Writer's Block Magazine

During the time of coming back home for the holidays, a lot of us had to catch flights to return to our home countries. Interestingly enough, an Airbus plane has the regular capacity to transport 525 seated passengers. I, personally, have never travelled on an empty plane, and it makes sense, since flights only have one departure and one destination. Either there are enough people that want to travel to a specific place, or there are not. And what I find very surprising is that there are, in fact, people. In December, it can be more expected, but flights depart every day. You could pick two random cities in the world, a random date and a random hour, and if there is a flight connecting them, it will have passengers. More or less 525 people will need, due to their specific reasons, circumstance and life situation, to travel from A to B on a Wednesday at 7 o’clock. And even more food for thought, is that you cannot know those reasons, and probably never will. Each person has an individual mind with an individual life path, and your ways have had a brief encounter, possibly to be separated forever again.

Evidently, you might not want anything to do with this. Why would anyone need to know 524 reasons? Why bother for a “work”, “trip”, or “visit”? You already have your own reasons, your own life to deal with. But what happens when the same thinking is transported to that own life? You can never read all the books you would adore. You will never discover what could have been your favourite song, but now it will not, because you never heard it. You will never love with the passion you love in other lives. Sylvia Plath said in her Unabridged Journals that “I can never read all the books I want; I can never be all the people I want and live all the lives I want. I can never train myself in all the skills I want. And why do I want? I want to live and feel all the shades, tones and variations of mental and physical experience possible in my life. And I am horribly limited”. When you think about it, it is a trap. There is not enough time. This feeling of running out of time is not new; literature has always been discussing it with the everlasting topic tempus fugit. Writers used to apply it for poems filled with thanatophobia, but in the 16^th century for instance, the life average was much shorter, so their time did pass quicker than ours. The more modern nuance of this feeling is linked to overstimulation, and mass production: there are so many cultural products that the choice can turn into a cavalry. I sometimes find myself wanting to rewatch a movie that I love, but at the same time longing for something new, so that I will spend my time consuming as many different products as possible. For some, this may seem exaggerated (I am not wasting my precious life by rewatching the two hours that my favourite movie lasts), but for the ones that feel more consumed by nostalgia or fear of not living life to the fullest, these kinds of thoughts are very common.

The book “The Midnight Library” by Matt Haig, for instance, dwells on the topic of regret and living many different lives based on taking different decisions. Now, if we believe that our future builds up as we make decisions, so it is not settled, how many relevant decisions do we make daily? Or weekly? Will choosing one movie over the other make me discover my favourite actress ever? The choices that we do not take may be harmless, or may haunt us until we die. And so do the ones that we take. Since there is no time to know all the passengers, read all the books or live all the lives, we need to choose constantly. We do it without even thinking, basing our decision on the time we want to dedicate to each activity, what others tell us that is correct, what feels right at that moment… I guess that, if we questioned every minor decision based on such a life-changing, all-or-nothing mentality, our lives would be miserable and would provoke a constant feeling of anxiety. So it is a good ability to be able to choose, pick, reject and enjoy the world without second-guessing our lives continuously, without wondering too much, and without condemning what is not “perfect” just because there is so much more.

In my opinion, if there is something that counteracts nostalgia, thanatophobia, “fear of missing out” … It is love. And there might not be 525 people that each one of us cares about, or will have time to wonder about their lives with the attention they deserve. But there are 2, 10, 50 people around you that you do know. Of that, I am sure. And even if there is no chance for you to get to know everyone that you possibly could, there is a chance that you can deeply get to understand and connect with a few of them. In this New Year’s season, one that we like to use to reset goals for the upcoming months, we could all use a reminder to appreciate those that we are fortunate to share a part of our lives with. To enjoy those relationships that are nourishing, that take care of us, love us… those lives that we are eager to know more about. It can also be a good time to appreciate the books, movies and music that we have discovered, the cultural products that have actually shaped who we are. In this season of gratitude, us overthinkers can make peace with the fact that we do not know everyone and cannot ever appreciate every single thing that the world has to offer, without rejecting the possibility of stepping out of our comfort zone and discovering new things. What we do know is beautiful enough. And being loved is already reason enough to be content for a lifetime.