Sheng Slogar's Blog

Searching for Signal…

Photo by Yann Allegre on Unsplash

Which way forward, which way back? Driving through the night with your headlights off. It’s terrifying. Exhilarating.

You know that scene in Bird Box where they black out the car windows and go in search of food? Yeah, mostly terrifying.

What if I make it? What if I don’t? For what?

For what.

There’s so much to live for. Hot chocolate. Freshly-cut grass. Sunsets. Warm hugs. S’mores. You’d be crazy to think otherwise.

But.

Lately, my mind has been branding every good thing with: but.

But what if it wasn’t worth it? But what if she won’t like you back? But what if you get there, and realize you had someone else’s map all along? But.

I often wonder if my religious upbringing has programmed me to expect there to be more out of life. More to all of this. Or maybe it’s just human intuition to want there to be a greater purpose… which could speak to there actually being a greater purpose? Somewhere? Hello?

Maybe we’re just guinea pigs in someone else’s science experiment, spinning around on the exercise wheel of life. Maybe, just maybe, we’re in the simulation we’ve been joking about all along.

But maybe it doesn’t matter.

Because maybe it’s enough to find happiness in the things I already have, the things I already understand. Maybe it’s enough to find fulfillment in a career, a future family. Maybe it’s enough to spend the few precious hours I have on this spinning ball not thinking about not-enoughs.

Yeah, that’ll have to do for now.

Maybe.