As I was watching an interesting documentary about how octopuses carry a shell as their home, I was thinking about humans and our way of perceiving shelter. Nowadays with the house prices going higher and higher, the uncertainty is unbearable for so many people. Expectations and the desire to have a family are often related and dependant on this shell we call home.
The pressure for stability is greater after a certain age, where everybody expects from you to become the responsible adult. To be the one who wakes up every morning going to a job that pays the bills. To be the one providing with a home, even if that throws you in a 30 year loan hole. To be the one who conforms and follows the norms because everybody else does the same. In the meanwhile you grow old and you wonder how come time passed by so fast, how come you never chased your dreams? After so many years of conforming, a lot of people wouldn't even know what to do with their freedom. If somebody would give you 1 month of free time, what would you do? So many people would actually be eager to get back to the same job they despised before just to escape the agony of not knowing what to do with their lives. So they prefer somebody else planning for them: how much should they work, how much is their time worth, when they can take a break, for how long.
Making such sacrifices for a concrete building sounds absurd when we think about what a house literally is: concrete/wood. A piece of architecture which will be decaying decades from now. People want it for what it means, not for what it is. It can mean status, safety, pride, reunion. It can be an escape and also a mirror for the ego. A house can consume you or it can shelter you. The price we are willing to pay for safety is putting a shadow on the price we pay for losing our freedom. Is it worth it?
The octopus looks like a free animal, carrying the shell everywhere it goes. Like the nomad people or the homeless, carrying their lives in a bag. In comparison with those who have it all, they look helpless, vulnerable, sad. Losers who have nothing. Are the homeless more free than those working 12 hours + to pay loans for pretty houses? Are they more like a loser than those who become bitter about having to work so much? Do we work for shelter or do we work because society hasn't taught us better?
The need for shelter and safety should never override the necessity to dream. While buildings are here to stay and decay, we do not get back the years we spent in robotic routine. The years we lost getting up religiously for work only to spend the rest of the time sleeping it over, forgetting how to live, how to love, how to be.
The years we lost chasing others, trying to look like we have it as better as they do. The years we lost by not speaking, dreaming, travelling because we wanted to have it all right by the time we hit a certain age. The years we lost by imitating others instead of trying to figure out who we want to be. Instead of chasing shelter, money, status and power we would be better off chasing dreams. Our dreams. And put those in a shell to carry everywhere we go...
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