This might be madness, I know, but I still think about the future.

Even with all this past- beautiful, fading, haunting. And in this never ending present, too, filled with wonder, opportunity, obligation and dread. Still, forward goes the mind being dissected before your very eyes. Pen in hand, or fingers up on keys, thinking outwardly in print and type of what is still yet to be.

And, even madder than all that- I still hold out hope for some fantastical types of optimism. How, I can never quite say. Perhaps out of some self-made conditioning or reinforced habituation. You know, aging dog, no new tricks, etc.

But the thought of what is yet to be still seems to be branching out in a multitude of possibilities, even as my personal and worldly history grows and compiles behind me. And while still, though sometimes just barely, admitting my own limitations- I tend to see an opportunity for choice in each step of the way. Even if just a change in perspective towards the acceptance of that which I am unable to impact or otherwise alter.

But, anyway.

There was a line from a book I was shown recently. I can’t recall the exact wording, nor have I read the tale from which the words emerged, but within it there is a thought that has been ricocheting about my skull since seeing it. The idea of life as a borrowed thing. An entity never truly owned, just checked out from the cosmic bibliotic abound.

There is a peace within that, as well as a great frustration. A sense of magnitude in being but a piece, a cog within some grander machinery that both predates and will certainly outlive me. And a sense of finality to it all, that when properly coalesced with ambition, keeps lit the conflagration of my existential engine.

And then there are the other times.

The ones that I often refrain from conscious admittance, but are occurring all the same. A smallness. A powerlessness towards whatever greater tides wash over the person I cling to. This personal sentience, doomed to one day diminish and cease to be. And between those polar opposites of determination and destitution, is generally where you’ll find me. At times, all the way one way or the other, but never staying there. And contained within those boundaries, I exist in fluctuation, as intellect and emotion trade blows and pull back and forth at one another.

The contrast of joy and sorrow, and their familial sort of feelings and perspectives. And with that, the importance of the dynamic range between the two in this, what we humans refer to, vaguely, as a soul. Identity. Person. Etc.

And those that deny that constantly shifting dichotomy are either idiots or liars, or both. In my expert (amateur) opinion. Either ignorant, insipid or something more insidious in intention. That life can go all the way towards one way or across the polarity towards the edge of that other way and remain there.

The idea of some ultimate emoting state seems folly to me. Or at the very least, entirely impossible. Elation and dejection as part of a whole. One does not exist without the other and the contrarian nature within both. The very real feeling to be left empty within what should be bliss. Or even at the lowest points of despair, the balance will at least ebb you to some sensation of numbness, a benign center, if only temporarily to come crashing back down. Laughter at a funeral, tears upon the success of a loved one- these sorts of extremes are vital to the way I seem set to live, be it doom or destiny.

The ability to harbor each end and all the betweens is crucial to a well lived life, were you to ask me. And the fear or anticipation is not in existence of this flux, but rather in its absence.

It used to be believed, by yours truly, that the longer I have lived, the less I might be able to hold the capacity to feel. All the flesh and sense of humanity chipped away until only the stone shaped self remains. I know this to be false. This past year alone has granted more engagement in the full spectrum of emotional capacity than I might have experienced in so much of the last decade.

I wonder now whether it is only the expansion of emotion and experience that makes it appear in such a light, to seem to be dwindling. So much more being acquired and contained, that it only makes it appear as though it is less. Not claiming actuality of fact on either such hypothesis. Just that in the whole ‘human emotion’ business, perception is the prominent path of influence in any which sort of way.

My reading has been growing voracious again. Something that even in times when I drift away from it, I always seem to find my way back. The backpack that travels with me from work to home, and all the other places, has contained a small and diverse library again. And potent material, generally speaking, as I do not have the attention span nor the desire to engage in anything less than fulfilling written works.

The stories I’ve consumed the last few days have been heavy handed on ideas of evil, of humankind’s capacity for cruelty. One, a work of fiction, and the other, a creative interpretation of a primary source- both hovering about the same time period, just shy of a century ago, contained in a massive but singular event that included, more or less, every human being on the entire planet in various forms of aggressive and opposing actions. Horrors, all around. Heroism and victimhood and so very much of the ugly and ambiguous everything else. That place where most people ultimately live. Where most people throughout the tidal undulations of time end up being. That being victorious does not make you just. That being persecuted does not make you good. That being brave does not mean benevolence. And that being uncertain does not mean cowardice.

Doing my best not to forget these things, especially when being recounted by those who lived through them, as I had not. And careful more still, to not see all that goes on today as direct parallels. A trope so easy that I could, but won’t here, argue that helped lead us to this predicament of species going on at the moment. These times in which I write now, which I find it hard to see as not being momentous.

The old stories help with that. A reminder that to see what was going to end up being is always impossible in the exact. They didn’t see what happened to them coming, even with the utmost awareness and intention. At least not upfront. At least not until it was too late. The echoes of history are just that. Not the source of the sound, but the reverberations as it passes from human to cave. The sonic source of chaos is so often derived from us beasts, when not Nature herself. And each beast is different, even when aligned in similar genres.

To steal a line from someone, ‘history doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes’.

Use your precious internet if you’d like to find the origin. I’m just not claiming it as my own.

Here’s another one from that guy, ‘a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.’ Well, it was either that guy or another fellow known for some decent lines. But all my life I’ve seen the output of information devolve into just another form of entertainment. And a growingly vicious one at that, and rather non-partisan when zoomed out enough. Fear sells much like sex- quick, addictive and easy. Generationally habit forming and constantly reinventing itself quicker it seems than we are able to keep up with.

The television has been filled with liars, and the cellular telephone, even more so. That’s the thing though. Liars like that can eventually end up believing their own fallacies. Both personally and globally, and depending on who you are or end up being- maybe both at the same time.

Since I just seem to be throwing out lines, I’ll give you one from one of those stories I just completed. Maybe the third time I’ve read it, but when it’s your favorite writer, it is easy enough to cycle back after enough time passes.

It is this- ‘We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.’

But this here thought and writing experiment isn’t for all that, those big political type of thinkings. Just know that your humble narrator ponders such things, along with everything else. But those thoughts can get sorted out somewhere else. On days that aren’t Mondays. Or at least not in their evenings.

This is meant for philosophy, both intensely personal and universally vague. Sometimes, and maybe in constant certainty, simultaneously. Exact to each moment and yet with the hopeful staying power of millennia, depending on the audacity of my ego’s temperament at the time of writing.  

So, I suppose, let’s just wrap with this. There are moments, there are feelings, there are people, that we should cherish. It is all finite to us mostly hairless apes. And it will all run out. Either those moments, people and/or feelings. And ultimately these selves that go about experiencing them. Hope for the best, but be prepared enough for its opposite. It will bound between those two for as long as you manage to be alive, which some day, you won’t be.

I’ll finish with another quote. The other two morals professed in a story most recently digested again by the man writing now, ones alongside the bit about what we pretend to be.

The lines are, as follows.

‘When you’re dead you’re dead.’

And the other-

‘Make love when you can. It’s good for you.’

And with that, good evening. For now.