There is the delirium of exhaustion about me, this evening. I wouldn’t lie to you, dear reader. At least not intending to. At least, not yet.

And so, when this feeling of strangely excitable weariness is about my mind, the governing functions of mental regulation tend to diminish, if not appear as vanished altogether. And being enough of a student of my own history, even if at times seemingly against my will, I tend to understand how the words can trend towards certain tides and tendencies in such states. So, I shall do my darndest to not give in to easy cynicism or the far too foolish forlorn fantasy that such mentalities can often invoke.

So onward, even though I haven’t much of a mind as to where this goes. Yet, if you’re never prepared, you’re always ready.

It does seem hope is hard found and fought, these days. Even in the glimmering moments we might seek or stumble upon, the sustenance to sustain appears ever fleeting. Especially when the unmitigated content technologically imposed and indulged in this age dampens our prowess for our more human moments, while also actively encouraging a further schism in the social dichotomies that are not as natural as certain forces would like us to feel and believe.

Don’t get it twisted, dear reader- there are divides that are real and festering, and pertinent issues that need to be addressed and promptly for the fate of a great many lives, and some would not so difficultly argue, the very fate of this species of ours moving forward. But in place of where there should be the quest for education and inquest towards better sorts of remedies (knowing that there aren’t really any answers in perpetuity, especially when getting down to specifics)- in place of some further attempt at peace and knowledge, antagonism aggressively pushes forth its agenda. Among ourselves, all neighbors whether near or far- but additionally, within each particular individual. I suppose, and the markets for the last few decades, or even centuries would agree, that there are great dividends in divisiveness as opposed to solutions. 

And while there may not be the specter of evil in certain places we might be made to look, there is no doubt to any reasonable mind that malevolence, even the unimaginable kinds to the layperson, most certainly exists. There’s proof of it, regularly and recently. And much like the efforts to keep the masses divided, the actions of the awful produce monetary and influential rewards. Such standards of ‘success’, I would argue, could even be directly related to the level of atrocity that particular individuals and groups would be willing to commit. Not being able to prove it, though, mathematically- I’d imagine that you understand and would agree with the theory, if on educated hunch alone.

I say all this, of course, knowing full well I am far from saint myself. In mistakes alone, there is a wake of damage behind me, and more still, ahead. And mistakes are not the only things I’ve made. As part of all the humanity that allows inspiration and the perception and digestion of beauty- I am also vain, selfish, emotionally tumultuous (madness and melancholy among my most recycled pastimes), bitter, and doubting. Cursed to the inside of this skull, this consciousness of mine is never far from pondering little more than myself, even when acting in some higher altruism. I crave and delve into behaviors on occasion that are at best pitiable, if not something more akin to some barbaric devolution.

But the quest for understanding leads me along to atonement and apology, not irregularly, for the damages done. And being that it is my own moral metrics being measured, my still narcissistic self-antagonism regular checks the hubris and sense of grandeur. I overdo it, sometimes, I have been told. And though the folks I know and who know I with deep caring may say I can be a bit hard- or a lot- on myself, I still deem that better than being some guilt and blame resistant monster. For, tragically, folks like that do exist. And many of them are doing quite well according to certain metrics of attention, affluence and agency. So well, it seems, that it isn’t hard to find the faulter in our sense of hope about it all. So little cash, so little time, and so little energy left unspent in the more or less honest quests of those other two.

Yet, it is the ‘us’ part of that which provokes my philosophical interrogation, at the moment. Forgive me, I must go try and find something I read in the last week or so, in a large book with small text. And I may get distracted, or put on a record. Or both. To you, though, this will all seem but just another line away.

 Well, whatever line I thought it was I was looking for, I did not find. Should have made note of it when it occurred, but add that to the list of my failures, great and small.

Still, I managed to step outside, and look upon the sky, spying the celestial beings so very far away from where my miniscule self stood. No matter how hot they burn from so far away, if they even burn at all anymore or are but the whisper of their light reaching your humble narrator now- the sky above and about me seemed cold, and with that, comes a clarity.

And that clear sense reminds me that we matter not as much as we feel that we do. That we are too brief to even be considered temporary by any standard close to semi-cosmic. Yet within this blink of an existence, is all I’ll ever know. And immortality, at least within this self I currently reside, is a curse I wouldn’t wish for myself- I still ponder and toy with ideas of what will outlast me.

And that’s just it, isn’t it? The thinking. That which will outlast me is the stuff of ideas. Of notions and a promotions of thoughts potent enough to be acquired, in part at least, by someone that will exist beyond me in time. Might even be, if the idea is worthy enough, that it may survive long enough to be even partially impactful to a soul not even occurring yet on this existential plane. Or so I have gathered, after being induced and influenced by such ideas from ghosts unknown personally yet persevering still they are through time. Though, even among the ideas that extend beyond singular lifetimes, not all are good. As it is human beings they are crafted from, humanity unadulterated it always stinks of, even if the stench is like that of some appealing fragrance.

So, I suppose, it is still benevolence that ferments the yearning urging me forward. For myself, sure, how could I not want some good for myself, all weak within my own sentience? But of a good that is beyond this individual life. The akin kind that I have found myself from those stories and sentiments left from those that were before and now beyond.

It isn’t that the itch of cynicism is non-existent this evening. And it is not that I live in ignorance of it, either. But rather, through my acknowledgement I find understanding, or some quasi-relative of it- that knowing the adversaries within my own cognitive capacities, I can better counter and keep them at bay, and thus, allowing the more worth sense and sentiments to pass further in time, to be captured and refined. And from there, to lead to something better than what was, even if there is no ultimate destination on such paths.

Or maybe there is, but I’d reckon I won’t be around to find out.

Still, the march presses onward. For as long as I can muster the might, and even perhaps a bit longer. Not reward oriented, but just in effort of the belief that a better morality and mentality can continue to find itself. And within the mistakes made and monstrosities of which I am responsible, I aim to balance the moral ledger away from debt and demise. And maybe, just maybe, all the efforts of mine might leave this place and her inhabitants better than the state in which I found it. Or, in which it, found me.