Eternal Reverbations Trapped in a Seashell

The morning finds me in yet another coffee shop attempting to iron out the remaining wrinkles of morning lethargy. And what with the crash of my laptop I find myself scribbling these confessions onto this napkin, composed of 100% recycled fibers. Eyes closed, I imagine Kerouac smiling down at me from the heavens of literary pioneers, but that of course is just my delusions of grandeur flaring up. Sigh… The last thing I am is a beat; hell, I can barely maintain this bookish post-modern facial hair.

Talking late into the night (or early in the morning) with Anna, I found myself once again espousing my whole burgeoning reflection theory which some of you have been (un)fortunate enough to hear. I’ve come to a state of overwhelming nausea over my developing notion that we are all simply validating one another, trapped in a bubble in which we find people who are so damn similar to us that any objective discernment is virtually nonexistent.

It seems to have become the norm rather than the exception for us to be in reflective harmony with our social sodalities in terms of ethnicity, socioeconomic class, religion, morals, lifestyle, dialect, dress, etc etc etc etc. While I am quite aware of the validity and inexorable fact that we are all beautifully unique and complex beings, there is an undeniable absence of paradigm diversity.

If we commit ourselves to this seashell of uniformity, then every whisper is fated to eternal reverberation. Of course, this is in no way a complaint or negative social commentary/critique; I love my friends and family more than mere words could every possibly convey. But the notion of my identity being inextricably linked to my particular and arbitrary set of circumstances borders on the terrifying (by the way, I’m not a determinist… I lean towards the libertarian camp).

While part of me wishes to break free in a mad dash like a schoolboy released from academic confinement, the other part feels warm and cuddly within my comfortable lifestyle. Ultimately, ambivalence is not enough to cause venture into that unknown world of diversity, when it is unquestionably safer to remain nestled in my socio-cultural matrix (literally, womb).

This idea haunts me, and I fear that in this state of eternal reflection more than diversity is lost. For in this perpetual projection of uniformity I wonder where there is room for diversity or challenge.

We are condemned to be free.
-Sartre