Lines Left Unwritten

 Much like you, the reader, I have never been too fond of paying attention in class — save for science, and at times philosophy, when it brushed against questions of ordinary life. And very much like you, I was impressionable enough to let classroom lessons take root in my mind as absolutes. I never questioned the fundamentals, never tried to hypothesise or argue my own, nor carried forward the restless spirit of inquiry that both science and philosophy demanded. I let that spirit — to doubt, to test, to prove, to wrestle with meaning — die within me, snuffing out any hope of following the example of those who came before, or leaving even the faintest line of my own upon the vast, living blueprint of human knowledge.

Such omissions are scarcely visible to the distracted mind — a mind more concerned with navigating the world as it is than enriching it. There seemed no greater purpose, only the weary sensation of being dragged through a long ride I could not find amusing. The familiar template of human existence was all too clear: study, work, procreate, extinguish. Along the way, perhaps stumble upon some hollow diversion to soften the weight of it all. And so the mind, worn down by its challenges, betrays its very design. It ceases to probe or create, and instead reduces all to baubles, mistaking them for meaningful effort.

Consider, by way of contrast, the erection of the great wonders: the Pyramids of Giza, raised with a precision that still defies imagination; the Parthenon, marble hymn to proportion and civic devotion; or the Great Wall of China, unspooled across mountains in proof of endurance and will. These structures embodied vision, purpose, and permanence. And what did I encounter this very week? A crude shed, thrust into the middle of a public road — not as shelter, but as pedestal to a tarpaulin. Its only function: to announce a private misfortune, heedless of the fact it aggravated the congestion already pressing upon the thoroughfare.

We spend an inordinate portion of our lives in study — years that, to many of us, feel almost exacting. That very sense of unfairness becomes our alibi; it eats away at resolve and excuses the quiet discarding of knowledge once the examinations concluded. We learn, but seldom bind learning into the fabric of life, rarely set it to practice where it might bear weight. A dim awareness of consequence lingers in us, yet we drift on as though unaware, blind to our own habits and to the world they shape. It is not one grand abdication, but countless small surrenders — each one almost invisible, together eroding both our awareness and our chance to inscribe even a modest line upon the greater design.

PS: This article was co-written with ChatGPT