Thoughts on a tired night
It's a weekend night. It's pretty young right now as well. In a party town, in the midst of summer, the night probably doesn't get better. However, it's the same kind of night that has been here in the past, and it's the same kind of night that will be here in the future. In one of the top tourist destinations in the world, the night remains the same. It's the people that grow older and the young ones take their place.
I've been here for almost 3 years now. I've lived through several of these nights now. I've partied like there's no tomorrow on some of these, and I've gone to bed nice and early on others too. On occasion, I've sat with a friend or two, had a couple of drinks, and just enjoyed the weather and when needed, I've worked and studied until exhaustion.
Sometimes I wonder if that's all there is to this town. Sometimes I get disappointed at the finiteness of this place. A city that's a fraction of the city I was born and raised in, but feels like home just as much now.
But it's hard to be disappointed with Budapest, a city I came to without any expectations. How can you be disappointed when you don't set any bar on what you were expecting? But then again, how can you even be happy with a place that is living up to absolutely no expectations?
I guess I'm just going through that quarter-life crisis that has apparently become a real thing. In a world that looks increasingly focused, motivated and fast-paced, I'm like a sailor lost at sea, trying to find the north star on a cloudy and lonely night. What is the journey of my life that I'm carving out? What is the story that I'm writing with what I do? Am I just another "hay in a haystack", destined for mediocrity? Or am I that sailor who will discover lands unknown to the rest of the world?
I guess we all ask ourselves these questions from time to time, maybe a little more when we're in the mid-20's. If someone my age isn't, they're probably actually destined for greatness or have happily accepted mediocrity and decided to make the most of it.
At some level, I guess it's basically what most of us really do. We make the best of what we have without pushing ourselves beyond a certain point. Most of us who are destined for mediocrity, we work, fall in love, have families, travel and enjoy to the best of our abilities, and then die regretting we didn't do more.
Well, for now, I lay in my bed, icing my elbow and resting my sprained left hip. I've got a tennis elbow injury on the right arm and a hip strain on the left leg. Seems like my body is now broken on the edges, just like the brain and heart it carries inside.
I'm watching "13 Reasons Why", or rather, trying to. It's a show that's pretty hard for me to watch continuously. Maybe it's because I've lost a few people in my life like that, or maybe, it's because I remember my own high school being a pretty rough place too. Either way, it's really tough for me to watch even a single show at one go. I keep taking breaks in every 10-15 minutes.
So I "Netflix and nurse my injuries" all alone, on a weekend night, young and warm. My head is filled with thoughts, philosophical and personal. Where do we come from? Where do we go now? In a journey that's as finite as this young little city that I live in, is my life nothing but a complicated optimization problem? To make the best use of finite resources, namely time and talent, to maximize my utility function, composed of work and leisure.
These are just some of my thoughts on a tired night. A night, young and warm, in a town, as finite as our journeys in this world...
I've been here for almost 3 years now. I've lived through several of these nights now. I've partied like there's no tomorrow on some of these, and I've gone to bed nice and early on others too. On occasion, I've sat with a friend or two, had a couple of drinks, and just enjoyed the weather and when needed, I've worked and studied until exhaustion.
Sometimes I wonder if that's all there is to this town. Sometimes I get disappointed at the finiteness of this place. A city that's a fraction of the city I was born and raised in, but feels like home just as much now.
But it's hard to be disappointed with Budapest, a city I came to without any expectations. How can you be disappointed when you don't set any bar on what you were expecting? But then again, how can you even be happy with a place that is living up to absolutely no expectations?
I guess I'm just going through that quarter-life crisis that has apparently become a real thing. In a world that looks increasingly focused, motivated and fast-paced, I'm like a sailor lost at sea, trying to find the north star on a cloudy and lonely night. What is the journey of my life that I'm carving out? What is the story that I'm writing with what I do? Am I just another "hay in a haystack", destined for mediocrity? Or am I that sailor who will discover lands unknown to the rest of the world?
I guess we all ask ourselves these questions from time to time, maybe a little more when we're in the mid-20's. If someone my age isn't, they're probably actually destined for greatness or have happily accepted mediocrity and decided to make the most of it.
At some level, I guess it's basically what most of us really do. We make the best of what we have without pushing ourselves beyond a certain point. Most of us who are destined for mediocrity, we work, fall in love, have families, travel and enjoy to the best of our abilities, and then die regretting we didn't do more.
Well, for now, I lay in my bed, icing my elbow and resting my sprained left hip. I've got a tennis elbow injury on the right arm and a hip strain on the left leg. Seems like my body is now broken on the edges, just like the brain and heart it carries inside.
I'm watching "13 Reasons Why", or rather, trying to. It's a show that's pretty hard for me to watch continuously. Maybe it's because I've lost a few people in my life like that, or maybe, it's because I remember my own high school being a pretty rough place too. Either way, it's really tough for me to watch even a single show at one go. I keep taking breaks in every 10-15 minutes.
So I "Netflix and nurse my injuries" all alone, on a weekend night, young and warm. My head is filled with thoughts, philosophical and personal. Where do we come from? Where do we go now? In a journey that's as finite as this young little city that I live in, is my life nothing but a complicated optimization problem? To make the best use of finite resources, namely time and talent, to maximize my utility function, composed of work and leisure.
These are just some of my thoughts on a tired night. A night, young and warm, in a town, as finite as our journeys in this world...
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