The mists that lingered about this morn seemed so selfishly akin to the fog about my mentality. Curse of individualistic western world, perhaps, between these winter holidays. Before retreating to the other side of the globe, our personal star broken through the overcast to bid this part of the world farewell, adding yet another layer to these thinkings. And just before, I was looking up the half a moon scouring its stolen light upon the snow covered earth, granting a glow that echoes throughout my being, binding these thoughts to the action of casting them upon page.

So, here we are.

It would almost seem obligatory to remark upon the recent year as it recedes and fades to some proximate oblivion. And within the same literary breath, beckon into being the solar cycle that is set to emerge in few dozen hours.

But such reflections are in no way estranged from these rambles, no matter where in time the calendar might claim we be. The echoes of sight and sound and so on, as I ponder the steps onward into  the imperceptible peripheral part of the timeline we call the future. To think back on what has been and burned and blown up since the ones place of the year changed last. Of all that was gained, if anything, and all that was lost, which was so much. To acknowledge and make amends with my own shortcomings and failures, and maybe a few of my fellow humans, but not all. And to, somehow, declare a resolve towards that unattainable idea of betterment. And I say unattainable, for if even a portion is achieved and no further steps are taken- the quest then turns into complacency, then stagnation, until some ultimate demise down these battered avenues of existence.

All these stories told and untold.

All this hope and despair, and in the grief, somehow still, wondering what to wear.

Although impermanent and petulant, this life, is all I’ve ever known or will, nary a contrarian belief to show intending otherwise.

So, what is a near middle aged millennial to do in all this thought about what and why and how? Read about ancient religions, of course.

Two streams of thought emerged in the pages of this history I’ve been mulling about. The first, vaguely, has to do with the idea of life of the individual serving the life of the species as a whole. That efforts are made not for the person themselves, but the advancement of ideas and purpose beyond the solo sentience and to assist throughout the ages, to bring forth more for those who have yet to even be born. It isn’t hard to see how ideas like that can easily, and dangerously, go astray. But when well used, this is a thought process that can help produce greatness beyond the person and has certainly, in a varying abundance of ways, led to the advancement of this human race, as we’ve come to see ourselves.

The other has to do with the individual, or at least is processed through the idea of self, but in a way that aims to reduce or eliminate the potency of selfishness and desire to better see the whole of the world and as much of existence as can possibly be perceptible.

And with all things ancient, there is much wisdom to be gained, but also, plenty of warning. For all the might have known more succinctly than us, there is one thing that we know that they never will. We know how it all went down for them. Mostly, in ruin. But as with all ideas older than ourselves, there must be much taken from them but with enough perspective to never take them as answers. Should our lives be lived for that which is beyond ourselves? For that greater good and the progress of this few thousand year old species of reduced hair apes. But it can easily be overlooked that so many of the monsters that have emerged from humanity thought they were serving some benevolence beyond themselves, even when what they were doing is aligned more with what most would call evil.

And sure, you should look inward to shave away the parts of self that are detrimental and damaging to refine the perspective with which you interact with the rest of existence. But while all that is well and good, it can so easily slip into waves of total ignorance to all that which is around you. Meditating while people starve, while the world burns, and so forth.

Or maybe I was just reading it all wrong.

It might all be deflection. And the paralysis of making mistakes, or the fear of it, so often shouting out paradoxically. Not taking steps out of terror of what might happen and the wasting of time wondering about what might have been. Or part of this mental curse I hold. Thoughts upon the origin of all this, knowing that it is never for me to truly why. Or even smell it. Yet, still, yearn and ache always for understanding, and even skimming centuries of sentience left behind by minds far more capable than mine, all while the wonder only sways this and that way, never nearing the mythical truth we all stay so convinced must be there, even though not a soul has seemed to have seen it.

It is something, though, how the same tune can sing of yesterday and tomorrow simultaneously. Maybe that is because it is only ever in the present and we only think of ourselves as being elsewhere. Lost in the attempts of cultivation, missing out entirely on the sensation that just is. To just be.

For there is no going back, not really. And maybe even while misunderstanding where it is I actually am, the clock knocks your humble narrator forward, again, and again. And on more than one occasion, landing upon my face. But fret not, dear reader, the money maker hasn’t been destroyed just yet. And it might be that the scars make it all seem so distinguished.

Maybe this all seems a bit anticlimactic for the end of this year’s rambles, but if anything can be wrung out of this year, it would be a caution regarding expectations. I have emerged from this desk feeling accomplished, only to have life devastate me as soon as I stand up from these keys. And though I still show no signs of quitting, I also know that forcing anything, and certainly the creative acts- only diminishes the art and its caster.

I look forward to the future, because it’s the only place left to go. I’ve already been to the past, so have you. And we can’t stay here, never for more than a moment. So forward, we must. That, or doom. And despite everything, I am nowhere near ready for that. Or if not being unprepared, I certainly have no desire to succumb to oblivion yet, even if I occasionally dancing around it.