How thin is the line between passion and habit? The space dividing perspective and obsession? Is it vast, or but a miniscule difference that even an observationally endowed beast might still fail to see?

     I’ve been pondering existence. As usual. And from the often dissociating lens of where my life seems to be residing within the whole of the history of the species. You know, marking myself and my times against what might be remembered after this narrator becomes worm food. But a blip? A blemish that enough passage of time might reduce to a short spurt within history book of some inattentive adolescence?

     Granted, that implies it all keeps going. Us humans in a still advancing technological semblance of civilization. You know, in a way that will allow us to recall our own past with a certain clarity. No ‘collapse of the Roman Empire’ type stuff. Just using one of many, many examples. Especially if you keep reaching back further and further.

     I’ve also grown to understand that this doesn’t bother most folks. And good for them. It is unlikely, damn near impossible that any of us will know how the moments that we’ve lived through will be measured as time accumulates beyond us. Sure, you can catch the feel when something has some historical potency, in the legacy of a few generations at least. I know, having been around for at least one, young fellow, though, I was. It might be reckoned we’ve got a bit of that going on now, though how all of this will be accumulated as the ages pass seems vague, at best. And for the best measurement of that, we’d need to be knowing what it is to still come our way. Which were that the case, so smoothly might we humans march forward.

     And yet, with all that bouncing somewhere in my mind at most times, be it forefront, rear or otherwise- I am not spared from all the things that make up the modern adult existence in what has come from, known historically, as western civilization. Bills and burdens and bemoaning woes of the fading vanity of a man no longer young. Or so he is often said to see himself. Employed and indebted, and obligated to a good many commitments not to be taken lightly- I sit, stand, or lean onward in the bureaucracy in which I was born. My living earned with my hands. My substance supplemented or stranded by my mind. And the many wonders why, and what it all is heading for.

     Of course, that all is tied in varying levels of narcissism- one of my underlying vices. And, of course, the other habits I have formed along the way to such lofty thoughts of self-importance. Perhaps, a clue to all my romantic failures. And other failures, otherwise.

     I don’t write much anymore. And the weight on my mind from such abstinence is noticeable. From a cyclical habit once proud and potent, I often find my spirit emasculated (to use a very specific set of circumstance to which I identify myself within). A powerlessness forbodes above and around what one might call my soul. That I am pitiful and impotent in the tide of oncoming events, and that acceptance of my inability might be the only salvation I might receive. That to free my soul, I must let go of all that I tie my identity to and existence as the simple beast that I am likely to never overcome. One of those mystical ancient figures said some stuff along the sort, I believe. A prince, named Siddhartha. Went by another name later and still inspires millions today. Yet when I think about those specifics he allegedly spoke of, I cannot shake the bothersome thought of his leaving of his own child, to say nothing of his betrothed. They always sell it as his walking away from the fortune and privilege with which he was graced, but I can never shake the thought of the cowardice I would associate with abandoning those that depended upon you. Particularly of your own spawn, knowing firsthand how they are brought about.

     But what an ego on the guy who calls bullshit on the Buddha?

     Well, that’s just the kind of bloke that you find yourself dealing with as you read this. And it is the guy that I find myself with each day, no matter how many alter egos I place upon it. Simultaneously self-infatuated and deprecating. The only soul I know as best as I’ve been told that I hold. A self-made martyr without the boldness.

     But either way, I should write more. It sorts me out in a more coherent manner than many other objectives I aim to attain.