There were words scratched out over the last two dozen hours. On paper. And here I choose to leave them behind, and with no hesitation, face this beast. With my sword to slay, no rules to obey- aside the ones that I craft for myself.

There seems to be some righteous fury bellowing up from within. Seems only to be making itself known these last few hours, but perhaps it has been building for much longer. Smoldering, covered with thoughts depressed and damp while underneath, the energy has been building at some imperceptible but consistent pace. Is this, perhaps, the point of rupture? The smoke explosion after the introduction of fresher air? Or is this but that anger portion of grief?

Let’s find out, shall we? Or if not an answer to that, let’s at least get some better questions. Something cutting.

I suppose I have been dulling my edges, here and otherwise, for some time now. The reduction of my own sharpness, for what again? I seem to be unable to recall. Or any reason that I used to think was so paramount, suddenly seems so inconsequential now.

I’ve been at moments like this before, but only like. Each is their own. As each memory is only ever comparable to another and never identical. Not even the same portion of space and time witnessed by two separate beings is perceived, and consequently, remembered the same. Even when the wave lengths seem in harmony. Sometimes only seeming so, other times, so certainly so in as near perfect collusion that any two beings might get.

But this domestication of self, or at least the idea of it, I think I’ve had enough of it. It’s not as though it was ever true. Just a mask, my least honest one. Pretending that any box will be my home. That all I am can ever be compartmentalized in any sort of perpetuity. I forget, sometimes, so forgive me. The occasional sense of loss of self that you poor readers have been suffering through, that won’t be here tonight. And besides, there are other aims I’d like to harness this energy for, so onward.

You see, I think the trick is to be interested. In life, in the vague, and in the specifics that draw your mind and gaze. To want, not hopelessly, even when doomed. To find from exploration, without knowing what it is you are truly looking for. To chance when the heart thinks a chance might be worthwhile. Don’t fret the fall, the last few hadn’t killed you. They only make you better at breaking the fall. And picking yourself back up.

Don’t get me wrong, this is not a-washing myself of the sins of sadness. Nor do I deny that my heart isn’t still abundant with grief and guilt. This is more a proclamation of my continued fight against those stances. The admittance of feeding the worse end of habits is necessary to start fueling up the good.

There is an idea, I’m sure you’ve heard, about how someone looks ‘on paper’. And it’s funny to me, being that ‘on paper’ I could easily be perceived as a success story of a standard ideal for measuring. Especially in times where much of my and the surrounding generations have not claimed such statures, and certainly far fewer doing it on their own.

But that’s not the funny part. The funny part is how I can often find some of that to be the least interesting parts of who I am. At least when in ‘on paper’ terms. Stable, respectable employment. Homeowner. Father to a successful and wonderful young lady and maintaining a healthy, positive relationship with her mother, despite not being bound in matrimony. Truth be told, that might be part of the reason why. After all, two wrongs don’t make a right.

Yet, if those are the only metrics you would judge me upon, you would miss so very much. And how those other parts grant further power to all those ‘on paper’ checkmarks. And that applies to most humans. If what they are ‘on paper’ is the only positives or insights that being can exude, they might as well be a machine.

Because, there’s a poet here, somewhere. And some dive bar bard. Over there, might be the best dancer with nary a lesson in their life. The world’s best inspirational speaker could be a land surveyor by day. Someone who works in HR can analyze literature more in depth, honest and profound than the people who get paid to do that for a living. The best writer you might know could be working for some fancy school that they never even attended. There is a rockstar, right now, top-top-tier, earning a living in the various means at their disposal, as they’ve done without fail, for decades.

So, I suppose, I had been forgetting what truly interests me in life. And because of that, I’ve been less interested. And because of that, I have been less interesting. And sure, so easily can these quests for understanding and expression turn into ego feeding manias, but if so, then the thing- you know that thing you’re after whenever you bother to be creative of mind and spirit- that thing fades away. And so does the expression.

There was a line I read today, that maybe doesn’t even make sense here, but I like it, so I’ll share it.

‘What you don’t understand, you can make mean anything.’

Now, I’m sure in the context of the tale that I have ripped that from, it is ultimately meant to mean something pessimistic. Or at least dark. But I’m going to play with it otherwise.

It so often seems that the effort to understand too much, leads to the reduction of the grandeur that whatever it is holds innately. That classification and categorization takes away so often, rather than adding to it. To try and put something- an idea, a feeling, a person- into a box, you will destroy the very beauty of its truth. Not looking for a total abolishment of all sorts of understanding, but rather an encouragement of the peaceful way an unrelenting awe can inspire. It’s okay to be amazed by even the slightest gesture or scene. Even if you end up ultimately being wrong.

     This might also all be the rejection of the passivity I’ve been allowing to harbor in my person. I do not count on this universe to reward me. Nor do I trust that fate, or whatever the fuck you want to call it, has anything in store for me besides some eventual demise. And although I know that I cannot do everything, I know that there is always something that I can do. Lately, it’s been not all the best things. And I’m sure at some point, it will be that again. But in this fight to gain some sort of control over my reality, I know that within myself is the place where it must originate. Might be that is the only place it can ever truly be gotten at. I know this world is chaos, so often, even in this bout of optimism. I am not stupid. But even if that be tragically, that is still a better way to be than benign.

     Whatever this life is, gift or curse, it is the only experience that I can be anywhere certain that I’ll be having. So, I will make of it what I can. What I will. Even when steeped in delusion, I strive. And just because you don’t believe anyone is coming to save you, doesn’t mean you should stop trying to save others. Or so your humble narrator believes, diluted fool, though still charming, he is.

Or maybe this is all just my madness, going at it again. But it feels true, and a liar, I am not. Even when I cannot comprehend what is going on around or within me, honest is in a state of constant. Even when that means admitting that I don’t know.

I hurt, still. I grieve and miss that which is gone. This heart of mine seems always available for more breaking, while never being totally destroyed. There have been a great many lessons hard learned, and many more still to come. I spend a great amount of time worried of impossibilities while squandering so many possibilities still within grasp. I have paid dearly, at times, for my hope and my optimism. Consumed by the necromancer of negative thought, not even a few days from now. I have been plagued my unrelenting emotions, and don’t expect them to ever truly go away. Just made into something else, and maybe something else again, further down the line.

I know all of this, and still, I will not concede.

It was good to see a friend’s band play, this weekend. In a world of singer-songwriter types, I know that isn’t me. Not quite. Too much rock and roll for that.

Before the end of the week, I’ll be thirty-four years old. They say that age is just a number, but that doesn’t mean numbers don’t mean anything. But instead of a sentence of doom, I’m starting to think of it as an acclimation of points. This life, being some maddening game of sorts. In so many ways, I feel younger than I did a decade ago. And in the ways I feel the time truly accumulating, at this moment- I see the broader story of life at play. Tragedy and comedy, ebbing and flowing through this experience. Only an ultimate growth in interest, not a reduction of availability.

One score and fourteen years, and in so many ways, it feels as though I’ve only just begun.