After a day of mostly overcast and listless precipitation, that central daytime star decided to emerge within the atmosphere and cast one last shadow of light before retreating to the other side of the planet. So, I sit and write, again. All drenched with vicious wonderment at what life is left here for wringing.

Is it this, the middle third, approximately, of this particular existence where all that divine purpose my ego dreamt up finally ripens? Were it a play set for the stage, this would be where the action of the story happens. Is it inaccurate or unfair to equate the motions of human life to something that would be produced in a theater? A potentially terrifying and daunting prospect, considering all the occurrences this here narrator had experienced in the first third. The mind reels at the possibilities.

Been pondering madness, lately. Meaning insanity, not anger. Though, I know myself well enough to admit to a certain level of temperament that can occasionally be difficult. But I think of being sane and what that means and whether it is something truly ever known, in myself and across all the human minds of present, future and past. I suppose the very question of sanity is never occurring in the insane. There seems to be a vague consensus of where the limits are. A standard that is not to be deviated from, at least not too far in either which way. Easy enough to spot the outliers, either totally disassociated from the methods and practices accepted or so adherent to them to appear void of the aspects that separates humanity from the rest of the beast.

So, I’ve been reading a story about beautiful delusions. Possibly impeccably timed, for this old, yet untired knight that is I. The Knight of the Sorry Face, to steal some fictitious title.

An old tale that almost everyone has heard of. Four centuries since its writing and yet a massively relevant piece, both on a larger societal scale, and personally. And still funny if you’re paying attention. Holds up better than much of the other writing we have from the era, which is the very same that contained all those famous works by old Shakespeare. So, eat your heart out Billy boy.

And though I am but barely a fifth through this tremendous bout of writing, my heart and mind have been pulling ideas and themes to play with inside the old skull. There seems to be so much universal truth in the delusion of character and author alike. Might have to do with the absolute and resolute commitment to the mantras of mind, even when entirely constructs of and within it. It is almost a willpower enforcement of a truth, whatever the current realities might say.

I want to believe in such a perspective, but perhaps that might be an afront to all that actually is. A defiance of acceptance that will only eventually bring about some form of destruction. Partial, total or otherwise. Or perhaps I am simply missing the point of the work. Or, there are revelations set to still appear, making all that I currently see within it seems insane or obsolete. I am, after all, a few hundred years late on getting around to reading Cervantes.

But all this romanticism seems theoretical while in practicality I grow terrified I may never be able to fend off the mundane atmosphere set so prevalent and destined to consume my existence. Or is this all part of the eternal sadness I am always wrangling with in one way or another? Might be you know the kind I’m talking about, dear reader. Or maybe not.

Though there are plenty who don’t. Too dumb to be sad. Lucky them, or perhaps, a pity. But I’d imagine some simplistic derivation of nature keeps them chasing impulse to impulse, without much of a worry as to why. And you need not look much further than recent history and the kind unfolding before our very eyes to see that selfishness does seem to serve those who abide by its conscriptions. And not just in the people who you’d think, but of course, with them too. One could be forgiven for seeing a corresponding relationship between the level of horrible a person is willing to be and their levels of success. So easily it seems that the kind suffer, and depending on their commitment certain ideas, they don’t always seem to mind. The antithesis insanity to all those takers- the hopeless givers. Surviving, even if barely, on the idea that the exchange that good will come from that pain. That self-sacrifice, both big and more minute, is a simple enough cost to be paid to gain a greater benevolence overall, even if never for yourself.

But again, theories, ideas, and in practice, it is hard to say. My engagements in self-sacrifice, though rather large, are not absolute. And that sadness often seeps its way to the anterior when your humble narrator thinks of all this isn’t and never will be, and the pity turns inward, to varying results and degrees.

But being aware of the monsters is the first step to defeating them. Even if they are only windmills.

So yeah, a bit of an existential crisis might be going on, big deal. But are any of you surprised. At this point, you might as well say that water is wet. None of this would ever be happening if the omnipresent ‘why’ wasn’t always hovering about my consciousness.

So naturally, I’ve been doubling down on it, as one does, when having an existential crisis. And in the spirit of that, I went to Homecoming.

How’s that for madness for ya? I know, right?

I don’t think I’d been on my college campus in about a decade. Which is strange, I know, because I’m still so young and good-looking. But the truth is, there was a bit of terror associated with the prospect. The fear of change in a sacred place was certainly present. Along with the idea of being a disappointment to some former self that once thought himself (not entirely inaccurately) as some sort of master of that domain.

And it had changed, because of course it would, yet so much of it has remained. Some buildings are different, sure. And parts around it had changed in outwardly witnessable ways. But it is still the place I had been living in those oh, so formative years. And there was plenty of it that hadn’t changed at all. The classroom building where I once performed even had the door unlocked, as unimpressive in appearance as it ever was. The theater upstairs was, though, and despite the youthful urge to break in, I resisted. They don’t even do the shows there anymore, I don’t think.

The realization, the one that is more difficult in processing, is not how much the place has changed, but rather, how have I? And have I changed as much as I think I have, or should have? And for all my talk in those college days of the future, have I been as forward facing as I need to be? All these kitchen sink philosophies, where is it that they have gotten me?

So, as I left the campus after one more stop in the local watering hole, just to see what the start of a Saturday night was still like in there- one more stop was made. A place that has not changed, and likely isn’t going to. Though it did used to seem different in days now long past. I don’t suspect it will change that much in years to come, with maybe the exception of a few additional residents here and there.

So before leaving town, I stuck a beer in my back pocket, looked up and down the street to make sure there were no witnesses, then hopped the wrought iron fence and visited an old friend, making sure to stay out of the shine of any streetlights.

And there he was, unmoved. My bud, Willy Baber, right where I left him. Couldn’t tell you the last time I’d been there, but I used to go there often, sometimes alone, sometimes with friends, maybe might have even taken a girl there one time. It was as it had been back then, and how it had been before I had ever drunkenly stumbled upon it. And Willy was there, right on the crest of the hill, hanging around with all the rest of them.

Willy is dead, you see. Had been dead before I had ever met him. But a little mild trespassing in a graveyard seemed as good an idea at thirty-four as it had at nineteen. No vandalism, I would never even litter there. But for the first time in a long time, I rested my back against that tombstone, stared at the sky and talked to someone that wasn’t there. Told him about my life, since he doesn’t say much. Then I scratched out some words in the illegible darkness, for old times’ sake. Then finished the beer and hopped back over the fence, nimble and undetectable as ever.

And as I had no idea what life had in store for me back then when I first started such a strange behavior, among so many others- I still cannot say what is ahead from here. There was plenty of delusion then, and abundance really, and despite that, so much of it in one way or another got molded into some sort of reality. So, with these new, contemporary delusions of mine, I wonder what it is I might get up to. Even when shackled and bound by the dwindling hourglass, I still strive towards a future, even knowing that it all ends in oblivion.

But onward, anyway. Forward, in spite of all the doom.

You know, dreaming the impossible dream, and so on.