Hello friends. I hope you had a nice day.
Today was nice, I think. Sometimes I feel like I’m not qualified to judge. Things happened, and so came the night, but it feels like I’m losing the ability to have any linearity. The only thing that registers is the present moment.
Conveniently enough we have a lot of linearity embedded into our language, so that helps. If we do talk about what happened today, I could tell you, but I’m not sure if I was there during it.
I guess that’s what memories are, ultimately – they aren’t you. They’re frail snapshots of a you no longer. When would you draw your line in the sand? You would probably think you’re the same person a meagre five minutes ago, but I don’t think so at all. There’s always movement in and out of one’s identity, however fractured it becomes.
Beyond linearity, there’s something distasteful about narrating memories for memory sake. As long as the memories serve toward an overarching point or theme, it seems like a bunch of useless reinforcement of things which are no longer.
Though that’s what takes up a good chunk of many journals, doesn’t it? Maybe we could at least submit that being the minute-man historian helps in writing, if you want to write.
One concept I find myself returning to is the abandoned alleyway. I’m not sure why it pops up, but it’s this grey cobble mold for a darkened path – it’s a sort of a place that reduces you to nothing.
To be reduced into nothing. No titles, nor family, nor accolades, no roles, nothing. Tossed and plain-cloth’d to the darkened alleyway.
It’s important to remember, I think. Obituaries pass the newspaper everyday after all. Life moves forward with or without you – and whatever part you had won’t matter when the next act comes.
I think the alleyway fate we all have – whether it be a retirement home or a vegetative state, bitter in-laws, or perhaps picking off everyone you know until you’re the last one standing – however the fate comes, I find it heavily related to Goals.
Goals, things worth suffering for. It seems like all goals are a transaction of suffering, don’t you think? Here you are, trading some suffering for some accomplishment which, inevitably, shall be snatched from you anyway. Whatever rewards perceived: admiration, belonging, self-worth – well, that’s the thing about old age. It humbles you, and breaks you down. Those rewards fought for today turn to dust in the cycles ahead.
So, since that’s the case, I always suspect there’s something fundamentally wrong about the whole approach. Why would you spend your time suffering “for meaning” when that meaning crumbles several cycles later? Building yourself up only for the fall to be greater. Breaking off the nose of the antique.
See, if you’re going to have goals or you’re going to bother living, you may as well enjoy what you’re doing. Those are the ones who found success. They find it on the first day, not any day later. If it’s not found on the first day, you won’t find it then until you change again. Sometimes you can brute-force the change until you learn to love it. Running is a great example of this: each consecutive day drips in a mania.
Writing isn’t that painful, some would say possibly enjoyable – maybe I would be bold enough to say I enjoy these indulgences, however crooked they can be. Improper indeed! Embarrassing to some.
Sometimes you can logic your way out of some daily habits. Just follow their delta until it shows the tar. Likewise, applying the inverse so one finds suggestions in the mirror.
Maybe it’s a tall order, but if life doesn’t feel effortless and you aren’t flowing from one activity to the next – in fact, you’re forcing yourself in all things – what exactly are you fighting for? If it’s pride, again, please remember: even pride will be stripped from you, if you want to hold onto some sort of identity.
Knowing our shared fate, so I don’t worry about any “once in a lifetime” or “taking advantage of one’s youth” or anything else: why pull the pendulum so far back as to snap it? If it’s not a sustainable, effortless, enjoyable sort of endeavor, what’s the point?
You very well may call me delusional. I don’t mind. All I’m doing here is pointing out how, no matter how much one fights against things, so we’ll both end up in the same spot. We’ll both look at empty chairs once warm. We’ll have to survey the For Sale signs since that’s the best way to check a neighborhood pulse.
The contacts will turn back into numbers, and the phone will find its home in the landfill. Vines shall shimmer up the side of the house. Concrete will break down between the weeds.
Whatever adrenaline you find in things is, in a strange way, but another transaction. Instead of sacrificing suffering, so one sacrifices future suffering.
There is no higher calling than to crack the code right in front of you: enjoy today on its terms. The process becomes everything when you remember nothing is sacred. The very act of existence is the only act that won’t be snatched away, even after the last breath.