“It’s Not That Deep.”
“It’s not that deep.”
A phrase we all have chucked at others, wrangled with when chucked at us, laughed at, and anguished at. Four words that dismiss the depth of human emotion and feeling. I suppose you’re already thinking, “It really is not that deep.”
After that context setting, I’ll delve into another tangent: how many times have you recounted a previous difficulty or phase of life and thought to berate yourself with this very idea as your weapon of choice? Oh, that test was not all that; that college wasn’t even that prestigious; they weren’t so cute after all. With everything in our lives, it is so simple to romanticise its flaws or dismiss its upsides; polarisation comes naturally.
There is a conceivable pattern that draws a commonality, like a background theme of sorts, through all phases of our existence. That we thought obsessively about something-s, cared deeply for someone-s, and lived by feeling. It’s wonderful to feel so much.
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But it’s also taxing. Taxing when the objects of our emotions betray us, when our goals elude us. In that moment, we are no greater than our sorrow. The world as we know it narrows to that single point of eternal misery.
It’s natural to want to stop, to choose something different, something new, something easier.
The truth is that nothing is objectively right or wrong. There is no such thing as objectivity in the subjective path that one chooses to take. But the scenery cannot stay the same. If something is bleak, it has to glow; if something is aglow, it will dim eventually; the circle of life and all that jazz.
The point is, our perceptions of depth change. What is deep, what is not deep- it changes. You can’t feel your face changing shapes, but look at a photo of yourself a year ago, and it jumps right out at you. What’s to say that our mind is any different?
So maybe it is that deep, or it isn’t anymore, maybe both at once. Only you can decide.
