In midst of the longest nights of this most recent solar cycle, optimism can seem so hard fought. Part of being a mammal, I suppose. Unless, of course you, dear reader, are something more reptilian. Which I do doubt very much. This bleeding heart semi-biographical philosophizing business seems to be a more endothermic affair. But maybe that just means this is all for the birds.

There is something ancient to the time of year. Something poorly articulated and arraigned by pre-modern, modern, and post-modern sentimentalities alike- yet still so convincing that some form of it keeps finding its way into the lives of us poor, sentient simians on this sometimes hopelessly seeming rock.

Which is wrong to say, quite blatantly. Talking about the rock itself. If it weren’t for this little cosmic biome we find ourselves breeding out upon generation after generation, we would have no concept of hope to ever even understand the feeling of hopelessness. You know, how could you ever know true sadness without the feeling of ever being joyful, and similar such human shit.  

So, it might be that it is just that us sapiens are the hopeless lot. Yet even if that be the case, we so often stand in defiance of that. I mean, have you ever heard music? Like the real kind made by broken hearts and kindred circumstance? What an act of insubordination to the abyss is that, right?

Still, it isn’t a stretch to say that hope seems heavy and well-hidden these days. And complex, because I am certain when I write about some unfindable hope- a different idea leaps forth from each of your minds. Each unique, even if they rhyme. Yet it is in times more void of aspiration, that it is paradoxically of its utmost importance. Within the darkness, the light, and so on. Blah, blah, blah, etc.

And I wonder about my own forward facing chronophobia, and if I am even as alone in that as I sometimes believe. Considering it has a name derived from ye olde Greek, I am certainly not the first, which is just another blow to this façade of a fragile ego. Yet onward, into the future, while always seeming a bit lacking in navigational clarity. But as there is no going back, and we can hardly stay here for more than a moment, forward it must be. Still, what is a dopey civil servant poet to do in the face of all the energized and engorged aspiring despots and demagogues?

Write, it seems.

In some ways, it feels as though certain delusions are appearing harder to betray. And while not saying that to be some truth, absolute or otherwise, illusions of grandeur and dismay can seem so convincing. Especially so in this world where the benevolent doubt and the malevolent thrive, the right sort of fight can seem impossible, if you can even find its beginning to begin with.

Maybe this antiquated-esque form is dooming me. Would all this be better received were it accomplished in the same solitude, yet with less thought, shouting and grandstanding into a single camera set somewhere in the room? Call me old fashioned, but that seems a little masturbatory pornographic to me. I like my philosophical smut a little more nuanced, a little more poetic- you know, a real romantic.

And to stand up for the form, there is a level of introspection that comes with the more thought-out word that sings to a deeper truth. All the things I say would seem so much more profound, were I to take the time and write them out. And this one, I’ve been writing throughout the day, and conjuring intellectually well into the past of yesterday. Maybe I’ve been writing this my whole life. Which certainly makes it seem like a good thing that I feel nowhere near done, even as this evening’s ramble finds its way to conclusion. More to say, or rather, to write- well that only means that there is so much more to get on with living about.

Still, the time of the year can be a drag, if you allow it, which this year I seem strangely immune to. Or at least well enough inoculated to the bullshit that it isn’t crushing my spirit as it once had. And if the corporate yuletide hogwash is the only or main motivating factor in your increased positivity and mood, I pity you. Unless I don’t like you. Then I’ll just be indignant and indifferent towards your perspective in varying degrees. For if you’re holding out for some celestial Santa Claus to gift you something jovial, holding your breath might be fatal to any actually worthwhile spirit your soul might hold. That, and you’re missing the point of such stories in their essence.

Either way, you can’t fool me. There ain’t no sanity clause.

Yet, I know as much as any scientific fact in the observable universe, that soon, the days will grow longer again. The winter tests us, especially if you live somewhere that gets cold. And as has happened for various reasons throughout all these generations of our species, plenty of folks don’t emerge to see spring. I think of a soul I miss dearly when that concept emerges into mind. And while I know each day brings me further away from him, onward I must go. If for nothing else, I must honor the hope he held out for me. Even when he didn’t feel it for himself, he believed it for your humble narrator. Can’t go about disrespecting the wishes of the greatest man I ever met, even if he couldn’t stay around for it.

But that’ll do for this evening. My mind needs refilling before anymore wringing. And there is much business to be getting on with. Though I sympathize, I am no Scrooge. And life gets its way onward, whether we want it to or not.

After all, you’re only so far away from your next funeral. Or worse, a wedding.