For thinking we are accustomed to a certain routine, getting too familiar with a particular place or thing, it must have turned dull. It must have become boring.
Heading to school almost everyday is customary, much more is waking up according to schedule, going through the most convenient (or known at heart) way, and seeing overly familiar (yet often friendly) faces. I’ve been doing these for more than a decade now. I can’t have complaints. This is but a simulation to the real-world, a preparation for the real battle awaiting me afterward.
I must say I am losing it.
In always wishing for more time to sleep, in constantly begging for bigger allowance, in daily combating against other commuters, and in forever remembering people (with names), I am gradually losing my control. It’s all gray.
Everything seems too far at reach yet close at sight. I know I am going through all these menial tasks, but I can barely see the target.
There is no special reward in reaching the school and attend classes. I never receive an award for recognizing my everyday struggle of choosing to drag my body over the cozy bed. There is no acknowledgement either for earning seats in commuting. Ample allowances neither makes it more gratifying. Checking on each of these routines, I find no recognition at all. No hurrahs. No standing ovations. No moment of silence. Considering that I write about this as I go through it has nothing to feed on my ego, even.
Practically, these do not define my being human nor the daily accomplishments out from these. They do not make me as much as they break me every single time.
I see no relief. This is an endless war.
This is a battle with nothing else to wield and no one else to beat but myself. The battlefield, even, is within me.
First thing in the morning: This bed or school?
Should I skip breakfast instead to spare time for the traffic?
Which route is most convenient for today?
Is there something urgent I must keep in mind about the weather?
Have I missed anything to think about at this precise moment?
For almost a decade and a half, this is exactly how I see everything concerning my daily routine. It’s the perspective I choose. One way or another, slight alterations and sudden surprises may occur, yet are not everlasting anyway. For so long, they have stayed with me. I no longer see them as challenges like the way I did before. They are now given–peremptory. And to other onlookers, I do not know.
Is there any possibility that everyone sees the way I do?
But that doesn’t matter, right? Nobody cares at all why you are going through whatever you are going through at this moment. All they see is what you are. They’ve had enough of looking, worn down and beaten, at the same picture in each passing second in themselves. This is why they couldn’t care less of other scenes. People’s own pictures have already devoured them per se. Because it is so much about how we see more than what we see that actually creates the perspective. We get what we focus on.
I see everything without color, life, and taste, for I remain to see things as they presently are. It is hopeless to imagine them as otherwise, that’s why. And this mindset has shaped my life. It’s only the gray that I visibly see, for things as those are basically gray. Maybe, we can only consider them with vibe because of the goals or purpose at hand; but taking them head-on is truly pointless.
They are parts of my day, I must admit. They slowly comprise my life. But that doesn’t end there. There are plenty of things I am yet to see, I know.
This is what standing in the newly opened 7-story building has taught me. I am perfectly aware I do not stand at the tallest building in the city, yet I can watch the sky-rise edifices completely. They are too far at reach yet too close at sight. I reckon too that there are other skyscrapers. In fact, I see almost the whole city and the faint silhouette of the nearby islands. A perspective from not one of the tallest buildings in the city, but a perspective nonetheless, gives me a clear idea of what I have taken in as routines can be seen at a different way without basically changing it.
This has set the difference.
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