Memoryless from the underground (the digital one)

By Mr.Vertigo

That floating obligation to have a goal gnaws at me, deep down. As if it were no longer acceptable to exist without a mapped-out direction, without a line you can put in your bio, without an objective you can state with ease in an interview. As if walking without a map were a symptom, not a way of life. They tell you: visualize it, hold it in your mouth like a jewel, and everything will follow. As if deciding were enough. As if wanting automatically meant deserving. And yet something grates. Having a goal doesn’t feel like a triumph to me but a closing. A preemptive renunciation of what might have been. A cell varnished the color of your ambition. An elegant operation to amputate the mystery.

What do I even want? Sometimes I think I know. I move toward it, I tell myself I want it , and it doesn’t take long before the inner voice rounds the corner and says it’s a lie: not desire but a replica, a learned grimace. If I dig deeper there’s no object waiting, only thick fog, a sensation nearer to hunger or sleep. A wanting without form. A nameless impulse.

What if a goal isn’t necessary at all? Maybe the most alive moments show up precisely when the map breaks. There’s a strange, almost childish joy in letting life carry you then: a pause opens, a detour, a crack , you slide into it without asking. Not always: sometimes it’s pure panic. But other times it’s music. Those times, brief as they are, are worth more than any achievement.

I really tried. I faked having a goal. Not just any goal , a presentable one, explainable without stammering, with big words and steady hands. I rehearsed the lie in front of the mirror until I nearly believed it. I swallowed the idea, I acted, I moved forward. And, of course, something happened: it worked. It came true. Bravo. I arrived.

The very moment I arrive, something inside turns and asks, in that background voice that never shuts up: was that it? Goal? Arrival? Another goal? Arrival again? What kind of metaphysical joke is this that recycles endings to entertain functional idiots?

A mental treadmill dressed up as wisdom. That’s what they applaud. That’s what we sell. We present it shiny in a show with a view of the city, and thousands clap with glassy eyes and tight pants. As if life were that, performing the little number well, becoming a polished symbol that doesn’t hurt and earns applause.

I don’t know.

It feels to me like the soul (if there’s anything left of that old word) isn’t made for goals or conclusions. It’s made for a dirty, wandering, imprecise attention. Like dust in the light. Like music that never quite breaks. Rather than arriving or leaving. It’s about being trapped in that second before choosing. About not really wanting and, still, breathing.

Who knows.