240625 - Despair of Self

Again, I find myself lost. Life is amazing when I am allowed the luxury of surrendering to immediacy; in time, in space. Mowing the lawn, watering plants, taking a swim. I am content. I am happy. Don’t worry about the rest, she says. It’s not here. Perhaps, I think, I hope, she’s right. Maybe I am moved by the illusions of my surroundings. Maybe these are not my worries but theirs. Maybe I can let them stay that way. Yet the fears creep in just the same. They are here, and being called a fool, they are here just the same. The worries demand attention. Not tomorrow, or a month from now, but right here, they make themselves known. How I am to survive? To feed myself, to persist, and still, to be happy? To maintain peace inside a structure I despise? To balance health with an adventurous spirit? What if the cost is too high? More and more, I feel the pressing choice. Spirituality, or materialism. The polarisation makes itself clear. Yet I relax, and I remember. The best conditions for enlightenment are those that are already present: right here, right now.

But what does that mean, when planning for the future? The swallows play above my head. A dragonfly floats slowly by as I catch a scent of jasmine, and I can’t help but smile. Beauty makes itself known in the presence of life, in the moment unfolding. Who am I? Browsing job listings, I feel myself cowering a bit. Updating my CV, I can’t help but feel like all of it’s a lie. This is who I was, what I knew. But now? I feel myself less up to the task. Not that any skills have degraded in any meaningful way, but the power structure present is strong enough to give me nightmares. Maybe that’s okay. Maybe I am not that, anymore.

So, what then? A writer? Certainly I feel a lot hinges on the fact. I started writing as an outlet. To process inner turmoil. Carefully I share it with some people that I meet, and suddenly a book is supposed to be on its way. I meet the most amazing girl, and it’s my words that makes her fall in love. Yet I despise them. The only thing I’ve ever tried to do is write a map to something else. To transcend the symbolic. Then I can’t seem to get a word out for months at a time, and the book I’m supposed to write fizzles out as coming home turns into another year of movement. More and more, it feels like a chore. That which is honest and true seems cynical, and less I’m inclined to share. “It’s beautiful” they say. All I wanted for a long time was approval, yet what does it mean to me? I doubt their judgement, I doubt their taste, I doubt their compliments. A thousand of them means nothing as I sit there in the void with the nagging feeling of being even less seen than before. A writer? Pfft. I can’t think of work more solitary than this. At least the monk spending 30 years in a cave spends that time with himself. I cry into the void out of pure necessity, and the void cannot answer. All that’s left is the echoes of a solitary cry, reverberating through the decaying halls of a long-forgotten dream.

A practitioner, perhaps? Perhaps the recluse truly is in practice, in the immediacy of physical labor and the support of spiritual organizations? Yet my health is failing, and the conditions required are too much. I feel weak, and afraid. Afraid to be alive, afraid of what it requires. Afraid of interactions, of honesty, of connection. Afraid of myself, of a body that can not be trusted to support an ambitious youth. And so, I feel stuck. I am neither of these things. The realization should be a blessing, yet I can’t help but carry it as a burden. A failure on all fronts. The pressure increases as the future rushes in. Again, relief is found here. An ant making its way up my knee. A spider interrupting my writing by running around on my hand. A butterfly flutter past my line of sight, suspended just a few centimeters off the ground. Perhaps I should give up. After all, the future never seems to come. Looking at the insects crawling on the ground, what does it mean to be a writer, an engineer, a practicioner? I am here. I am now. It might seem a small comfort, but it’s all I need.