Via the cinders of time, the ideas arrive. But perhaps the plurality of it all is the illusion. Perhaps it is always the same quandary. The same thought, reoccurring.

As old as this species, if not infinitely older. Just some other way of asking why.

It bothers many of us beasts incessantly. Sometimes to death, or maybe, ultimately, always.

Yet I sit, at least once more, to try and flesh out my mind and heart before it turns to some permanent stone. They have both taken their beatings in these last few months. These last few years. This life of mine as a whole. Yet persistence in spite of that still finds its way to the forefront, convincing this being I call home to press onward. To find answers, even when they lead to bigger questions. And not to take the easier paths, but rather to fight and gain strength from treading in difficulties. Not all of which are self-made, but plenty of them are. Always trying to turn dismay into some sort of advantage, even if that only results in a greater height from which my next fall will arrive.

Apologies. I’m still grieving, but I know for certain that this is not where I call it quits. Even if some end is coming, which I doubt in my more ego driven frenzies, the strain and striving helps to find an arrival more profound than the last departure. Even if I must make up large portions of whatever new reality finds me, despite any contrived stealth. It isn’t easy, to keep feeling in a world that leaves you bleeding. So often, I’ll find numbness as a reprieve, even when it defies some truer nature within.

Not that things will always be numb and benign, but some things can never be new again. Some things can never be. Again, or never even to begin with.

Yet even outside my personal tragedies, one need not look far to find prophecies of doom in all shapes and sizes. One man’s seemed salvation could be another’s seemingly insurmountable enemy. Divisiveness and aggression seem to grow from all angles, and the helplessness against the tides of time and history seems inescapable. Whatever can we humans do to save ourselves from demise? What can I do, guy who can’t even find a date?

The word fight finds it way to my mind, even if it feels like fighting for air wrapped inside a plastic bag.  

All the while I watch media of different methods and means tear apart and sow madness in minds I know. In good and honest souls. And caused by a beast I still claim myself capable of slaying. The audacity of fruitless efforts, so persistent.

In another life, I was a newsman.

Funny thing to think. But true enough, in some sense.

Yet what move comes next seems to elude me, while I squander time on half lived ideas and motives. Or so often wasted on nothing much at all. A paralysis of action when movement in any sort of direction is desired, or required. The ticking clock of my personal existence winding its way to down to meet some now unknown number when the clock strikes time and this mortal plane, and this mortal identity, will no longer contain or be paired with whatever energy it is that makes up my sense of self. The soul, or what have you.

But that is all part of the act. A prerequisite if you ever aim to be me, a task improbable enough for your humble narrator. And certainly, impossible for anyone else. Only me can be I, even if that makes it some sort of existential prisoner position. A life sentence, as it were.

It’s almost funny, how much in the beautiful weather of this section of our home space rock today, I thought about death. That of others, but still and always relating back to myself. The knowledge that someday, this person I am, along with all the characters and pseudonyms, will cease to be. Someday, I will be but a memory left to those who outlast me. Doomed to fade, doomed to die again when the last person forgets your name.

But it is a dynamic idea, being anyone at all. Static being for the dead beings. Something different tomorrow, even when appearing to be more of the same. For I will be different with the proceeding reality. Not so much changed, though that certainly happens at times. But at the very least, something grown and growing. A perspective more whole, even if that means whittling away at the excess.

But the equilibrium is not a destination. It is the path. The never-ending balance between the intellect and the emotional. Neither side can be declared victor. Never being allowed to totally overwhelm the other, barred from existing in the absence of its polarity.

A necessary struggle and one that only at times hold to deceptive thought of control. I think, therefore I am, therefore I feel, therefore I think. And think and think and think. It’s not envy I feel for those who are unbothered by big questions. But they rarely realize how simple their lives must be, never questioning reality or her natures. Never pondering purpose beyond fulfilling the most basic point within the hierarchy of needs. I pity such souls, even if their workload is so much lighter than my own.

By my days, and especially my nights and morning, run rife and rampant with reveries. Encouraged by artifacts of all kinds. Images burned in film, the permanence of moment. Encapsulated time sonically confined to song. Reminders of what was, or at least how I choose to remember specific pasts and peoples within them. I might flip through pages of photos or notes later. And if not later, I know the inclination to do so will find me at some point. Nostalgia being the most irresistible kind of high.

But anyway, onward again.

Perhaps these have been lackluster as of late, but I don’t mean to waste too much time trying to find something that this format cannot currently abide. I take the discipline of my weekly return as exercise. As the metaphysical lubrication that keeps all other endeavors ready for retrieval or emergence.

I’ll keep onward. Musing with new mistakes, or just more of the same, branded fresh while must and mold grow. But this evening, this is all my mind can muster here. I’ll be working on the more profound productions elsewhere, while keeping this as maintenance until the right balance finds the motivation to write about more potent perspectives.

So, until next week. Might have something better than. Or something worse. But I’ll like have something, even if it isn’t much at all.