Like a bucket of ice poured on my head, I'm 24 now

It's a rather normal day, normal to the extent that I am writing this the day before turning 24 years old. It's not a big deal you know, the exact day and all the usual "birthday nonsense".

The big deal is that I am now actually 24. 23 is not much different or even 22, but maybe now the colours of the picture are becoming stronger and more striking to my realization. Maybe I am becoming increasingly aware of the non-stopping passage of time. The continuous state of loss a human lives through, every single second. I could understand why kids enjoy their birthdays, they are excited to grow up. At some age, this excitement stops, and it seems that this could vary a lot. Possibly according to how exciting your life is, or how exciting you see it, or maybe depending on things you passed through, the sadness you endured or didn't, gone memories you long for or dreams you're waiting (or working) to reach, I don't know really. The thing is that it is quite obvious that this excitement stops at one time or another, people always (roughly) realize this sense of loss sooner or later.

Obviously, I am not the first one to realize or say this, but I must at least remind myself, and you dear reader, that although there is nothing clearer than this continuous state of loss (the road towards death (let's say) for a more DIRECT statement), we tend to NOT REALLY believe it (and by "believe" we mean not only realizing it or knowing that "well yeah this is something true", but we mean to LIVE it, to see it through daily happenings, to do things while having it quoted on some wall in our minds). Many times we forget about it or force ourselves to do so by getting immersed in all sorts of non-sense we can get hold of in this short life ("Netflix" as an example); it's not easy to admit but what we often do is self-deception: "I am still young so I have plenty of life ahead of me", "Did you know that X lived until 94?", "Oh I must do everything I like because YOLO", "LET'S GET CRAZY", "I'll be happy if I travel", "I'll be happy if I get this house", "I'll be happy if I get this job", "I'll be happy with person X", "I'll be happy if I invent this or discover this or write that", "I am happy because my work is awesome" (have you considered losing it unexpectedly? for any possible reason? Dear human reader, trust me, you are not your job, or anything else related), etc. etc.

We often can't control our(selves) to get calmer about some things. We always tend to get angry and unsatisfied in case something goes wrong (from our perspective of course, wrong in the sense that we expected or wanted something different). Oh, how knowledgable do we think we are (I am aware of this even when I am saying it -> meta-arrogance fear? it seems endless). But really, how often did we get all gloomy about things that didn't work but it turned out that it was all for the best? As a very simple and personal (but not very personal) example; as an attempt to escape what I thought was a source of my frustration, I applied for something (a job for example), didn't get it, got annoyed about it and all the scents of insecurity started to float around me, then got something much better after some time, which I would never have expected to get before. I am sure this happened in all possible flavours to most of us.

A route one might take, other than the "self-deception and enjoy it while you have it" route is to go for the "despair and disgust" route. It is very common to see people (myself included) simply get depressed (and disgusted by everything). It is much easier than going through life normally again. You just get depressed and tell people that you are so (or not, it depends). I am not saying that depression isn't a real thing, but it just can't go on forever, and it just isn't the natural state to be in. It is real, but as a sickness, a real SICKNESS which simply means an UNNATURAL STATE of being. In this route, you might start saying things like: "life is meaningless" (you might have heard it in some movie and unawarely repeated it, or in some book, if you consider yourself to be more sophisticated; I am not trying to be rude here, but many people who committed suicide, for example, have done it possibly because they got affected and triggered by some movie (or any other media form we consume while unaware of their potentially horrible effects on us, and again I am still addressing myself as well)). You might start looking for answers in the wrong places. In the world we live in today, VERY different sources are being forced to look equal and that you can choose something to live by and to explain things for yourself and others as if you're choosing some ice cream flavour. You might start forming some major perceptions based on a tv series, for example, a book, or even a youtube video. This is one reason why media is very dangerous, and let's just not get started on "social media" right now :D

A common and very dangerous thing in any route one could take is, to state it simply, "have an opinion about everything he could talk about". Also to state it simply, you shouldn't have opinions on everything, because admit it or not, you don't know much. Even if you do have an opinion about something, you don't need to always say it, because many times you just happen to not REALLY know what you are talking about. It's often better to listen (not an opinion, just a well-known fact).

A MORE DANGEROUS thing is to start looking at other people as if they're idiots (sometimes even directly to their faces. I have encountered such a look, and it was rather disappointing, not merely because this "looker" didn't REALLY know what he was talking about as this could happen often to many of us, but for the fact of saying it so confidently -> which is the REAL problem).

Okay, I think I might have drifted a bit from the turning 24 thing. Maybe I needed to get some things off my chest as I often find myself wanting to interrupt some conversation I happen to be listening to but don't for some reason. Well, I guess there are many reasons which maybe I better keep for another writing occasion.

All the shortcomings and faults we face, in ourselves and others, are just a consequent sign of human nature. We have the potential to go in many directions, in the simplest daily life choices; things might vary a lot. I would like to end here with the ultimate reminder, which I shall always remind myself of, and live by. And you dear reader might want to investigate more into it yourself.