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Zade Fairweather
 

The Last Word

Zade Fairweather —

All of you before me, are in your youth. The growing up phase. The figuring out life phase. We’re all somewhere along this journey we call growing up, and all of our paths look different, weird and obscure to one another.

Why do this, when you can do that? Why spend your money there, instead of here? We’ll never understand someone else’s motives and ideals. Especially when we haven’t figured out our own yet. So please, take some time to reflect on your life. Past. Present. And future. In an effort to help you truly enjoy this wild ride we call life, here’s something to take on board.

There’s a certain dictionary, called The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. What this dictionary is, is simply a collection of made up words, used to express and describe the indescribable. Those human emotions of which we all know and have experienced, but can never manifest. Some of these words may apply to our lives. Maybe they are already having an effect.

I’d like to explore three of these words.

The first word is; Koinophobia. The fear that you’ve lived an ordinary life.

When our road comes to an end, and we begin to recall, collate and reminisce about our lives; will it be ordinary? Will it be the same as billions of others on our planet? Or will it have been an exceptional different life? Or at least one we believe to be different. If you always take the easy route, maybe you’ll get through life. Maybe you’ll have some things you want, but will it be fulfilling? Will it be enough for you to simply have what the majority has? An ordinary house, in an ordinary town. Going to an ordinary workplace, and seeing the same ordinary people? Instead, are you going to take charge of your life to break through obstacles to get to where you want to be, and what you want to be. That’s what I’d call extraordinary. Not everyone takes the hard way. Not everyone scales towers and walls reaching the highest heights. Dare to do so. Dare to be the one white cloud in a sky where blue is normal. You’ll have lived that extraordinary life and vanquished the fear that dwells within.

Our second word is; Zenosyne.The sense that time keeps going faster.

When we’re born, our entire life is short. Yet it feels like it drags on forever. We can’t do anything ourselves, and yet we take in everything. The people around us. The customs set upon us. As we age, life shifts up a gear. Beginning to go faster. We reach our first days of school, eager to explore each and every new day. We yearn for the next day, week, month or year to pass us by. To enable us to accept more responsibilities, and allow us to exercise the privileges assigned to us by our physical age and assumed stature by that point in life. We continue to mature, waiting for more time to pass us by. Enjoying the little moments, but not enough to want us to stop the time from ticking. As you get even older, the years will seem to pass in a blur. Where once a year was an eternity, will soon become your seconds. Don’t waste this time. It’s never coming back. And it’s only going to get faster as your life begins to fill up with experiences and responsibilities. So as you progress through life, live each and every moment to the fullest. As time speeds up, so must you. So enjoy the slow, methodical pace of youth while it’s here and is appearing to stay.

Our last word is; Alazia. The fear that you’re no longer able to change.

We’re born as a pile of molten plastic, unfired clay, with the ability to be shaped, molded and formed into anything imaginable. But it begins as the task of those around us. As we grow, the people we have been shaped to become, do not necessarily become permanent. We have the ability to expand. To expand our minds, our bodies and our entire persona. From the way we look on the outside, to how we feel on the inside. We are flowing bodies of water, not the rocks that hold the water in a confined space. Much like a river, or a stream, our lives flow from the beginning to the end, taking on many shapes and forms, twists and turns, speeds and challenges. But given enough time, we too can shape our path. Not once. Not twice, but endless times. If we are strong enough, we can achieve great things. We can change ourselves to be who we want to become, and not stay as something we don’t. You are always able to change, but only if you pursue the journey through to the end. Don’t let your fear of who you may be now, or who you were, haunt your future. You too are capable of shaping your future as you deem fit, not just how you were shaped in the first place. Fear need not be the determining factor of your willingness to change, as fear is merely a construct of our cognition, not a tangible being. So it need only you to be in control of your life in order to make a change. Never feel like your plastic has hardened fully, for it may only need a small flame or spark to soften it enough to be reshaped. It will never harden fully, and become set in stone; but only if you don’t want it to.

So lads, enjoy the last part of this year. Hold on to the memories made. And make sure you live a life that’s beyond ordinary, so that you’re not left holding onto what you haven’t got.