Review

The quality of life today is more associated with what someone is "doing" rather than their actual quality of life. Time and time again I see people complaining about the year they've lost, and though it is a loss, it means nothing if we don't reflect upon it. I feel like everything that isn't considered interesting by the outside world (worth engagement online anyway) has no value, and that's so sad to me. If you live with that ideology, so much of your life falls away. Things that have personal value mean nothing. This is part of why people view the uncertainty of last year and uncertainty in general now with such bitterness. The idea that some things are too complex to explain in a way that's either this or that has caused a binary mindset: you either thrive or suffer. Things either suck or they don't. This poem was written to argue that trying to box yourself in will only make you view uncertainty as evil and scary when in reality life is uncertain by design. The best way to live it is to embrace multiplicity.

Kate Knox

Time seems to move slowly when you're not moving,

Yet, when I blinked, a year passed.

A year ago, I was making a video about how glad I was to finally be on spring break.

A whole year, spent in a cycle.

My youth laments the loss.

A hermit being forced into isolation realizes the value of choice.

Thus, reflection comes naturally.

What fools we are to feel in control.

We crave control so badly that when we cannot have it, we simply lose our minds.

Don't believe me? Go on twitter.

We fear the uncertain, the uncontrollable, so much, that we cannot imagine a world in which we

Exist.

A year lost to brag about was a year gained to my development.

I didn't live, but I existed.

No parties, no hangouts, no vibrancy- but who defines a vibrant life?

I learned to trust my definition more so than the world's.

I fear uncertainty. But existing is to experience all.

I can be afraid and happy.

I can be.

I am.