If I owned a nickel for every hard choice I’ve had to make, I’d own a bank’s equivalent, and should the rapidly rising pace of their prevalence keeps up, I’d be a millionaire by the time I get my bachelor’s degree. Since everything seems dire and of utmost importance in these modern day end times, I’ve developed a tendency towards perfectionism in my decision making, and it is both grueling and ultimately satisfying.

Every choice forces the possibilities left behind to die, opening the door to more choices. Fish hatch from eggs only to give birth to more when they mature. It’s an endless cycle. Every choice has impact, which not enough seem to realize, and seeing others make horrible decisions, while painful, comes as no surprise at this point. When boostered by a false sense of superiority, you gain lenience and begin to cut strings between you and your fellow men. What you do matters not as long as it benefits your wants, even when others may need the complete opposite.

When others look down at you from the higher rungs of their constructed Social Ladder, on the other hand, methods of survival must be utilized. Situations must be utilized down to the pinprick, and every move must be made like a chess game. Sense must be made in a world gone mad, reaching a point where what others deem as weird becomes common and not repulsive. Case in point: I keep getting this Captain Beefheart song trapped in my head to the point where mentally reciting it’s lyrics—

I’m gonna grow fins
‘N go back in the water again
If ya don’t leave me alone
I’m gonna take up with ah mermaid
‘N leave you land lubbin’ women alone!

—has become a cute ritual in maintaining my sanity. I guess some people’s blues are gill-bearing, and I guess that includes me. Considering how chronically perseverant I am, I always thought I was more like a cockroach. Maybe when my concerns regarding climate-induced end of the world scenarios become reality, I’ll be among them. If only the things I have actual control over were the most of my concerns. But I don’t plan on riding some easy path of acceptance. I can’t let myself succumb to that, and it pains me to see others do so, blowing their potential in the process.

I could choose routes that serve only to dim my bulbs, routes that satisfy others at the expense of what I truly need. Instead, I make myself that fish out of water, searching for the right pool.

And how right it will be.