I'm Only Good at Being Young

It’s a crazy world we’re living in. With all the beauty and all the love comes all the pain and all the hate. The universe is a delicate balance of both, constantly trying to keep the scales even. There is no greater sadness that the realization that no matter how much we try and how much we pray to any and every god we’ve ever thought up, there will always be terrible things and irrevocable evil in the world. There’s nothing we can do to fill the void that hate would leave behind.

What I’ve realized is I can take heart, if only for my own sake, in the fact that love and joy and beauty would be nothing without apathy and sorrow and evil. Nothing good would exist if the bad didn’t exist also. I’m sure heaven is nothing but good and nothing but wonder, but getting there wouldn’t be half as interesting if it were just that easy.

We all realize this someday, that evil will always exist in the world not matter what we do or say. It’s the mark of getting older and finally growing up. Only a child can truly believe that love will conquer all. With that childlike burden on my heart and with time and age catching up to me, I realized what John Mayer sang about a little while back is true in my life: I’m only good at being young.

The wild ambitions and the passion in my soul can’t last forever, can they? The reckless lifestyle of wanting to tackle the world’s issues isn’t sustainable. The never ending pursuit of living an extraordinary life may never be realized. My bones have always been weak enough to keep me close to the ground, but what am I supposed to do when the reality of evil and hate finally dawns on me permanently? What’s the soul of a young person supposed to do?

As cynical as I already may be, I don’t want to give up on trying to fix the world. I don’t want to resign myself to that which is already here. I don’t want to stop buying cool new interesting shoes because it’s not “practical.” I want to keep going, keep burning.

That’s the youth that still lives in me talking, I never want to stop pushing forward and pursuing a life of fulfillment and wonder and existentiality. Getting older seems to me like a long period of forgetting to ask questions and I never want to be satisfied with what I know. Youth has never been wasted on the young, it’s been wasted on those who have stopped wanting to be young.

What magic potion can I take to stop aging? What spell can be cast to keep me from being ordinary? What heaven can I look forward to if the right before is just a period of accepting what’s right in front of me?

Forever young, I want to be forever young. But all I can really hope for is a life of never accepting apathy and evil. A life where I keep dwelling in a place where love blinds me from time and age. It’s a crazy world, but I want to be all the more insane.

​