Choices -- We Have Them We Make Them The Consequences We Take Them

The sky is clearing and the night has gone out The sun, he come, the world to soften up Rejoice, rejoice, we have no choice but to carry on - - From the song Carry On by Crosby, Stills and Nash

And the ink blank darkness of night envelops at midday and I am left to the wrenching ache of the putrid soul. Somehow the efforts to persevere are rendered meaningless as the true horror of living tortures the remnants of my soul. It all can seem so empty even ugly in those times when despair rules.

The unknowing and ignorant manage to be blissfully unaware while we with minds and ideas are left existentially tortured and certain only of creeping death.

There are fragments of my life scattered throughout the past. Of course the past is no more than a notion of events and times that exist only in memories and old photographs. It is nothing I can touch or feel or experience outside of my mind.

Now I cling to those gone years when I was in the fullness of happy youth and believed myself indestructible and eternal. A perfect being who could do anything anywhere at any time and for whom fun was an end unto itself. Fun was what I lived for and damn the consequences -- those could be well enough sorted later.

I seldom had plans or goals. Just hopes dreams and vague aspirations. Riches and fame awaited and all I need do was to stick around until they were proffered. There were plenty of women and always would be and all were at my disposal. Love was to be felt today and required neither commitment nor consideration. Women were in some ways abstractions.

I’d do what I wanted to.

I maintain a firm grip on these bygone days. Looking back they provide a reflection that is not always pleasant but always interests.

Today I have the benefit of experience which is naturally accompanied by wisdom. I am therefore “wise.” How nice for me. I am still tangled in my own mind but at least have some clarity about the futility of pursuing immortality. We all become dust sooner or later and for many there are years of aging which precede. When our bodies and mind slow down. When our faces sag and wrinkle and unadulterated fun seems such an effort and one not entirely worth it. We also stare into the abyss fully aware that most of our time on Earth has passed and what remains may be taken up in large part by the vagaries of aging.

But we get up. We look back and wonder where the years went. We face the coming day. Like walking in a snowstorm we lower our heads and forge ahead mindless of discomfort. Determined to reach our destination. Sure that it is out there. Somewhere. We remind ourselves what day it is because we have reached the point that we need to.

Yet we are not unhappy. Not much anyway. We know enough to enjoy as much as we can. There are great joys to be experienced but they now come with an understanding that it is all temporal. The joy the pain the understanding the confusion the boredom. Nothing lasts.

It’s important to keep moving forward to be doing things to not give into the feelings the oppressive weight of sorrow. It can overwhelm and confine us to places we don’t really want to be that are so hard to get out of. If we once used drugs and alcohol to stay out we at least should know that answers and comforts must come from within and through the love of others not by stimulating or dulling our minds artificially.

The journey continues and its always nice to be on it, I suppose.