The Burden of Agency

The cold air pricking my skin, the distant and faded croaks of frogs singing to my ears, the spirit of freedom with each breath illuminating my soul, I finally built a life where I am safe. I have an apartment where I can control the heat, I never worry about my bank account, I can travel wherever I want, and I can set a flexible work schedule. Could you imagine any other base needs that the soul could sing for? I am undoubtedly secure.

But security, while sacred, is horrifyingly disorientating.

I grew up in a household without hot water, where I sat in Burger Kings so my father could go online to sell gun parts to pay the bills, where I never got to build a strong college admissions profile because I couldn't travel for clubs, where the strikings of both my father and academic obligations controlled my time.

In those conditions one higher possibility possessed my essence, something which I ruthlessly chased with fervor: financial independence, achieved through academic and technical education. I created spreadsheets, documented grants I qualified for, forecasted my annual income through financial aid, and threw my soul into academics. I was overtaken by this undying vision of a better life. In reality, I was overtaken with a muffled ache for peace, even in my darkest nights.

After 11 years of conscious strife, I graduated with my Associate's degree months before high school.

At 23 years old, I am secure.

Imagine a painter taken as a slave, forced to toil through tedious and painful labor. In his room sits an empty canvas, and within his soul is this aching desire to paint onto the canvas, to conjure a new world from pure essence. At night he looks at that empty canvas and cries, for he only sees the lack of his essence in his own life.

And finally, after more than decade of struggle, he finds himself in possession of his own freedom. So he buys a brush and different beautiful paints. Yet he finds himself stunned, frozen in front of his fateful canvas. That canvas that once possessed him bewilders him: his life was dedicated to the pursuit of paint. What he thought was the absence of his essence was the absence of his own will, and now he finds himself asking:

What now?