Titled are the words of one brilliantly perverted children's book author which left me questioning more then just my motives for choosing such a strange Netflix documentary in the first place (Far Out Isn't Far Enough: The Tomi Ungerer Story). Yet, there was something grotesquely educational about listening to this frail, eloquently grab-assy Frenchman tell tales of Europe in the 1940's. This man had seen some serious amounts of scheisse. After some pondering of this phrase and with the addition of T.H.C to the party, I seemed to find myself reaching the same sad, paranoid conclusion with each desperate twist of the plot: I know destiny resides inside me yet, as for my destination, I feel more lost each day.
I have felt destination-less for some time now. My travels, although enriching, have seemed meandering and un-motivated instead of sought out and in search of serenity. From a young age I can recall an underlying sense of longing regardless of my surroundings. There always seemed too many options as to where I could be. My mind was anywhere but present. I envied a simpler time in a delicate little tucked away town as a potential permanent hideout. No one caring my purpose and no where else for me to be. Yet with each new day came a new quiet, quaint little quirky hide away and that constant driving force to improve my current environment would sink away from my attention, unsatisfied. I too, overwhelmed by the monstrous amount of diversities, would sink back into my comfortable cave of familiar faces with laughters to drown out the incessant longing for my true destination, wherever that was. Could I be the only one feeling this way?
No. It's just not openly talked about... enough. When searching for the seed of this problem I encountered one example after another, ranging from all demographics, about a similar feeling of searching for a true destination. How could so many others feel this way and not openly acknowledge it, talk about it or attempt to fix it? At first, it became overwhelming to address why the entire human race will, at one point in time, feel completely lost, so instead I focused on why I felt lost. This meant I needed some truth. Truth is:
I am a 27 year old, male caucasian born in the United States of America. That makes me a beautifully blessed Millennial. I had to Google what a Millennial was. Ironic? Suddenly, two previously non related issues in my life came smashing together to form, what I call, the "true issue" . It seems I was part of an entire generation with no destination.
Chances are that most of you reading this are a Millennial, being born after 1980 and having a rough cut off mark late 2001. Each article or conversation I came across in research of the Millennial generation was quick to tell of a generation that is arrogant, narcissistic and drunk with information intoxication. I would have to humbly agree. What I wasn't finding was an optimistic outlook on this new crew. No note of progression at an undocumented pace in our history. I just watched a switch triple cork 1620 (4.5 rotations with 3 inversions performed from unnatural stance) on a snowboard and was recently witness to a Youtube video of a triple backflip on a dirt bike. Progression for our previous generation was cars coming with seat belts stock. No note of having to clean up the mess left from the Fred Durst "Gen Gen Gen Generation who don't ever give a fuck and won't ever give a fuck "ers. No note of the cataclysmic shift from a propaganda informed society to a freely informed society. When contemplating difficult decisions, I like to address that which I can NOT change. The only limitations I have found, pertaining to both my personal as well as my generations destination, is that we have to remain in this physical body and on this Earth, for now. Everything else was fair game. I know we have a destination and I have seen it (in a float tank) because I found my destination.
Out of pure laziness, my first attempt was to make this "destination" the closest place possible, inside of me. Turns out, that was a good choice. It is my opinion that the destination is this current moment. The destination is inside each and everyone of us at every second of every day. Wherever we are is exactly where we are supposed to be. When I began discovering new ways to live in the current moment, I realized how much I had been missing and how much more I had been unnecessarily worrying about. It is also my opinion that this generation of arrogant, narcissistic, info intoxicated adolescents are the first to become aware of this on such a large scale in some time, the impact and magnitude of which is entirely incomprehensible.
There is no doubt that I am a member of a generation that has its fare share of luxuries. And with each luxury comes a new fear of misuse which my generation is no stranger to the concept of. Misuse of resources. Misuse of funding. Misuse of statistics. Misuse of power. All being misused for one, all encompassing, omnipotent reason, fear. " As far as I can go back, I feel fear. Fear of life. And this is good because once you have fear, you have to discover courage to survive." Ungerer mumbled. We each get to decide how to use this moment in this body on this planet to find enlightenment within ourselves, for ourselves. Find the answers to the questions you have never asked. Leave nothing for another day. It is not the destination. It is the journey. Your destination is this present moment. What will you do with it?
