Can I tell you, my friend? I feel death in my bones. It makes me want to cry.
Not death of body, death of spirit. Though there’s certainly the feeling that my body is wasting away with every passing year.
I’m reading an essay titled Of Peace of Mind by Seneca. It’s my bedtime reading. Or perhaps daily meditation. I can’t adequately express how much that essay speaks to me.
I’m in this prolonged changeless season. Some years feel like months, and some months like years. These past years have felt like decades. So much has transpired, and yet so little. Moves, jobs, living arrangements, lifestyle changes, and the like.
Throughout it all, there has been a growing pressure, as if I have no where else to go. My aspirational visions have withered to attend to more present things: fulfill my current duties to the best of my ability, and derive a sense of pleasure and accomplishment for their fulfillment. This has made me fulfilled. Being responsible is satisfying, on some level.
The daily routines of mechanical habit give a sense of structure and meaning to my otherwise turbulent thoughts. This rigidity provides security, my daily bread.
But I feel malnourished.
Bread is not enough.
These daily disciplines act as gates that guard against the vacuous abyss that siphon whatever pleasure I can wring from life.
I’d like to tear down the gates, and jump into the abyss, race to the bottom, rather than fight to escape. I want to feel the center of its crushing gravity, and let it tear me apart and unfurl my spirit like an exploding star.
William Dare 