Having an early January birthday is generally helpful when transitioning into the new year. Since the first day of January is swallowed by the overwhelm of the holidays & hangovers, using my birthday as the marker of a new beginning & a new age allows me to clean up my act & ease into the new year in a more lenient time frame. But this year, I wake up febrile & sick, feeling stunted because I expected my first day as a twenty-four-year-old to be entirely better than my last day as a twenty-three-year-old. Truthfully, my expectations have always been amorphous in this regard although not completely senseless. I'm not looking for a tangible miracle, say winning the lottery or becoming six feet tall all of a sudden, but rather, feeling significantly more hopeful in the prospect of my growth. This hopeful feeling comes from recent data that shows consistency on my part, like a clear record of waking up on time to go to the gym, gathering knowledge through research & adventure, creating something new in language & image, etc. But because of the error of the leniency I grant myself within this Jan 1st to 5th timeframe, I only have recent data of excessive long showers, not sleeping in my own bed, & indulging in stupid shit on the internet.
& becoming sick is indeed not in my control, but it begs the question if I'm even taking charge of the things that are in my control. Am I a meaningfully contributing member of society? Or a feint that misrepresents this generation as lazy, full of self-pity, & hopelessly romantic, while the actual players of this generation are making real advancements & distancing themselves from the rest of the world stuck in the framework of the past? I have to admit I'm not philosophically sound enough to resist the social constructs & the deeply traditional ways in which those bring satisfaction & fulfillment to a person's life. It comes with extreme emotional turbulence & self-deception putting the phenomenons that cannot be indexed on the pedestal of my mind's temple. So becoming sick is one of the most unfortunate things that could happen to me this time around–– being put on bed rest, constantly aching in A's room while he takes meetings in a language I cannot understand on any level.