The Point

'"And what would you do," the Master said unto the multitude, "if God spoke directly to your face & said, 'I COMMAND THAT YOU BE HAPPY IN THE WORLD, AS LONG AS YOU LIVE.' What then?"'

I've always liked that quote. Liked the idea that we could live in such a way as to be truly happy. That that might even be the point.

But my answer to "What then?" is that I would fail. I cannot think how to be happy. I cannot think what I might want, or want to do. Life itself is not something I really want. I live for others' sakes, & because I know that someday, perhaps even someday soon, I will die without needing to take any actions of my own. It is inevitable, & I can wait.

I wonder, sometimes, if that is not the point. Perhaps, if people like Richard Bach are right, I chose this life. I sat down pre-life, flipping through a catalog, perhaps, & decided to try a life of emptiness, depression & despair, not really knowing what it would be like to live that life.

I don't think so, though. It doesn't explain the dream - that unimpressed Death judging me. Whatever I'm supposed to be doing, I'm not accomplishing it. Whatever your definition, your belief, about the meaning of this world, this existence, I'm failing. There are no great works to live on after me, I leave behind no offspring to carry my genes into the future, my life is not devoted to any deity or path to higher being, & I am not happy in the world. There will be no improvement, either to myself or to the world, by the life that I have lived. Whatever the point... I'm missing it.

Equinox

Spring 2010-

Balanced. Unbalanced. Standing on end. Afraid to fall. She told me once, "it doesn't matter what you do, where you go, just DANCE & enjoy the dance," but I can't. I can't do it. I can't just GO without knowing where I'm going, what I'm doing. Too afraid to fall. Because every way is the wrong way. Every choice is wrong, is useless, is pointless, is... wrong. That way is wrong & that way is wrong, all ways. Always. Frozen.

Dreaming of Pain

I'm having a bad day. Which doesn't mean that things are going wrong. It means that I'm going wrong. I'm having a bad day. I don't know whether to scream, or cry, or beat my head against the wall. It's one of those days when I want to hurt myself so that I can feel... feel something other than the horrible, suffocating nothing inside. But it's not an empty nothing, it's a filthy, howling mass of nothing, like the rotting gap where a diseased tooth once sat, like a gunk-encrusted garbage disposal with rusted blades, & it threatens to suck you in & rot you from the inside out. I cannot escape it, so I dream of pain to take me away.

I drive out into the night, trying to find things to distract me. The sugar & caffeine of an iced mocha do not do the trick, & the new books seem but empty promises, certain to disappoint. I step out of the store hoping for a cool breeze to wash over me, to lend me it's cleansing breath, but the air is hot & heavy, like walking through warm syrup, like trying to breathe through wet wool. I feel like I'm suffocating. Bad day.

I dream of pain again, sharp & clean, seeking escape in the thought of stinging strikes against my flesh, or the press of teeth in my skin, hard & harder, bringing a rush of adrenaline & endorphins to fire through my veins like acid, driving out the disease. Pain or passion, I often dream of at times like these. Pain or passion, burning me up from the inside out, burning out the rot & setting me free. For now, though, there is neither, so I suffer, & despair, & continue to dream.