Reality is quite surreal, don’t you think? Or so I often find myself thinking. And as is surely well enough known, thinking is a constant state for me.

But this little identity attempting to perceive itself, with the simultaneous attempted perception of the larger world all around. Never mind the incomprehensibly vast universe this whole experiment is bouncing around in. The reflection in the mirror and the face of those that witness whoever it is we appear to be, all meshed in a constant crudeness, always a moment behind. Always catching up in life, with our lives. Between the moments of grandeur and the long hauls of perceptible sorts of nothingness, always or so often just a fraction of a second off. Once we realize something has happened, it is likely already gone.

A funny thing, time. Though, it doesn’t always bring a laugh. What we see as it arrives- some to stay, some to go. Some burning for personal eternities, some just burning away.

Space, too. From the great big all of it, to the tiny, portioned parcels. Collections of particles impacting so profound because of proximity. Or the conundrum arising from absence of particular atoms. No matter what desire might demand otherwise- some bits of existence go and never become anything besides gone again.

A confession, dear reader. Along the bottom of my personal parameters it appears I have been coasting. Might be the words of former weeks have already given that away, just burying the lead in a wash of prose with vocabulary more verbose than would be managed without thesaurus assistance. Maybe the only soul even slightly fooled by the most former attempts has been the narrator. All his humility a shame, or some specter of his idiocy. Perhaps it hasn’t even been fooling him.

Yet, the attempt to equal out before the next equinox carries on. As it has, and will, until the breath falls for the final time from this flesh.

As much as I admire these quixotic efforts, I cannot help but wonder whether any value can be wrought from these evenings. For the times we find ourselves, gratification of the written word seems slow to a competitive antithesis. Reading levels are at planetary lows, and set to oppose the doom fixations and cheap visuals, I only seem to offer the arena of abstracted thought that would rather be honest in an ‘I don’t know’ than successful in some set of standard lies. In a world made from money hungry ancestors and a vast despondency of my peers, I seek with no conceivable plan to instill what slivers of conceptual collusion and chaos remain in a world where cheap dopamine addiction exists in a wide array of varieties. Gambling and site sanctioned stalking, all mixed with visuals vivacious and vicious- and the doom, always the doom. While knock off prophets spout imbecilic answers of divisiveness, concerned not for accuracy since there are far too few left with the attention or resources to refute any of it. There are those that think all this modern world is some calculated plan, perfectly performed in order to gain a domination that is succinct and absolute. Yet, were that to be the case, why is it that so many folks of all kinds are growing proportionately in frustration. Or despair, when their awareness dwells on the impossibility of anything to do about it.

Yet, I don’t believe our decline and decay is quite as designed as the more conspiratorial might think. Were there some cabal of genius society makers, surely they would want the beast under their command to not ache with insecurity or ignorance about existence as much as the apathetic crowd might confer. But in a world where folks quote 1984 without ever having read it, I would have to doubt that those persuaded of a prescribed and prophesized doom ever got themselves around to consuming the pages of Brave New World.

So, in spite to the cynicism so easy, I seek harder hopes. Not the personal sort of pleading, but the intention made to work towards more than what can even be conceived of at the moment. And this is an effort so often wrought with failure, if we count that past as prologue. But those funny things of time and space have a way of being better provoked in proper company. So seek that when I can I shall, and have, and hopefully always will. Not always the easiest for a single dad who lives mostly alone in the woods, but I make do. With a drive to south (very south) Brooklyn, or a quick march up towards the Massachusetts border, I find the folks who know my soul and we discuss or divulge in some strange expressions. For even if there might be no answers for me in every moment, there might be something that can be done for them. And if you cannot get a good feeling out of helping a friend, well, then you might have more wrong with you than you might admit.

Because there is no permanence in any of this, even if it last a lifetime. And even though I so often find myself in the trappings of the past that early middle age stereotypically claims, I fight to keep this heart of mine as young as I can manage. For even with the monsters among us, and they are most certainly abound- the chivalrous sort can still exist. In others, as well as in ourselves. And we must protect those protectors, as well. For I can tell you that losing a true and good knight from your life is a pain I would wish upon no one. And though there is no going back to right wrongs in time, there is still a future to do better in.