What are the little worries of our lives, against the backdrop of tumultuous history?

It has been eight years since I started on this random walk, posting my thoughts and ruminations to the uncaring ether, trying to use the written word as some kind of instrument to figure out the convoluted inner workings of my soul.

I suppose it shouldn’t be surprising that I am no nearer to any sort of enlightenment or understanding.

Nonetheless, I have learned quite a great deal, some of which I’d probably not rather know, but what are you going to do. Some traumas have been indelibly etched into my brain, and even now my heart quivers for a moment.

In these eight years, I have seen both great and small evils. The destruction of a republic, the crumbling of an empire. The long defeat. Oh, there have been flashes of goodness—even greatness—interspersed here and there. It is never actually completely dark. Even sunlight filters through the drapes and the blinds, through the baffles and the narrow fenestrations between the walls.

Maybe, in the end, the problem is that the inner core of my being is hollow and vacuous. It is an easy explanation for all the small disappointments and failures, all the fears that have weighed me down, all the opportunities I’ve squandered, all the words and emotions I’ve never shared.

It’s a facile explanation for the gnawing restlessness rasping at my soul.

There’s no there, there.

In this blank space and time, where the future has never been so uncertain, I try to figure out some kind of direction to take. I fear that all of the roads presented to me will lead me nowhere. I’m not even worried whether they’ll lead me to disaster. And I’m done with caring whether or not someone will be willing to come with me on the journey. I know that I have to walk the road on my own. But what I’m fearful about is that the road I choose will just end and leave me stranded in the wilderness, with nothing left to do but go back the way I came, and start all over again. As many times as I’ve done it, I’m tired of starting over again.

So I sit here, or lie here, stranded, paralyzed by indecision, not knowing the right way to go, not even knowing what I should be looking for, or where to turn. If I could just freeze space and time, and live in this undecided moment for ever, maybe I’d have a chance. I know it’s a futile fantasy.

There is a just a significant part of me that simply does not want to grow up.

Maybe it’s just stupid of me to keep hoping that one of these days, I’ll snap out of it, and actually do something with my life. Something more drastic than that has to happen. Something akin to lighting a fuse underneath my ass. What is that something? Where do I find it? How do I start? Why has the last thirty-two years of my life not taught me anything of use in terms living like a normal human being? Why does everything become hypercomplicated whenever I touch it? Whenever I ponder it in my mind? Why is nothing ever simple?

And why do I keep asking myself questions I can’t answer?

In a sense, that is all I’m left with, though. This faint, vague, possibly quite futile hope that someone or something out there might just save me yet. As much as I’ve tried, I know I can’t do it on my own, and apparently I just don’t trust anyone I know enough to help me. I mean, if you can’t trust yourself, how can you expect to trust anyone else? What a cursed existence.

But I suppose tomorrow is another day. All I can do is keep a lookout and stay vigilant. Who knows? Maybe that Change™ will come. Stranger things have been known to happen. Until then, all I can hope to do is keep my head above the water, even as it slowly rises inch by inch.