And maybe it was peace at last

"What is your purpose in life?" I would demand out of the blue.

I do this to many people. It is one of the liberties I take, broaching this subject far too early in conversation. I am fortunate to be amongst those who tolerate me. But I have to. I have to ask before they rotate out of my life.

I am like a collector, seeking the answers to this question, amassing them, holding them up to the light to inspect them, sticking them carefully in a mental album.

In them, I hope to find the answer to mine. It is a desperate search.

*

I once thought that there is this one thing I am meant to do, the supreme point of all things, the exalted overlap between what I am capable of and what I want to do. Until I figure out what that is, all else is a poor substitute. But more and more I realise that perhaps there isn't such a thing, no such thing as something I'm meant to do, no one true intersection between ability and passion.

If there is no one thing, then all else is an option. Perhaps not equal to each other, but they are not substitutes by nature. Because there is nothing to substitute. Each one is a possible option.

What then? What if there's no one purpose, no singular meaning? That wonderful purpose, that will define the cardinal points of my life, provide the direction for my journey, for everything in my life to align with, the force with which to push on, in failure or success, the grand scheme to devote my life towards.

Do I fall into pleasure? If there is only the present, and sensory stimulations are all there is to it, is endless pleasure it?

Or perhaps altruism? Or the pursuit of knowledge? Truth?

*

I'm pretty sure philosophers have pondered over this for ages. I should read on this. But if the answer had been found I wouldn't need to wonder, would I? The answer would have spread, like fire on eager branches, and we would know. We would all know.

*

Do I invent my own? How do I create a purpose to last my life, this long, dreadful life, these thousands of thousands of hours?

Maybe I invent a few things I want to do now, and then I add more as I go along. Yes. That sounds like a practical thing to do.

*

The rest will come. I do not fear it, I need it. If I do not fear this thing, then I really have nothing to fear. Because it is the only thing that is inevitable, all else, no matter how terrible, will buckle before the coming of the end, consumed by the end.

What do I do in the meantime? I have no fear.

*

The current of time bears me on a dark, roiling sea, without stars, without direction, but also without fear.

*

Maybe this is the answer. I do not know. Only time will tell if it sticks. If it sticks then I'll stick to it, if it doesn't, then there's nothing. Then the search continues. But for now this will do.

*

I am on a dark, roiling sea. I do not know where I am headed. There are no stars to guide me, I have no direction. But I do not need it, because I have no fear. This peace will do.

The Land Between Dreams

Perhaps it was a dream, or perhaps it was one of those brief dazed interruptions in sleep, but there was that singular moment, there I lay, feeling nothing. Nothing at all. For that moment, the sea was still, the clouds froze, the heat of the sun passed over, and there was nothing to feel. It was beautiful. And then I drifted back into sleep, thinking no no, and everything returned.

The Last Spring

You should not do this, I told myself. It will come to no good end. You are advancing a moment of bliss which you will have to repay with misery for a long, long time (this was later the substance of an unspeakably amateurish sonnet—I had far too much time).

Don't do this.

But I could not resist. The flurry of snow and rain, almost as if I had wished them into being, spun in helices of gold in the cones of light from the street lamps.

I hugged my jacket tightly, absorbing the cold. To make up for the life I had spent not experiencing this wonderful, wonderful cold, to store enough for the remainder of my life.

Absorbing the moment. For safekeeping, for the remainder of my life.

Please let there be snow, I had wished, and there was snow.

Whenever I feel down or let down I would think of this singularly beautiful moment. One that can never be replicated. One that is so utterly perfect that it can never be matched. Which would make me feel even worse and let down, but that is what I gravitate towards.

When I had returned to my room I wrote something about cold down falling, the trees forming an arch, and words I wanted to say being caught in the mist of my breath.

I cannot find those three lines anymore (and I do not know where the sonnet is).

Statue

I squat by the toppled Statue and finger the pieces morosely. Did I build him too grand? Did I build him too immaculate? Perhaps I should not have built him at all. What did I do wrong? Now do I build a smaller, humbler Statue from the remains, or do I remake him in all his fullness? 

The landscape is littered with pieces of broken stone. In the distance the sun hovers, a circle of inscrutable, yawning blackness, both too near and too far at the same time. It draws nearer with every moment, imperceptible, until I get distracted, and when I turn back—it is frighteningly near. And at the same time too far, wretchedly far. 

The toppled Statue stands, or lays, by the Marble Ruins. I approach the Marble Ruins. I kneel down, and pick up a piece of marble. Until the sun arrives I toil away, repairing what I can, all the while hoar frost forms; maybe I can find some warmth tonight. Maybe the sun will finally arrive. I gaze longingly at it. But it does not respond, it will never respond. 

What about the Statue? I do not know. I do not know what I did wrong. I do not know what to do. 

Have Yourself Another Dream

It is 2 am, I am staring out the window, soft music, everyone else asleep.

In some ways, very little has changed. My room has remained more or less the same, my shelves still filled with the books from ten years ago, furniture unchanged. Perhaps I am actually dead, and my room has been left untouched for my memory. But I doubt it.

More and more I find the need to live. To care less, but to live more. To live boldly, cheerfully, recklessly, passionately. To be generous, to be selfish.

To dismantle the expectations I had, my old dreams, and put up new ones. Not dreams to be happy, not dreams of what I want, because those dreams will ultimately disappoint, but dreams that somewhere in the distance, the shore will meet the sea, by which these trappings are shed.

Meanwhile, with that thought, I can be cheerful. Against the distance between here and the horizon, I can measure all else by their true diminutiveness.

学会放好以前的渴望

Inevitably, they are eroded away. The once-pristine images constructed by the light, dancing fingers of naivete stilled upon the startling onset of awareness, and now they wear away, deadened figures standing in the deepening tide.

The dreams that carve the features, the happy reverie that furnish the details, the whims that colour and fill, the stars illuminated in eyes, the grand and the silly, such that they are perfect but attainable, improbable, but not beyond the limits of young hopefulness; these are the images that used to stand against the horizon, aglow in the belief in a benevolent fate.

But slowly, dim, darken, like grass shadows rise and sway and eddy about their feet. Gloom yawns and stretches, languid, soft, unthreatening, up to their knees, their waist.

Pieces break away, falling, vanishing, soundlessly. Cracks stab through them. The cold sets in, welling up in weaknesses, driving deep, wrenching apart, widening.

Their silhouettes blur, become indistinct, edges dissolve, the shade settling in, filling them; acceptance, resignation sinking, the ponderous eclipse, on the verge of completion. And now, now, all of a sudden now, they are no longer, not even the remnants of the images; no, they have fully inhaled the tide, becoming now the coagulated vapours of the night. But they remain in the horizon, perversions of our expectations, enshrouded in the severe authority of reality, brought into our hearts, welcome our masters.

It's Just One More Day

Today I read this very tragic story about this couple. It made me pensive for the rest of the day.

Now, night looms, I have to sleep soon.

And I chanced upon an article about a military veteran (and psychologist) who helped a lot of people but ultimately took his own life.

Which really puts things in perspective.

This world is horrible. Perhaps because we feel too much, because we invest too much meaning, too much of ourselves into things.

I realize that I am so afraid of pain, of loss, of uncertainty, of failure, that it cripples my ability to live.

Now, if I only I could stop feeling