There was an attempt to accomplish this in the timely manner associated with the title. It had failed, mostly. I managed two paragraphs, as follows. And I quote…

‘I have no business doing what I am about to do. The audacity, oh how horrifically ego based- and yet, duty and honor bound I seem to be for all this. And so, the arguments of fate and destiny, and all the inexplicable in-betweens I have thus far and still yet to perceive.

There seems to be something still somehow clandestine in the rudimentary ways to see all these things, i.e. existence. I can summon up all sorts of profound thoughts of my personal past ebbed and intertwined with the chaotic goings on of all those outsides, past or ongoing. The very same folks that can only hope to ever see themselves as their own inside- some estranged outcry of their own thoughts on the actions and expressions, of both they themselves, and those of others.’

Clearly, a man in need of sleep and not another beer.

So, here we are to try again.

Instead of my usual solitary writing evening, I sat about with some friends, yammering on about this and that, both existential and otherwise ridiculous. Talks of fate and destiny. Of envy and love. Of histories and futures both personal and full species encompassing. And talks of the desire to fight on, no matter how futile.

And talks of farts and boners.  

So, not a wasted evening, as far as my metrics go.

But my fried mind got its rest, and a day was had of bouncing about from deed to deed. Some mild sunburn was got, some vegetables watered, etc. I listened to two historians go on about Helen of Troy and two Warren Zevon records full through. I scratched out in a notebook the line ‘beauty rules over strength.’ And even if not true, I still admire the aesthetic of such an idea.

And not but a few minutes ago, I listened to a friend on the radio. Which is a very old timey sounding sentence, despite its accuracy.

But now I sit and attempt to ring some ponderings from my mind, now grown tired again. The drive to express outward still ever present. The ghost of some forever poet’s longing.

I tend to sell my own achievements short. A bad habit, some might say, and falsehoods in such a perspective could be argued. Yet, it is the fear of complacency that keeps the hold on overinflation regarding how I got here. If I were to allow satisfaction, perhaps the urge to go onward might be extinguished. And were that to happen, then what would be left for striving?

A well-paid professional who analyzes the thinkings of others might claim a prognosis with a scientific sounding name and cite the follies of such a state of awareness. But maybe that is just them playing out some job security. Wouldn’t know, I never talk to those folks. At least not in the formal setting of their business. Not knocking those who do. And certainly not knocking those who need.

But my mind can easily be swayed away from all the ‘look at what I’ve done’ and migrate effortlessly to all the ‘what is still left to do’.

So, what is left to do?

Never mind the chores and practical obligations. I dread such levels of wondering. I prefer the grandiose. The idea of making lasting echoes. The idea of being insatiable for experience and other-worldly projects. To express and proclaim in tones and timings that could only be mine. To say in some booming way, to steal a phrase from someone, that I was here.

Perhaps that is why the mind strains for point and purpose here. I itch and I know there are other things to be done, but how could I possibly go there while leaving all this unfinished? We’ve been at this for almost a decade and a half, and my adult mind struggles to march forward without first rambling out here.

We have these questions, in a seeming constant stream. The whys of small and massive, and the hows that pair with each. The taken for granted happenings that make such a human earthly life possible, and the awe of even attempting to inquire as to what makes it all work. We wish to understand, and yet can know full well that such a desire can never be complete.

I scratched out something someone said regarding the wonders of our existence.

‘What makes planes fly? I don’t know, who gives a shit?’

Which reminds me of another quote from another human I know.

‘It’s like a microwave. Nobody knows how it works, it just do.’

If nothing else, I have had the pleasure of making the acquaintance and friendship of some truly peculiar and fascinating folks.

There was another quote, scrawled out in the notebook of last evening. I suppose it’s a quote of a quote. Paraphrasing, humorously, of a long point made by another one of those profound individuals I happen to know.

‘Find an explanation for your greatness,’

We had a laugh, I recall. But there was something there then, as there still seems to be rattling around my old noodle to this very moment.

The idea, as I see it now, is that whatever demands we perceive for and of ourselves in this cellular-based body, though not predetermined, lends us each to our own styles of being. And within that, there resides a potential. Not an unshakeable destiny, but a means of ultimate optimization. That you can and likely should be the most you version of you that you can manage to muster. And in that, so you might be better connected to whatever this whole of existential inquiry might seem to be when complete. That whatever you might have been, this is what you are. And that in seeking the being that is the most individualized version of your make and model, the closer you get to that idea of oneness. The kind that gets associated with gods and enlightenment, and all that shit.

So, onward I think I’ll go from here. Being a bit more me than yesterday’s self had managed. Though honest his efforts were. Better can still be got from today. Which of course, will hopefully pale in comparison to what might be got at for tomorrow.