This was an idea that my friend Nikos came up with. I wrote it about a year ago and I still find it to be one of the more existential and unique pieces that I have written. I’ve never been someone who loved school or the education system. I’d even say that I hate it. These are the kinds of thoughts I’ve had since way back in grade school and lasted all the way to college.

Scott McSchoolspirit

The room is desolate. At night, all I see are desks, chairs and cleaning supplies. During the day, I see the same desks and chairs but inhabited by children.

They are so full of energy. The way that they talk. The way that they act. The way that they think. It’s marvelous.

Energy high, the teacher talks to the children, guiding them through their educational journey. They pick up a piece of used chalk and write on my surface. I can feel their emotions flowing as smoothly as the newly drawn line; their true feelings revealed.

Tired and worn as they watch the students go through the same tedious process that they had gone through years earlier. They wish the best for the students but hopes lay low. When they’re young, they are carefree. They have fun. They don’t realize what problems await them.

What’s worse is that they are always so unprepared. I watch these youths and how they talk, act and think. They’re creative. They do exactly what they want to do to have fun. They make the best of everything that they do.

The teacher looks at the kids and wishes that they could still think like they do. Unable to see what’s coming. Unable to feel the pain of the real world.

When a child brings chalk to my surface, it’s the highlight of my day. They are given the freedom to draw whatever is in their young minds. It’s always fun to see and feel their disregard for other opinions. How they share their work with their classmates.

Then, just like the cruel nature of life, an eraser is brought to it, removing it from the world. Taking it from their mind and never giving it back. They are trained from a young age that their thoughts are forgettable. That their creativity isn’t special. That they are just like everyone else.

Seeing how a child grows to become a teacher that wishes that they thought like a child is miserable. It’s a vicious, unforgiving cycle that makes the sanest person wonder how it’s accepted. But what can I do about it? I’m where creativity lies dormant until the end of my existence.

The constant struggle between trying to become something bigger than myself and falling into complacent laziness is one that I have to overcome everyday. I’m not special by saying that. Everyone has different metrics for success. Mine sits much higher than I’ll likely ever be able to reach, but you bet your ass I’m working every day to get closer.

Scott McWorkaholic

Why do I do it? Before I go to sleep, I say I’m going to do something big, something ambitious, something that will give me purpose. Then I wake up, my mind groggy, my eyes cloudy, my brain telling me to stay in bed.

You know what I’m talking about. The idea that you’ve had but never acted on. The activity that you want to do but can’t follow through on. The dream that has never left anything but your thoughts. Whatever it is, you know you’d rather be doing it, but something prevents you.

What is it that you want to do? Do you want to quit a job that you hate? Are you in a relationship that you want to leave? Would you run away and start again if you could?

No matter what it is, you can’t do it. You probably feel shame and guilt. You probably feel angry and depressed. All you want to do is break the cycle of self-loathing. A cycle that has existed for as long as you can remember. A cycle that only you can break, but your mind refuses to change.

I will never understand it. Is it a problem with me and my brain? Or is it a problem with man and human will? No matter the reason, it needs to change.

Is it fear of the unknown? Lack of security? Dislike of change? I don’t know what it is but it’s always there. It nags but will never reveal itself. Maybe it’ll slip up one day and I’ll know what’s stopping me. But even if I did… would I change anything?

If you knew what caused this thing. This nagging feeling in the back of your mind. If you could just put your finger one what the problem was… would you change it?

It’s easy to think about how completely and totally expendable we are as humans. We have no apparent purpose except to go around and live. Some of us are living the lives that they hoped to live and others are farther from it than they ever thought they’d be, but no matter the quality of life, the meaning is still just as superficial. We make the best of what we have and that’s all anyone can ever ask for, but it could end in any moment.

I’m sure you’ve heard about people who live every day like it’s their last, hell, there’s a Nickelback song about that, and that’s a scary thought to a lot (I’ll leave that up to interpretation). Why live each day like it’s your last? That seems to make everyday that’s not lived like that purposeless. I frequently take days to just relax and do what I want, and those are some of my favorite days, even if I don’t dedicate time to the gym or some shelter or whatever else may present itself. Even if the world ended right now, I would be okay with that (not that I would have much of a say about it anyway). Everyday that I have is pretty good, no matter if it’s me going through a depressive fit, laying in bed until 4 PM, the only motivator to get up being the need to pee, or spending my whole day working towards my most eccentric dreams. Today is good. Tomorrow is good. Yesterday was good. They’re all good, even when they’re not.

Scott McRambling

When I look at the stars, I feel completely and totally expendable. At any moment, I could die, hit by a car that I didn’t see, or worse yet, Earth could rupture from acts of God that no one ever expected. There could be meteors, supermassive volcanos or even extraterrestrial beings that conquer species for the fun of conquering.

Maybe a far away star will super nova and, while we watch from the comforts of Earth, another species that we’ve never seen or understood could vanish from existence, disappearing faster than a shooting star.

In the blink of an eye, we could just… cease; no longer existing in a traditional sense, but instead our atoms will become some cosmic dust that might help to create new life, or just drift around for billions of years until it forms into a new star.

If multiverse theory is correct, then in one of the universes, someone identical to me existed and died, turned to cosmic dust, then after hundreds of millions of years, the cosmic dust formed again and created an exact, identical copy of me. It could have been this universe for all we know. Maybe humans have existed in many times and forms, and this is just the most recent in a long line of evolutions.

For all we know, the universe isn’t anything like we have guessed so far. What if the universe that we know so well is inside of a black hole. Maybe black holes suck in all sorts of cosmic dust and spit it out on the other side, and another universe is created in the infinitely small mass in the center. What if we exist in a never-ending series of being sucked up by black holes until we get to wherever we are now. For all the times that scientists have questioned what physics exist inside of one of these mysterious objects, we might already know.

No matter how we exist or in what state, we don’t matter. We could be in a simulation that some greater species could shut down at any moment. We could be in a universe filled with species that are much smarter than humans can ever hope to become. We might even live in this universe, with no life other than what’s here on Earth, and no hope of predicting or avoiding our inevitable extinction.

Maybe tonight, after I’m comfortably in bed, dreaming of whatever comes to my mind, the world ends. That would be poetic. For all of the fear and anxiety that I get from that thought, it might be the most serene thing to happen to humanity; ending this current evolution like we’re nothing and trying again. Maybe I’ll make another me that has the same thoughts. No matter what theory pans out, my thoughts and actions will live on somewhere. I am just as infinite as the possibilities for extinction.