-^-for posterity-^-

the day was overwhelming. work has piled up to such a state that i feel trapped under thousands of invisible books and pieces of paper and chalk. they’re not really invisible because i can make out their fuzzy, translucent shape in the sky. it feels like they are hovering over me, their presence blocking the sun.

when i was young things were simpler. what you needed was always provided for you. what you didn’t need, people who were older and wiser than you always advised you to correctly refute. sometimes you went along with it, against the wishes of your elders. they normally stood by with their arms folded and smiled as you failed. they knew these lessons would be necessary for your future.

now things aren’t so cut and dry. the weight of those invisible books and the weight of relationships lost has created a void in your life. there just isn’t that innocent feeling of security, that inner peace. things have gone wrong. at some point in the course of your life a wrong turn was taken.

i don’t know where or when it was.

all this comes to a point. the point breaks and things then start to go even worse.

i came home from work early today because i wasn’t clear in my head or my heart or my void. there were two sticks rubbing against one another in my soul and it was starting to get smoky. soon enough there would have been fire and i didn’t need that.

i drove my bicycle home down that one dirt road with all the rocks on it. the tires were not made for a rocky road and it astonished me that they didn’t pop under my weight and the ferociousness of my pedaling. i drove down the road, over the concrete bump at the security guard’s house and parked. i walked up to my room, sat at my computer and started to work.

things were going alright for a little bit. ideas were flowing through my fingers and onto little metallic blue keys. i felt free for a bit, there’s a freeing power in work. that’s what voltaire’s ‘candid’ was all about. work is the only thing we really have that frees us from what life is, what our mortal nature makes it.

i paused.

the ideas jammed up and my reality set in. those invisible books appeared over my head again. my lost relationships, my isolation, my loneliness, they all came back and pricked me from all sides. i paced around the room a bit, unconsciously wanting them to all go away but they impeded the ideas. nothing could flow because of them and they were the justification for all of the flowing in the first place. i was stuck.

i walked out to my balcony and stood there looking at the trees. i never really look at the trees when i step out on my balcony, i usually tell myself i’m looking at the trees. my eyes blur and i talk about how incredible nature is, how wild this ride is and that, like the trees, i too will one day crumble to the earth and that’s ok.

i pretend to look at the trees and i realize they are moving. i tell myself the trees are moving. i’m standing still and they’re moving. i’m covered in invisible books with old friends poking me in the ribs while the trees dance in the wind.

i yell. it’s the yell one would give if they were stabbed, or in incredible pain. it’s not a yell of sadness, it’s the yell one would give if they fell down the stairs and broke their leg. it’s a short yell, maybe one second, but it’s enough to scare the invisible books away.

the wind still moves the trees.

i still have no peace so i find my incense sticks that people use here for ancestral veneration. it’s always nice to have some incense sitting around for when you have no inner-peace. i take out three sticks and light them.

i once again stand at the balcony, this time with an offering. i ask for peace and i promise to work for righteousness. i try to make a deal with god. you give me peace, i’ll work for righteousness, which, if i remember correctly, is something we’re all supposed to do.

i bow three times as people do here. peace and righteousness. peace and righteousness. peace and righteousness.

i take the sticks and place them where i always place them, in my bathroom sink. with this, the ashes can fall into the sink but it does look like a macabre alter to mouth wash and soap.

never mind, the smoke rises. it passes the mirror and collects on the ceiling.

now life is beautiful. now i can continue what i was doing. the work is still there but work can set on free if one allows it to.

how do we cope with our insanity.