Troubled Young Man¹

I. Troubled Young Man fears that he is disconnecting from reality due to his newfound
ability to reference and cross-reference everything he sees and hears to something he
has seen or heard in the past. This becomes apparent to him on a late-night walk
home. He passes two pedestrians, deep in conversation, and one of them utters a line
from a film or seemed to be behaving like a character from a film or TV show, he
doesn’t remember.² What he does remember is wanting to run down the street, away
from the pedestrians, after having realized the horrific fact that nothing he sees or
hears is original. In fact, Troubled Young Man sinks deeper into despair after
realizing that his wanting to run in the opposite direction of the pedestrians can be
referenced or cross-referenced to something he has seen or heard in the past. After
ruminating on potential alleviants to this nightmarish scenario, it is decided that the
only question is that of suicide, but alas, even this position is one that was posited by
a handsome Frenchman who died in a car crash (an event that in itself was highly
unoriginal). In a shocking turn of events, Troubled Young Man decides that waiting
for a new bridge to be built, so as to be its first suicide-participant will prove too
time-consuming (and who is to say he won’t be beaten to the punch by another
Troubled Young Person who will jump off the bridge while it is still under
construction?), so he silently agrees to a life of unoriginality in which he will
continuously reference and cross-reference those things which he has seen or heard in
the past until he is able to provide the illusion of originality or OR or he sows so
much unoriginality that he provokes an authentic statement. This is how he will know
he has found God.

¹ After a summer of enlightenment, personal discovery, and riots, Troubled Young Person is no longer Troubled Young Man. However, they wanted to remain somewhat true to the individual who wrote this story. This update on their “life” changes nothing of what underlines this story except the obviously annoying gendered language.
² Do the essences of characters precede our presence? Storytelling dates back thousands of years, the earliest such example being symbols drawn on walls. So, even then, 9,000 years ago, it appears as though people were being influenced by media. You see a man on the wall of a cave doing something seemingly heroic, and you think you can be that man. This is the downfall of man.