How far we have come to grow nothing...
I find my way back to this particular graveyard of a journal due to a lack of anywhere else to go or talk. Somehow over the course of time since I used to post here, I traversed to all four corners of the U.S., and wound up in Africa. I am not so sure my choices were wise, but that can much be said about all my life thus far.
When I was young, I once argued as the devils advocate against a man about the idea of putting faith in learning from the mistakes of others. I suggested that perhaps it is the person who has made their way with utmost success that should be trust best, vice the person who stumbled their entire time. I now find myself on the edge of 30 looking back a wracked lifetime of mistakes, stumbling, trails of people I have hurt, and so many problems as to only be humbled to bear witness to what I am. The hardest thing I think for people to admit and face is their own villainy. In rare moments, we are graced with the chance to have it confronted with such undeniable force as to present us with that opportunity to have it fully blind us with the truthfulness of its fact.
Not everyone is lucky enough to realize those moments when they come. Some pass them right on by. Others allow such thoughts to persist for a time, and let it little affect them. Some merely take advantage of the situation to only do more. I won’t say I have only had one options, nor that I have been well manner enough to not choose any of the aforementioned choices. Sometimes, we are blinded equally by our justifications and fears, which we allow to use to commit ourselves to a cause of survival. It may simply be emotional, as well as it could be financial or physical. What happens when you reach the precipice of your life, and look out over the valley you have reaped, and realize that perhaps survival is not all its cracked up to be? I used to fear death so much, as much as I sometimes yearned it at moments. I find a peace now in knowing I wish neither, but am calmly willing to accept it when and how it comes, soon or later. It’s a strange feeling, especially in retrospect of knowing that I once never believed I could understand how people can find a comfort in time with such a notion, a serene sort of balance on the subject.
The biggest tragedy I think, is looking around at others and knowing they do not see what you do. This is not to say I do not appreciate or believe in the utmost in humanity. Rather, I believe in a great deal of nobility and intelligence in people despite my own tendency to be misanthropic and antisocial given any stretch of an opportunity. A curious notion I have often mused, and find a degree of frustration to explain that disliking people does not necessitate that I do not admire them. However, this deters from the subject more then it addresses it, which is to say that despite all this that people are graced with, there are those who everyday pass up the chance to do better by those they pass. I know I have, I know I still do. Sometimes I fight against myself, to attempt to do good. I would not venture to say I am able to maintain such a pace for a period as long as I should and frequently fall back into the terrible nature of giving in to the easy nature of self indulgence and self preservation.
Somehow in all my rambling this makes some manner of sense for me to relating to my notions of self analysis and recent regrets. It is a bitter pill to swallow, this humility I spoke of, when you feel you are cultivating this plant, a particular future, path, or whatnot, that will grow and bloom. Instead, at the end of the proceeding you exist only to bear witness to the fact that you alone with the worst poison to that cause, or perhaps the cause itself was the poison?
There are reasons and explanations in all this. I can look back at my life all the way back to my parents and youth and explain how and why I do what I do, and who created me into this thing I am. We breed a new set of orphans, those people who grow up parentless with parents. It is almost a tangible thing this disappointment that clings about the many people in what their parents didn’t, or perhaps didn’t do for them. When did we get so lost from our paths of family that we are taught to war with one another, and set the stage for only future conflicts. We become so dug into our trenches that we protect ourselves more from those closest to us then from our own enemies out of reflexes. In the end, all these explanations culminate to an undeniable confusion that when the day ends it is still us that bears fault for being what we are. I think the only think that outweighs my own guilt for my existence and what I have cost other people, is the guilt of not knowing how or if I can ever fix it, or if anyone can. Perhaps I have come full circle to be the victimizer where once I was the victim, and this is what happens to many others of us? Offenses being a good defense, we would sooner crucify the world then let ourselves be the first to bleed. Stubbornness is a religion now, and a demanding one at that. In the end the price perhaps is having to face yourself, and in light of this knowledge I suddenly find myself questioning if it would not have better to allow myself to be wounded more in life ? In the end, what purpose truly tangibly exists other then being able to leave it all content, and with the grace and comfort of having made a friend in the world to comfort that passing.
