doubt

When did we confuse the path for the destination?
When did we confuse the story for the meaning?
When did we forget to look beyond the curtain?
When did we trade exploration for certainty?

It was supposed to bring progress,
to help break the imbalance of power; 
turns out,
it's leaving us powerless.

You follow the playbook:
study this,
work there,
study again,
optimize your LinkedIn,
level up — what for?

For a society that worships individuality,
we seem to confuse the noun for the subject.

Perhaps it's better to see it as a training,
until the time you have money to fork
your own path —
are fifteen years really needed for that?

How much potential is wasted in this nine-to-five story?
The individual is left prisoner of a new coy taking its place
and there's no one to tell you the spoilers.
No one to nudge you to look back at where you were at fifteen,
no one to remind you the meaning of adolescence 
is to find a first canvas of yourself
before it is washed away,
no one does anything cause they don't know —
at least those in the same bubble as you.