that i'm feeling the crunch. it has come to the point of comfort in this horrible limbo, almost like giving up. i seriously just think maybe i should be a hermit and keep on cleaning the house, exercising, reading books... it still feels like i'm bettering myself anyway. it's always difficult for me to change gears.. "the birth of something new will always be painful, but it is necessary," so said Dr. Martinet in Toer's This Earth of Mankind. when once i was a child suffering the birth of my own personality, now i have yet to give birth to my own life: a job, a career, a wider horizon for meeting new people and doing new things. it sucks, so i numb myself. when i awake from it, it hurts like hell. most of the complaining stems from the fact that i usually have things the easy way. when things are hard, i suddenly have to find a way to understand things. like just last year, i mourned the fate god gave us when we disobeyed him in the garden of eden: that we must toil for the earth to produce our food - as we sow, so shall we reap. everything is transactional, even love it seemed. and it sucks when you feel you got the short end of the deal. but i've always gotten a better deal - since high school i've said, i've been reaping more than what i've sown. now that i feel i'm doing enough, struggling enough in building my own life, i am jealous to see others being rewarded for what i assume are meager efforts. but as my friend anne said, it's about time i had it hard. and that struggle is very lonely. no matter how others understand my difficulties, it's still my ass i have to haul around the metro, make as if i'm selling myself to an employer and pretend that everything's fine and dandy. no one wants to hire a gloomy gus nor a sour puss, right? and i can see it now, too, that when i work, it's the time to read, write, exercise in order to keep current and stay beautiful that i'll complain about. but the fact is i'm just lazy and i still want to sit and relax even if i want it all. the fact is, maybe i don't want it all THAT BAD. because if i did, i'd kill myself and be and insomniac just to do it all. now i see why older people get fatter or fall out of the circuit... life's still transactional, and you pay for something you want badly, not always in the same aspect, which is probably why we think it's unfair. it never seems to add up. if you build it, they will come. that's what i keep thinking now. because no matter how i try to justify that i'm just paying my dues and it's MY sacrifice that'll get me through this, the truth lies in what my friend Mark told me yesterday: "i've been able to get what i want and do what i want not because of myself and my efforts, but because god allowed me to." providence. it was right under my nose.