Try as I may, life is often more than even I can handle.
Sometimes it isn’t worth it. You struggle and you fight, but for what? Nothing
lasts forever including each one of us. I don’t want to get into some diatribe
like “we all live and we all die” so boo hoo to that. Yup, life is unfair. No
shit. So is car insurance, what’s your point? Every once in awhile for me, the
world I have created falls to pieces. I get lost in the discombobulating chaos that comes with each assigned day. You need fortitude
to be a human being. You need fortitude and a survivor’s disposition. Both are hard to maintain, at least some of
the time. When the darkness comes, I tend to embrace it. I become a rock or an
island, neither of which feel any pain nor cry. When things get too much for
me, I try my best to float away. It’s not denial or avoidance that motivates
me. I find peace in simple things and simpler notions. I try to find my
Otherland but sometimes the noise is just too much. It doesn’t matter why, not really.
The why is different for each of us. It’s the numbing, the constant numbing
that makes us feel like surrender is our only option. Sometimes it all is too
tough. I know there are times when I just want to lay down and die.
I have to be careful while exploring an
existential crisis. It may be a phase, it may be a notion, but if my depressive
state takes over I am screwed, and not literally. More than ten years of successful
treatment for my Bi-Polar disorder doesn’t mean the extremes of the disease are
no longer a factor. I still suffer to varied degrees. Hypomania, for example, can
evolve into mania but it can also “switch” to a serious depression. While
hypomania is “a mood state characterized by persistent disinhibition and
pervasive [euphoria],” it is still less severe than full mania. Progressive
symptoms of depression, in the same manner, may become “hyper depressive.” It
is still less severe than the full depressive state. Anything can tilt the
balance, anything at all. I wish that I had surer footing, every time I fall
into a rabbit hole. I just need to recognize that any focus on ideas such as
defeat, surrender and hopelessness, manifests symptoms leading to and causing a
general state of depression. I experience the same pain, the same confusion,
the same withdrawal as anyone else would but it comes with a slippery slope. I
have to be careful of walking too close to the edge.
I want to
believe that there is a goodness to this life. I want to but I’m not so sure.
Although good and evil are relative, just like morality, it
seems that quite often all one can find is disdain and corruption. People seem
so much more selfish than when I was growing up. We have all given in to the
Dark Side. There are no angels left to save us. We all struggle but the majority of us feel we should not
have to. We dwell in the shadow so that the shadow becomes what we are. We all
like to swim in denial. The gloom is hanging everywhere, like a dense fog. Such
sadness, such misery. It can be a challenge to not get sucked in. With so much
heartache, we are bound to follow suit. There is always, always, a weight to
it. I am often disheartened, stuck watching people watching life go by. No one
seems to give a damn. Instead of life feeding hope and joy and gladness, it
promotes sorrow and hated and much hubris. In a whirlpool, we circle until we
flush down the sink. We all fall into that rabbit hole.
The world
seems to be falling apart. Of course, to one degree or another it has always
appeared this way. There is always something that gives us validation to think
so. It is true, in the past everything seemed to point to the end of the world.
Not much has changed. It appears we all are doomed. This constant reality wears
on us. What is the point of striving and sacrificing if all is lost? No wonder
men live the way that they do. If there is no tomorrow then surely we must be
merry before we all die. There is reckless abandon, everyone doing as they wish
with a general disregard for their fellow man. The state of mankind is ruptured
and broken. There is very little “we” left in the world. I often lose myself to
the great “I”. We have become the apparition that Plato warned us about. We are
self-absorbed and almost drained of our humanity. We are a shadow. The only
person who seems to matter is us and sometimes not even. It’s enough to make
one sad and very discouraged by it all. It sucks to be in the world yet be all
alone. The burden of it can be heavy and only adds to the crisis being experienced.
We think we are safe but no matter, something always manages to push us in.
I get down
and I get sad. No matter how balanced my life is, something always ends up
throwing me out of sync. My equilibrium goes screwy. I start to panic. The
complications are never worth the investment. It is rare that I think such things
or ponder their meaning. I am a relatively happy person. I have made my way
through the fire and simply wish to be warmed by it, not dwell within it. I
live in the now well knowing that nothing is for sure and time is my only
constant. It keeps moving and I keep dying, little by little, day after day,
minute by minute, unto the end of my all. Despite my strength and the experiences of my life, there are moments of great
weakness that I hide from the world. I doubt myself and I doubt most others. I
am always looking for the real reason people act the way that they do. I have
moments of such clarity and moments when I am
tossed out to sea, lost in the mist and the shadow of a
moonless night. I flounder about in the meaning of it all. The secret of life is
exclusive to those already long gone. So I wander, looking for a sign, looking
for a breakthrough. All I have discovered is more chaos, more sorrow and more
confusion. We are dashed against the shore not taken and never told exactly
what we did to end up feeling this way.
I try not
to fall into too many rabbit holes. They seem to be everywhere in this modern
world. Just as my strut gets rhythm, I
trip and drop down and down and farther still. I try to escape the pull but it
seems impossible to do. This world is made for falling fools, fools who think
that anything will ever be okay again. It never is. Unlike with Alice , there is no
wonderland on the other side. In fact, there is bitter and lonely and helpless.
There is only this grand sense of futility and emptiness for all to see. We are
tossed and turned to get here and when we arrive, there is nothing for us. I
don’t often get the blues and I have rarely, if ever, had a true existential
crisis. I can cope far better than one might
think. I always manage to climb out of it, no worse for the wear. Life
gets all of us down, no matter who you are. I suppose it is how you handle
things that will determine any consequence. When I do feel the weight of the
world, I tend to go with it. On occasion, I even choose to jump down the rabbit
hole.
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