In this respect I have failed thus far in my years, and wonder if I am young enough yet to stop the latter half of my life from being so equally wasted. But similar to knowing why you become what you did and not knowing how to change it, it is equally difficult to then know what you need to do, but not be sure how to do it.
When I was young, I once argued as the devils advocate against a man about the idea of putting faith in learning from the mistakes of others. I suggested that perhaps it is the person who has made their way with utmost success that should be trust best, vice the person who stumbled their entire time. I now find myself on the edge of 30 looking back a wracked lifetime of mistakes, stumbling, trails of people I have hurt, and so many problems as to only be humbled to bear witness to what I am. The hardest thing I think for people to admit and face is their own villainy. In rare moments, we are graced with the chance to have it confronted with such undeniable force as to present us with that opportunity to have it fully blind us with the truthfulness of its fact.
Not everyone is lucky enough to realize those moments when they come. Some pass them right on by. Others allow such thoughts to persist for a time, and let it little affect them. Some merely take advantage of the situation to only do more. I won’t say I have only had one options, nor that I have been well manner enough to not choose any of the aforementioned choices. Sometimes, we are blinded equally by our justifications and fears, which we allow to use to commit ourselves to a cause of survival. It may simply be emotional, as well as it could be financial or physical. What happens when you reach the precipice of your life, and look out over the valley you have reaped, and realize that perhaps survival is not all its cracked up to be? I used to fear death so much, as much as I sometimes yearned it at moments. I find a peace now in knowing I wish neither, but am calmly willing to accept it when and how it comes, soon or later. It’s a strange feeling, especially in retrospect of knowing that I once never believed I could understand how people can find a comfort in time with such a notion, a serene sort of balance on the subject.
The biggest tragedy I think, is looking around at others and knowing they do not see what you do. This is not to say I do not appreciate or believe in the utmost in humanity. Rather, I believe in a great deal of nobility and intelligence in people despite my own tendency to be misanthropic and antisocial given any stretch of an opportunity. A curious notion I have often mused, and find a degree of frustration to explain that disliking people does not necessitate that I do not admire them. However, this deters from the subject more then it addresses it, which is to say that despite all this that people are graced with, there are those who everyday pass up the chance to do better by those they pass. I know I have, I know I still do. Sometimes I fight against myself, to attempt to do good. I would not venture to say I am able to maintain such a pace for a period as long as I should and frequently fall back into the terrible nature of giving in to the easy nature of self indulgence and self preservation.
Somehow in all my rambling this makes some manner of sense for me to relating to my notions of self analysis and recent regrets. It is a bitter pill to swallow, this humility I spoke of, when you feel you are cultivating this plant, a particular future, path, or whatnot, that will grow and bloom. Instead, at the end of the proceeding you exist only to bear witness to the fact that you alone with the worst poison to that cause, or perhaps the cause itself was the poison?
There are reasons and explanations in all this. I can look back at my life all the way back to my parents and youth and explain how and why I do what I do, and who created me into this thing I am. We breed a new set of orphans, those people who grow up parentless with parents. It is almost a tangible thing this disappointment that clings about the many people in what their parents didn’t, or perhaps didn’t do for them. When did we get so lost from our paths of family that we are taught to war with one another, and set the stage for only future conflicts. We become so dug into our trenches that we protect ourselves more from those closest to us then from our own enemies out of reflexes. In the end, all these explanations culminate to an undeniable confusion that when the day ends it is still us that bears fault for being what we are. I think the only think that outweighs my own guilt for my existence and what I have cost other people, is the guilt of not knowing how or if I can ever fix it, or if anyone can. Perhaps I have come full circle to be the victimizer where once I was the victim, and this is what happens to many others of us? Offenses being a good defense, we would sooner crucify the world then let ourselves be the first to bleed. Stubbornness is a religion now, and a demanding one at that. In the end the price perhaps is having to face yourself, and in light of this knowledge I suddenly find myself questioning if it would not have better to allow myself to be wounded more in life ? In the end, what purpose truly tangibly exists other then being able to leave it all content, and with the grace and comfort of having made a friend in the world to comfort that passing.
In this respect I have failed thus far in my years, and wonder if I am young enough yet to stop the latter half of my life from being so equally wasted. But similar to knowing why you become what you did and not knowing how to change it, it is equally difficult to then know what you need to do, but not be sure how to do it.