sometimes I feel like a little kid.
sometimes I feel like a little kid.
begging for attention over and over. like im standing in the middle of the living room again. waving my arms and calling people over.
“hey look what I can do”
“watch my new trick, I promise its worth it”
anything to feel seen. it feels exhausting. Underneath it there is this plea, everytime. I promise I am worth your time. But the thing is, I feel I have to prove it. Constantly. To each and every person I meet. Like this existence isn’t enough, like love and attention is something that I have to earn through performance. Like I have to be the perfect version of something someone else needs. But somehow there is always that voice in my head “don’t mess this up” “it’s your fault”. and I feel like this is typical through a lot of situations.
going back to therapy, last year, I had to take a deep look at my obsession with control. yes, a deep and gritty look. getting a bit personal here, but really, who is going to read this? lol. My lovely little queen of a therapist had gently dragged me into that truth: that I needcontrol. over everything, over every situation. I have to know the details and I must know the why’s and the how’s and the what-if’s. I hate wondering, and I hate guessing because of this. If there is even a sliver of this blank space, my mind fills it with anxiety of what could possibly go wrong. Which sometimes I feel as if thinking about it manifests it into existence. I grew up feeling like a burden, needing to prove I was worth keeping around. I had to be useful, quiet, and impressive. Never too much so never a problem. so now, even as an adult, I find myself chasing this validation like it is oxygen. As if it is the only thing that could bring me life, as its the only thing that makes me feel real.
It’s almost sad, and sometimes I feel disgusted in the way that my mind works. no matter how much I achieve, or how many people tell me I am doing fine, I always end up back in that emotional loop. I constantly see myself reverting back to that little girl who just wanted that attention and that care. I feel like a stupid, idiotic, naive little girl over and over again. Everytime I care too much. Everytime I ask for reassurance. every time I let my guard down in hopes that just this time it might be different. and I hate that, god I hate that so much. I hate that it all feels so familiar to me. it’s like no matter how far I go, some part of me is still stuck back there, begging to be wanted.
The unknown makes me spiral, but it also is the most fascinating thing to think about. It reminds me of how much we just do not know about the world, about the universe, about the stars, and the planets, and all of the other galaxies. there is so much more out there that our minds can’t even begin to fathom its existence. Probably life, maybe even other humanoid creatures, also probably death.
Have you heard of the great filter? if my friends are reading this (hopefully maybe not), but they know exactly what I am referencing. I talk about it every time we are having drinks in the hot tub, looking up at the stars and theorizing life. It is my all time favorite theory that is most likely true. It’s a solution to the Fermi paradox, which is also one of my favorite things to talk about, but I will explain both.
The fermi paradox is, in its simplest form: if there is so much out there, why do we have no evidence of life, even though there is a high statistical probability.
In relation to this, the great filter directly solves the Fermi paradox. It states that there is a certain barrier or filter in this case to overcome, which prevents most civilizations from reaching this certain point of development. So in other words: big mountain in way, civilizations cannot cross mountain, on other side of mountain is beautiful technological advancement.
Therefore, in relation to human civilization, the great filter could be either ahead or behind us. If it is behind us, that means that planets with conditions for life are incredibly rare, life in general is just really rare, or that our level of technology is just really rare. If it is ahead of us, this means that there could possibly be a technological barrier that civilizations cannot pass that either prevents or kills development off at a certain point.
A photo representation of the great filter.
And I know you’re probably thinking. Olivia how does this relate to control or literally anything that you’re talking about? well… imagine me, my freshman year of high school learning about this during quarantine because I am obsessed with space, and then thinking about what could possibly be in store for humanity. (I was also really obsessed with apocalyptic films during this time, still am). But this is just another thing that is out of our control. We can be smart, careful, innovative, but it still isn’t enough to prevent this from happening if it is true. What if there is something baked into the fabric of our existence that stops us before we even get close? What if we are not the exception? That thought was equally fascinating to me as it was horrifying. Because, here I am, trying to control everything in my life, and then here comes the universe serving reminders on a cosmic scale that some things are just simply beyond us. like the universe just loves to casually step in to say “oh, sweetie, you actually know nothing.” it’s so humbling to think about. and as much as I want to fight that, as much as I want to outthink the unknown, I cannot. and that terrifies me.
weird ramblings today lol.