Obsessed

We strive for a world with perfect balance. Or so it seems. 

Nowadays, a lot is about well-being. Nature retreats, work-life balance, eating healthy, having a community, and so on. Balance is an achievement, you can see it in the posts of influencers, Tik-Tokers, and YouTubers. People love the idea of balance. Even trends like “clean girl” has now evolved into something along the lines of clean girl by day, and party girl by night. 

On the flip side of the internet, there are entrepreneurs, hustlers, grinders, and all the fun people. While one sacred group of the internet pushes for sweating your limits the rest of society, in general, is now more occupied with balance. This is reflected in our values and also in our aesthetics. 

In the past, this balance was provided by cycles of nature. At certain times of the year, you would work, and for the rest of the year, you would have to live off that. Naturally, taming nature wasn’t an easy task, therefore living used to be more about surviving and seeing the next spring rather than balance. Then something happened; humankind found new and innovative ways to conquer nature to serve its interests. This gave us the liberty to find our own rhythm. While we still have to accommodate for weather or natural disasters, we are now equipped with knowledge and tools to overcome the adversities of nature. 

Interestingly, the word nature now became associated with a completely different set of ideas and feelings than what was before. If I went to my grandmother and asked about her feelings about nature I would hear probably the opposite of what I would hear from my peers. People like myself, who never had to endure the rather dark side of nature will typically associate it with getting in touch with yourself, peace, relaxation, etc. on the contrary people who had to live in conditions where they were obliged to deal with the hardship of nature have a more realistic approach to the concept. 

What is considered to be our nature or natural changes by the times we live in, and it seems the idea of balance is now considered to be natural and when we are doing anything outside of that, we’re in the “wrong”.I like well-being; nature, massages, day-offs, chilling, and everything but I am not convinced this can be regularly achieved, and more so, I am not convinced achieving this will bring any measure of good for individuals or society. 

I think we need obsessed people. People who are so invested in a problem, that they can’t sleep at night. People, working on the brink of new knowledge, science, technology, and art. You can’t be Michelangelo and not obsess over the Sistine Chapel, it just won’t work. If I was Michelangelo, I would want to be obsessed with the Sistine Chapel. It would do more for me than going on a hike. 

Think for a second; if you were on your deathbed, surrounded by the ones you love. Would you rather think back to that one time you chilled with your colleagues after a busy day or would you rather remember how you painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel? I know my answer.

To this day, people all over the world come to visit the Sistine Chapel, with the hopes of seeing his work. To this day, beyond the grave, he is adding value to his country and people.

We need obsessed people with a purpose. 

As individuals, and as a society, we lack purpose. Rightfully so. We don’t strive to build great things anymore because most of us are convinced they are already built. We build our lives around nothing beyond hedonistic temptations and self-fulfillment, yet we forget without servitude to humankind there is no self-fulfillment. Our sole focus is on ourselves, our skills, our needs, and our desires. This stops us from getting out what we already have within. If we can direct our gaze to the other, we might be able to see the need, and we might be able to extract our purpose from our personal depths to everyday life. 

Not every great thing has been built, and not every important idea has been thought of, and most importantly, none of the people who did all those ever thought there was nothing to be achieved any further. They knew, there would always be something more to do. 

According to one account, Michelangelo’s last words were “I’m still learning”. If he didn’t have an excuse to stop, why should we?