What is the point?

Warning: An extremely personal and long post ahead. If you take the time to read it, comment. It’s compulsory. 

Oblivion. We all are oblivious of our pasts, well atleast most of us non-historians are.

       Yesterday, I had been feeling very helpless, shattered even. You see, I have a YouTube channel and since I’m not very ‘popular’ no one seems to wanna watch it. “But Ramsha, people don’t have time for someone as inconsequential as you,” is something what you would say to me. I know. “Maybe your videos just plain suck.” Yes, I completely agree. The first one sucked a lot, the second one sucked a little lesser, the third one sucked even lesser and the fourth one sucked the least. I’m working as hard as I can in order for them to not suck. And since, I put in the most effort in filming and editing the fourth video, I’m damn proud of it. I tried my best. And as we all know, the basic aim of anything one has put a lot of hard work in, is to be noticed. So, in order for everyone to know that I did something more worthwhile with my life, I shared the video with all the important and semi-important and not-so-important people in my Whatsapp contacts list. I’m not saying that one has to applaud me by saying,”Damn! That was an amazing video! Great job!” No.

      Even if someone takes the time to tell me,”Your video sucks!” I would be happy. But when people read my texts and don’t reply, my heart breaks a little. I mean how can one judge something when they haven’t even watched it? And it wasn’t just one or two people who didn’t say anything, it was about thirty people. THIRTY PEOPLE.

Not only that, one of my insanely popular classmates at college made a very professional-looking video with others’ help and got over 600 views in a day. At first it bothered me. A lot. A LOT lot. But then I decided to let it pass. I don’t own the right to make videos. I alone don’t own the right to love YouTube. To make videos. Hell, for all I know, his video would’ve got a million views by now. Good for him, and I genuinely mean it.

“But Ramsha, you’re not gonna get a million views in a day. No one will know about you so soon. Why are you even making these videos? What is the point of all this?” Is something else you would say in order to console and question me at the same time.

Well let me tell ya, till now, in these glorious eighteen years of my life, I haven’t found something I excel at, and making videos might serve as the gateway for movie-making. Maybe directing is the right direction for me. I dunno. I’m still living through this thing called life. I’m just making this all up as I go along.

That brings me to why I felt so helpless. I felt that all my day’s-worth of editing was for naught. I felt that I didn’t need to work so hard for something that no one would watch, something that no one would even care about. No one would want to watch an unpopular person. No one. It got so bad that I had a panic attack. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t calm down. I wouldn’t calm down.

I explained all of this to my dad. “Daddy, no one cares. Everyone just asks me that why I am doing all this. No one seems to answer my texts. I mean why can’t they JUST, just look at the goddamn video once?! Do they see through all my insecurities and say ‘Hey! This girl sucks! She literally has an invisible Loser sign on her head which is only seen by us! MUAHAHA! Let’s make her feel even more worthless by not watching her stupid, boring video!’ ”

“Ramsha, just try harder. Become better at this. If making videos is what you wanna do, just give it your all. Just give it your best shot. Eventually, someone important will notice. Just, be patient. Try harder. Just keep on moving forward. These people who haven’t replied do not matter. Don’t just give up. Don’t give up on yourself.” My dad said with a hug.

And I did feel better once my dad said all that. He and my mom are the only two people who will back me up no matter what. They’re the absolute best.

But something else bothered me. Once I realised what it was, the thought grew like a virus. It consumed me. Saddened me. I said to myself,” What is the point of all this? Of life? Am I supposed to rule the world and live an extravagant life, or am I supposed to blend in with the other fellow mundane human beings? All of this, all this effort won’t even matter in a say a hundred years. I’ll be dead. No one will remember me anyway. I’ll live a mundane and die a mundane.” I just felt empty. It felt like all my creativity, all my zest was sucked out by those existential questions. I was anxious. I was deeply unhappy.

But then I realised something, I was not going to give up on MY dreams just because some insignificant people did not validate me by not watching my hard-work. Dammit, I am going to work harder and smarter. And if those blasted existence-questioning questions bother me, I’ll just exercise or better yet, watch some anime. Or eat some chips. And, finally:

‘I WILL WORK HARD.  I’LL MAKE IT COUNT. I HAVE TO. I JUST HAVE TO.’

 

And if any of you guys feel an existential crisis arising due to some unimportant people or events, just remember – ‘ YOU ARE THE POINT.‘

If anyone else feel this way, please comment. Let’s all face this together. Let’s kick it to the curb. Just comment.  

Whew! I feel much better now.