| | Confounded and cursed paradox!
Baleful, enigmatic, twisted, indeterminateness!
...like sunshine and shadow writhing in some contorted dance with one another, jeering with false smiles...
Blast the inconsistency! The oxymoronical seasons continues, breathing its dread rasps of breath as one determined to putrefy the world to the utmost before departing. This mud end. End, I say! ...[big breath]... Such venom...I have found this week, ever more clear, how taxed my mind has become. The hours of toiling over schoolwork have dealt their damage. I've been resistent, but I have also been so so weak. My words have been of little else recently... I loath that fact. I loath it more than so much of the blackness of the world. But my heart is sick with its disease. It is, finally, spring break right now. And now, however, this week has caused me to realize how unwittingly instable my mind has become. The sun has shown down upon me, and so for some, this post may seem strange or ill-fitting, but it must flow out. For my soul is tired....so very, very tired. I am alive, walking, laughing, loving, and being blessed....but my soul is so very tired. Sunday I believe I realized this the most. The day felt as if it had been more akin to a gruelsome week, and so at the end, I welcomed my bed with the sense of a soldier returning home. The morning was marked by returning to visit my old church. I felt almost sick being in there. The atmosphere was oppressive, and I had to fight the urge to rudely ride home and go to bed. I saw the same religious absurdities that normally my optimistic mind would allow an understanding smile to, but my heart was jaded. I heard words but no action, songs but no truth, prayers but no thought...This, however, is expected to some degree. It is my hearts response--the animosity, bitterness, and unwillingness to simply find that which is good--that disturbed me.
...Though I daftly evaded the notion as I could, I soon saw I was calloused. Whatever light of goodness existed within those hours was bent around my own perception into the form of a shade, one that gnawed at my own heart. My prayers, my songs, my thoughts were all stagnant and dull, if not nearly meaningless. And only in the bright eyes of a child could I see thus. A little girl was held across the shoulder of a man in the pew in front of me. She smiled and laughed and played throughout the entire service, but at one point amidst a song which poured forth from my mouth like nothing but empty words, our eyes met. She stared quizzically at me for a few seconds, and I, in the dull unawareness I have recently possessed, continued my gaze as well...and then she formed the most sincere expression I believe I saw that day-- a frown. I dare not detail more of story than existed, but in the least, she served as a mirror to me. The sorrow I felt from her bowed head and dimmed eyes as she looked at me let me know one thing that at least for certain was in actuality-- between the souls of the two who looked upon each other...there was a profound difference. Children may dance honestly, sing beautifully, and laugh so sweetly because their effort of life is, simply put, to live. Their hearts have not been tarnished by cares. I remember such days, and I maintain that they remain still. I have felt them, and I live them. The sky is still just as blue and the sunset just as golden. But my own self of late has seen little other than grey, a patterned existence based on schedules and automaton-like living. The rest of Sunday felt such pains. So many points throughout the day I felt, almost without reason why, as if I would cry a torrent. Others, I would simply sit and stare, lethargic and worn, musing over how I wish I could simply sleep till some summer of life. My body became (and has been) physically tired from such a mental state. I simply wanted to rest. And eventually, that night, rest came. I greeted the bed as if no greater gift had been given to mankind, laid down, and just began to openly weep...though not of base sorrow, but actually of intermingling joy. And so is the absurdist paradox I have thus lived. I wept because it was finally spring break, because the next day I would celebrate my birthday with wonderful friends, because I had so many who love me so truly, because of the success I have faced. I cried myself to sleep, but did so with a smile. The next day was just as hoped. My friends met me to play racquetball, we embarrassed ourselves over ultimate frisbee afterwards, yelled and laughed over ridiculous hands in cards, screamed hysterically over a movie comedy of all movie comedies, and I saw, over and over, how much my girlfriend has truly loved me, along with reaffirming the extent of which family and friendship may enlighten the soul with selfless blessings. It was a brilliant birthday, and I have gotten more than I deserve. It reminded me of the success through which I've lived. I've been given numerous recommendations to honorary titles within the university to which I go, from academia even to my photography. They're little things, and I may boast no right to arrogance, but in times of trial, success is success. I see such astounding material blessings circumventing my complaints of life. I foresaw a possible grand and glorious future. ...And today, the next morning, the most I could do upon awakening was think "Dang...that was good."
With all such matters pervading my thoughts, I can't deny that things have gone unequivocally well for me in life, and yet, there is the paradox, and my frustration. School has broken me and strained my heart beyond what seems normal bounds-- Bad.
I have job opportunity after job opportunity, with all such work cut out for me to the utmost-- Good.
I have had no time to think, meditate, or salve my confused soul-- Bad.
The most wonderful girl, so caring and true, and spent this time with me as my girlfriend-- Good.
It is spring break. Classes are out for a full week-- Good.
Yet somehow I still have four classes of homework, and my free time is taxed-- Bad. ...Oh yes, that last one is right, and perhaps the most damaging thought of it all. I've probably deferred valuable time needed to work on what is an excessively long "to do" list, even for an empty week, to write this, but my mind needs solace. I counted on this week to have time to heal, to rest. And yet here I am with my time strained once more. I am compelled by friends and family to so use my time with them, and I am compelled by the demon of homework to waste away the remaining hours. It seems the perfect balance of both great and awful, and my mind is suffering inbetween I long for consistency. I long for a break in this madness. I long to simply live what I would find to be a normal life.
My mind is, and has been, utterly confused. Its emotions have been dulled amidst the strife, and whether things are on par for a brilliant sunny day or the peak of my ruin a notion darting across a very blurred line within my head. I do not know if I am making the right decisions right now. And worse, I can recognize my mind dipping itself slightly into the dark pool of selfishnes, though now, it is indestinguishable from the instinct of self-preservation. This lifestyle...is possible, with the outlook and planning I have seen, to continue through next year. Or next year could be made entirely wonderful by the hard work I have implemented. I play the risk game, and I don't have a clue what the result will be, no probability, no idea of luck, just a sinking feel entangled amidst desperate optimism. I don't know...I don't know...It has all been so wonderful, and yet it has all been so terrible. It seems as if I am simply caught within a war of attrition between the good and the bad of life. Whoever has the highest patience wins, but neither side gives up until it has exhausted every last bit of strength available...which, unfortunately, bodes ill will for me. ...[big breath]... It is spring break, and I have homework. Life has continue the same, and I have no idea if it will ever quit. There is great highs, and great lows. I simply write to survive. |
