May 28, 2026
It's post-midnight and I was standing in front of the stained mirror trying to gaze at my eccentric self. My head is almost partially filled with white hairs and it's something I was always insecure of since childhood, however, life has humbled me to the core and I now find them bearable, sometimes even adorable because of my sapiosexuality. But my insomnia will not let me sleep anymore, and all I have is to sit in the backyard to look up at the full moon as long as my neck allows me, or to just lay down on the bare roof to appreciate the infinite sky with my finite eyesight. Amidst all these moments of solitude and gentle breeze bewitching the curves of my body, all I have to think about are the past years of turmoil and ecstasy. How much do we have to endure just to strive for our existence in this mundane world?
The quest of having a Postdoc will delay my existential crisis for almost a decade, but still, what will I have to live for after that ? Maybe overthinking about the future is far more absurd than our own existence because no one knows or can know what's next, that is why it's just better to mourn about the past than the future, because we can at least learn from it and strive not to repeat those things again which put us in agony. But even if I dare to look back, there is nothing but a graveyard of shattered dreams, unfaithful promises, and abandoned humans.
Probably adulthood is all about this. We are not teenagers anymore, where we can stick to anyone because we can share toys or play around. I never sensed when it shifted from joy to survival. All I have left is to walk around the campus with my clenched fist, desperately trying not to end up stumbling upon those who bore witness to my vulnerabilities and still chose not to choose me. And what could be more fortunate for any man who seeks happiness in his own company and finds escape in his nerdy hobbies, which are always there to distract him from killing himself? This can't be promised by any sibling, any friend, or even any partner.
Well, who the hell am I to confine the subjective emotions of individuals in mere words? We all have our own way to be masochists and I am audacious enough to turn around to look at those unfaithfuls with my divested eyes, to scratch the wounds and let them bleed again, because how can we appreciate the presence of something when we have no idea about the torment of its absence? Apparently, I feed on misery and I need the excruciating realities to keep harrowing me because it's the only thing that makes me restless and forces me to seek distraction in these materialistic endeavours. Otherwise, what can we have to appreciate other than the things and relations that are socially conditioned into us?
Also, being a part of this Gen Z is just another curse because most of them are algorithmically driven. They reflect what they consume and they consume what they can't process, so it's just an amalgamation of unprocessed information our minds weren't ready for. Even though time is relative, I sometimes just hope to be somewhere near a black hole where the curvature is bent enough to buy myself time in which I can appreciate everything in my surroundings, read all the books on my TBR, and watch every recommended series and movie that I have ever listed in my Notes app.
Maybe I can just blame this full moon for all this nostalgic trauma because just as its gravitational pull makes the waves wash away the shores, similarly, it just pulls the past I once dumped in the nethermost corner of my heart. Life will keep going like this, and I will not be an adult anymore in the blink of time, just the way I'm not an adolescent or a teenager anymore, but the weight of the ordeal is going to be an eternal scar that can bleed anytime throughout this life. Well, it's a great escape to put the blame on the Moon and get up and leave for bed to return to this introspection the next night again.
~ Mohsin
edited: being an observer, everything around us triggers nostalgia, so it's okay. Life is heavenly and it always will be, as long as your emotional stability isn't dependent on anyone else and you have a regulated nervous system. This life is all we have, guys, and we have to live it through with love and joy, not with pessimism or mourning. Please be rooted and entrenched in humanity and yourself so that you take every blow as a source of lesson and stick to the realistic pathway for the greater good, as taught to us by the philosophy of Immanuel Kant in utilitarianism.