26/3/26
Hello my lovely loyal blog viewers. Before we begin here I would like to express my unbelievable gratitude for supporting my silly little website by just being here. I started doing this for a little bit of fun and as a way to express myself and to learn a little something along the way. And yet some of you are actually READING THIS! I know I put this out to the world to read, but the newspaper puts news out to the world too.
I guess what I mean to say is that I'm so surprised to see that you care. Most people don't, but you have taken time out of your day to read my silly little ramblings, which are most of the time unedited because I'm probably more bored of what I have to say than you are. So thank you. Those that have commented in the guestbook or reached out to me have shown me a love which I have for so long been unable to give to others so thankyou for showing me how to start.
Now it has been a while since I've had to write one of these and I've been so busy, so I'll try to get you up to speed.
Since I last left you I have continued my mission of self discovery and tried to branch out where I can. Some highlights:
Now I'm sure I will come back to this page in a few years and laugh, but lately I have been so affected by the contrast of being smart vs being wise. I have always been pretty smart, but more and more I realise this is not enough.
To be smart is to have a plan for success and ensuring rigid preparation to support it. Smart is measuring success and reflecting on failure. But smart is unfeeling. It is cold and calculated. It ensures your sword is sharp enough for what you're fighting for but resists asking why you're fighting for it.
I have made a lot of smart decisions in my life and I'm very grateful for my efforts as I have successfully set my self up for success. The problem is just, what is success?
What does that look like for me? Is it about happiness? Security? Many can be successful and be unhappy and many can be happy and unsuccessful. Some are neither and some are both. But what do I want to be?
What do I want?
I have come to find that wanting is an act of not having. To want something you must understand what it means to not have it and fully appreciate the depth of your desire. The problem is that I want to know what I want.
I have had so much and I have lost so much, and it is through this loss I have come to appreciate what I do want and what I don't. But to know the whole truth of what I want, it seems I must lose everything, because to know everything is to have had nothing.
Now obviously this is such a stupid plan, and generally people don't wonder if 3 floors will be enough and then jump to check, but it does leave room to wonder if there is a smart opportunity to be wise by failing to be smart.
Welcome to my head nerds.
But to put this into practice, I would like to welcome you to my pre-quarter life crisis:
Where am I going?
I have been so fortunate to not only be placed into a degree I am (on the whole) enjoying as well as being granted major scholarships to subsidise it. I work a part time job that I really enjoy too and I live with my brother and play fortnite every day. And then when I finish my degree, I'm going to get a grad job and make enough money, happy ending, curtain call, lights up end of story. And then everything will be enough. Right?
right?
This week I sought answers through (you guessed it) media and storytelling.
I don't think I've done my rant about the importance of media in my life and I have so much to say about it that I will have to keep it to another post, but the essential summary is that a lot of (if not all) of my morals and values are informed by the media I consume.
But this week I got the opportunity to work front of house for UNSW's 2026 production of Pippin and then even better, I got to watch the show for free!
Now I had never seen this show, and knew almost nothing about it, but I was immediately enthralled by the tale it promised me. It followed the story of a young boy cast into a leading role in the circus, trying to find fulfilment in his life. He tries everything a 749AD boy could suggest: claiming his masculinity through war, taking power by becoming the king, fulfilling desire by losing himself in sex and eventually becoming an unwilling farmhand to a new widow. The boy Pippin, believes himself capable of extraordinary things, but consistently fails to find what he desires, complete fulfillment, in any of these things. There is almost a glimmer of hope as he continues working on the farm, finding causes to dedicate himself too, such as spending time with the widow and her son but after realising how long he had spent there, he ran away again seeking that ultimate fulfilment that had not struck him as he desired.
Now being where I am in my life, the morals it was feeding me were being directly passed into my source code. Yes! The answers are here! Pippin has walked my path already for me, I must just learn from his footsteps. I am so excited for this resolution.
And now the climax: Pippin is asked to leap into a fire for the entertainment of the people, so that he can be remembered as great. And in this moment Pippin remembers what the widow said as he left; "what if this (living on the farm) is all there is?". And then… he gives up. He goes back to the widow and decides that the pursuit of fulfilment will never be enough and that settling for the best thing you had was the answer.
Safe to say I was frustrated by this ending. Not because I felt that there was a better ending but I believed in it's moral and that it had the answers, but that was not the answer I wanted to hear. I refuse to believe that to feel true satisfaction in my life, I cannot just find it within myself. I must have someone to share it with. Yes of course, I know that it would be better to share it with someone, but I do not want to be told that I cannot still be fulfilled by myself. Otherwise why should I try? I do not want to believe it.
I'm not going to stop looking for relationships but my belief that I can find happiness without one places that priority on the back burner. I am going to chase the things I find fulfilling. I am going to keep auditioning for shows, I am going to keep spending more time with my friends, I'm going to do things I'm afraid of, I'm going to take opportunities I normally wouldn't. For to become wise, I am going to have learn what there is to have in this world, and then not have them so that I can know that I want them.
And who knows, maybe through this pursuit of wisdom, maybe the things that I really do want will fall into my lap by themselves. Perhaps the smartest thing to do is to be wise.
That's all from me, so as usual I love you all, but don't forget to love yourselves and thankyou if you read this far down.
On a final note, I am so grateful for those of you that do read this, and I want to make this a more rewarding experience for you. Going forward I am putting more effort into editing and creating these blogs, so please read into what you find, words have meaning.
Leave a note in the guestbook if you stopped by, and if you just stopped by for the pretty pictures; honestly valid.
BYE LOVE YOU ALL
-Joss
