Becoming more real
Once upon a time, and I don't remember when I got the idea - I got the thought that age 50 was going to be my peak year.
I'm 49 right now.
And another time, and I do know where this thought came from - it came from reading Dante and listening to lectures on the entirety of Commedia - Inferno is that you have decided to negate self. Yes, I understand many people don't see it that way.
I'm not going to get into that whole thing right now - but Inferno is dissolution and negation and ultimately a frozen desert at the center. Purgatorio is actually fire at its pinnacle, where all the extraneous is burned away and everything that weighs you down is removed and you become so light you float up into space... which is Paradiso. At which point, you dance among the planets, and it's big ole party time. It's light, and music, and dancing.
Heaven is a rave.
But where was I.
[Related: Building a Modern Hell]
So it's very strange, but it's like one removes all the stuff that isn't you - there's the block of marble, and then you take away all the chunks that are not part of the statue and then you get...
the Pieta by Michelangelo
Well, there are all sorts of things that could be in that marble. Who knows.
But I do feel like I am becoming more real. It's a very odd feeling.