Out Of The Frying Pan

[otter]

I'm branching out, man.

 

Think about it. You and I, we're a lot alike. We're both sitting here, looking at a computer screen, reading unfeeling words, composed of smaller letters, which go even further on this screen to be composed of small little pixels, each a single, small unit of colour or non-colour on an otherwise blank screen. They branch, sure, but going from pixels to words means that they come together, not fall apart.

 

But you and me, though, we're people. We've got friends on the outside, man. Real people, living real lives, and each of them gets a lot of interaction with each other. What do you and I do, though?

 

That's right. We sit here, reading, every day. Yeah, we've all got friends here, we've got things we don't like, but just like so many other things, this is only a proxy of interaction. We aren't actually getting together and talking, but we're just sending messages via BZP's system, or over Skype. We're writing words, endless words, but there's no sound. No tone, no inflection.

 

Just the sound of silence.

 

But outside, in real life, we've got friends, we've got things to do, we've got energy we can release, more people we can meet, it's full of limitless possibilities. You might not have known it, you might have - heck, I didn't even really think about it until recently. But there's a lot of things out there, y'know what I mean? It's a veritable ocean of experiences, just waiting for us to dive right in.

 

But we keep ourselves stuck here, a lot of us, held to our roots. We don't want to grow past this, we don't want to expand, we want to stay in our comfort zone. Well, I want something new. I want an adventure. I want to live life, and bro, I want to go crazy.

 

So I'm going to branch out. Think about it: We have friends, we have family, we have acquaintances. We have what we know already. But what do they know, that we don't? What do you think we can learn from them?

And then there's all the people they know that we don't, really. What do they know, what can we learn from them?

 

You see it now?

 

Infinite.

 

Possibilities.

 

So many things we haven't tried, so many we have but we're almost afraid to go do again, because sure, it was fun, but it's not really our 'thing.' It's not really 'safe' for us, because we don't know how to do it much. But that's not really it, for some things, is it? You can learn to do something, and you can learn to love it. Remember that food you used to hate when you were little?

 

Yeah. We all had that food.

 

Remember how you ate it just a week ago and you freaking love it now? Exactly. Anything else you've tried lately? Maybe just a new style of food, if not something specific? Italian? Chinese (the real stuff, not what they try to pass on to you in most of the restaurants)?

 

Boom. Try one food from that, if you like it, make yourself try more. You might find an entire culture that you'll learn to love, just through food. It sounds weird, but it happens. Things just kinda branch out.

 

You see where I'm going with this? Through everybody we know, every-thing- we know, there are limitless possibilities we can take to learn more, to do more, to -live- more, and yet, we don't take them. We stick to our roots.

 

And let me tell you, I'm tired of it. I'm going to take advantage of what little I have, and make it into something huge, and it's going to be awesome.

 

I'm following every last path I can take, every last little trail, every last branch of information and experiences.

 

Yeah.

 

I'm branching out, man.

 

---

You ask me who I wrote this for, and you'll get a million different answers. Just know this: If you're tired of the same-old, same-old, having no variety in life, being stuck to your roots and not going anywhere, this is for you.

[Toa Levacius Zehvor]

Kay Grochi, you pulled me halfway across the forums to read this thing. Though I suppose exploring strange new things does have something to do with the theme of your work.

 

An interesting set of contemplations, a few that I've become more familiar with over the years. Particularly the last two, since I've pretty much been reshaped emotionally, as far as political views, and in terms of how I view friends. Particularly the last case - up until Freshmen year I hadn't really thought about it, but looking at how unhappy the people who never really interacted with each other were, I realized that wasn't how I wanted to be. Quite the different person ensued after a bit of 'branching out'.

 

I'm not exactly a critic of short stories, or epics, or any of that stuff. Maybe comedies back in the day, but pretty much all I do is nitpick at innocent RPGs now. I can say this, though - I enjoyed it, for whatever it counts man.

 

-Toa Levacius Zehvor