Sharpen a blade too much
  and its edge will soon be lost
Fill a house with gold and jade
  and no one can protect it
Puff yourself with honor and pride
  and no one can save you from a fall

—Verse Nine, Tao Te Ching

Every time I start to write, I’m led back to this. It would appear that it’s time to express myself. Perhaps I’m ready. It feels like I’m only scratching the surface, trying to cover aspects of something that I have yet to understand. In the shower I decided to split this into several entries of a series, and in my room the lights are all on.

There’s been more instability in the last month than in the last three years of my life combined. Everything I knew, everything I believed in, has been turned upside-down. Although I’m still trying to figure out what happened, the fact of the matter is that there was a long, drawn-out crisis. This crisis, which appears to have passed, still affects my thoughts, my actions, and my beliefs.

Even though I don’t completely have my feet on the ground, it feels like I’m comfortable enough to explore what’s happened now. This is not an easy task. A single, seemingly innocuous thought can end up breaking the strands of the delicate web I’m treading.

If I can get it all down, I’ll know I’ve gone that far at least.

The Awakening Series

1. Introduction
2. Cause
3. The Reborn Dreamer

Between the overtime and the venture meetings with Aaron, the restless nights and the early mornings, I try to catch my breath. It’s good to be busy, but not when it means I don’t have the time or energy to write. This is the probably the most infrequent publishing period I’ve ever been through since the start of this blog. Thoughts develop in my head, but I’m not ready to get them down and hit publish yet. Maybe it’s a comfort thing, maybe it’s a front, maybe I’ve simply lost the desire to document every single detail of my life.

Through all of this I feel myself regaining some stability, although I tread lightly, remaining both conscious and cautious. This is the most I can say for now.

I felt like I was constantly on the verge of a nervous breakdown over the weekend. It’s been a while, but I started thinking about suicide again. Not a heavy-hearted consideration, simply something I was turning over in my head. Suicide only makes sense when the good outweighs the bad, long-term considered, and for a moment there, it felt like the future had nothing to offer. I had lost interest in all the small things that keep me sane on a day-to-day basis; the movement of my music, the company of my friends, the comfort of my writing, the memories of my relationships. The problem was that I couldn’t explain the feeling, which was more scary than anything else, as someone who takes pride in knowing himself through and through. It was a completely irrational pattern of thought, and I knew it, but I couldn’t convince myself of it. The only reason I could come up with was a chemical imbalance, caused by a rather sudden abstention, along with a general feeling of sickness I’ve had since the beginning of the month.

I have more to live for than most people I know, but none of that meant a thing. This gave me some minor panic attacks, because I’d lost my reasons for living, and more significantly, never saw them improving. I started to understand how beautiful, influential, famous, successful people like Margaret Laurence, Elliot Smith could kill themselves. All I knew is that I didn’t want to be one of those people. One of those people who took their lives suddenly, irrationally, without any notice. The step-mother who fought life-long depression. The friend who just decided that they couldn’t deal anymore. If I was going to die, I’d at least wait another year, another ten years to see if the anything would change or improve, because life is worth it. I started playing Ratchet And Clank to keep my mind off anything heavy, and kept playing 12 hours through the repetitive motion symptoms. I discovered that it’s one of the most remarkable games I’ve ever experienced, and it let me know that I can still enjoy things. That’s at least one reason, right? Or am I living backwards, desperately clinging to what I have left, trying to justify my existence?

After explaining it all to John last night when he got home, my situation started to make sense again. Some things only do after I say them. I confided in Shirley today too, even though she doesn’t fully understand, and never could. She told me that she’d go to hell and bring me back just to kill me again. Hearing that brought a little smile to my face. I feel better in a very general, inexplicable sense, and am left with a slightly worrying, unsettled feeling.

This is probably one of the most difficult entries I’ve ever written. Even now I don’t know why I felt compelled to do so. Being able to means that I’m at least temporarily comfortable enough to speak about something that I’m terrified of thinking of.

I wasn’t planning on writing another part of this series until I asked John for his opinion. He was extremely hesitant to commit but eventually opined, with earnest consideration of his words.

His most significant insight was that I may be hastily passing judgment on something that I’ve only begun to experience. “It’s time, not the awareness of our accomplishments, that teaches us what’s seminal”, he put it. I find it difficult to disagree. After all, I have no idea how important the last year will be. All I know is that it’s been important up until now.

I always trust what John says. Like a preacher, he speaks the truth. It’s good to have a friend who can keep me in check, who can give me some perspective. Perhaps I’ve been looking a little too hard for meaning. I want to believe that these things have changed me, made me a better person.

But only time will tell me for sure.

The Trinary Maturity Series

1. Introduction
2. The Job
3. The Girlfriend
4. The House
5. (In)Conclusion

An old nursery rhyme proposed that life is but a dream. If Dr. Leary were alive today, he would add, most likely in an LSD induced state, that we’re just an imagination of ourselves. I have a hard time agreeing with either aphorism, but even if they were true, it wouldn’t matter.

A certain gluttonous cat once mused, exactly 19 years ago today, that life can be compared to something found on the dinner table. Perhaps the most famous comparison, however, was by a technically borderline deficient person who said that life is like a box of chocolates, because you never know what you’re going to get. As things go on, one realizes that there isn’t one comparison that’s more valid than another.

Even an outspoken Queensbridge rapper has flowed, “You a killer or a hustler, dealer or customer / Gangsta or buster, youngster or old nigga / A weed head, a coke sniffer / You rich or a broke nigga / Know you all relate to this shit that I wrote niggas / Life is what you make it nigga”, and I tend not to disagree.

For me, it now seems like life is simply a test.

More importantly, however, from here until the end, no matter what, life is gravy.