Vicarious

Oh look!  My first post in a while where the title doesn't consist of lyrics!  Anyway, moving right along...

I'd rather write about this world than live in it and I'd rather play music all day and read and wander around in bookstores and watch humans but not be one of them.


I'm not sure who said that.  I just came across it on the internet a few minutes ago.  A large part of me agrees with it.  That's the way I feel in many circumstances, because people fascinate me and decisions of all sorts fascinate me and I want to know what it's like, to be this way or that, without living that particular life.  So yes, I live vicariously through other people's decisions and mistakes.  I like watching life unfold and details about people's lives be revealed.  It's always fascinated me.

On the other hand, though, this quote disgusts me.  It's like saying 'I just want to spend my life watching other people live theirs, and I want to do nothing useful with myself.'  And that bothers me.  I've never really believed in an afterlife or a heaven or hell or any such thing.  As a result, I've always seen life as an opportunity to take these 60, 70, 80, 90 years, however many are given to you, and do something with them.  I don't care if that means spending your adult life in your mother's basement crafting pots or if it means starting the world's biggest corporation.  I just think it's important to do something, to get something out of life.

I don't understand people who work so hard, always for the future, but in the end...they don't know what to do with themselves because they're old when they retire and can't do so many fun things, and maybe don't even know how to have fun because they've never done it.  I realize I work hard and often don't have time to enjoy myself, but it's something that comes and goes.  I know that I have and will continue to have many memories that I myself made, not just the ones people around me have lived through.

Maybe I'm wrong to be so critical.  Perhaps this is even a bit hypocritical of me, to voice my opinion like this.  But it bothers me when people take their lives for granted.