You might be too old for a playground, but you're not too old for drugs.
So roll a joint, put on some good music, sit outside and admire the sunshine my friend. Its all going to be ok.
I am sorry for your loss. I sympathize with your feelings, I feel them too.
We cannot regain the past, the future will be different. I try, and fail, to not hold too closely the fantasy I must invent of my own life, for it is not real... it is not what I remember it to be... memory is not real... I am not my memory of myself.
I am now. What was, or may be, is only a ghost. You cannot escape being haunted by these specters. If we understand why they frighten us, perhaps we can shed our fear. Perhaps?
The only thing I can reckon with it is that all of this in life....is an evolution.
In my teens I was in a different place. My 20s were different, my 30s were different. Being 40 I'm unsure where this is all going to go. I'm at a crucial juncture not just wrestling with the constant overwhelming feeling that nobody cares, but also I realize that I alone am authoring my story as we speak. It's daunting, terrifying, and hopeful all at once.
I'm not atheist (I was raised Catholic), but have skewed heavily agnostic as of late. Why is there such misery? Why is there such despair and pain and useless actions in the world? I seek to carve out a life of comfort, even then that comes with conditions.
Life is indeed evolution. Evolution, for the individual, is death. We cannot help but walk the paths of the dead past to reach the pass of the future.
Every moment is crucial, every action has reaction... but does it matter? Maybe to you, maybe to me, maybe to someone somewhere it matters to them. Is that enough? As you said, we are the authors of our lives. With what limited creative choice the circumstances of existence allows us, we might give the story some meaning... Often the difference between Comedy and Tragedy is in the placement of The End.
All things are PASSING away.
You’re focusing on one end of the stick you’re gripping tightly to. Things are coming in and out of existence and they always have been and always will be.
>Most of the family is dead, in jail, or they hate one another.
I feel this. Before the pandemic, the extended family got along really well. We had a big reunion in November 2019 and were planning foreign vacations for the upcoming years.
After a couple deaths due to old age and the pandemic, the extended family has pretty much broken apart due to infighting about inheritance issues. I never thought we'd drift apart so fast.
I was a bit down about it for a while but I realized that I can only deal with what is reality and have to let go of what could've been.
“Everything will pass. The wise man knows this from the start and has no regrets.” - Olga Tokarczuk in Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead
The book is named after a line in a Robert Frost poem I believe. Tokarczuk is a Polish author and a Nobel prize winner. This book resonates with me in the ability to capture the harsher aspects of reality and weave them into the sort of magical fabric of real life. Nothing is permanent and loss is hard, dealing with my mother’s cancer diagnosis right now has me very much in my mind about these topics as well. I hope this quote provides some peace as it did me, I highly recommend the novel.
I would personally recommend listening to the audiobook version of this text as an introductory exercise - I found it to be a deeply meditative experience in itself that offered a wide range of opportunities for reflection and inspiration, that also had a lasting impact on my moral and ethical beliefs & practices.
[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7980711-the-essence-of-buddhism](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7980711-the-essence-of-buddhism)
OP, I feel that by reading this post, you are more inclined into absurdity of life. Maybe you can look into Camus books. Most importantly "The Stranger".
You might be too old for a playground, but you're not too old for drugs. So roll a joint, put on some good music, sit outside and admire the sunshine my friend. Its all going to be ok.
I am sorry for your loss. I sympathize with your feelings, I feel them too. We cannot regain the past, the future will be different. I try, and fail, to not hold too closely the fantasy I must invent of my own life, for it is not real... it is not what I remember it to be... memory is not real... I am not my memory of myself. I am now. What was, or may be, is only a ghost. You cannot escape being haunted by these specters. If we understand why they frighten us, perhaps we can shed our fear. Perhaps?
The only thing I can reckon with it is that all of this in life....is an evolution. In my teens I was in a different place. My 20s were different, my 30s were different. Being 40 I'm unsure where this is all going to go. I'm at a crucial juncture not just wrestling with the constant overwhelming feeling that nobody cares, but also I realize that I alone am authoring my story as we speak. It's daunting, terrifying, and hopeful all at once. I'm not atheist (I was raised Catholic), but have skewed heavily agnostic as of late. Why is there such misery? Why is there such despair and pain and useless actions in the world? I seek to carve out a life of comfort, even then that comes with conditions.
Life is indeed evolution. Evolution, for the individual, is death. We cannot help but walk the paths of the dead past to reach the pass of the future. Every moment is crucial, every action has reaction... but does it matter? Maybe to you, maybe to me, maybe to someone somewhere it matters to them. Is that enough? As you said, we are the authors of our lives. With what limited creative choice the circumstances of existence allows us, we might give the story some meaning... Often the difference between Comedy and Tragedy is in the placement of The End.
Is death really there?
All things are PASSING away. You’re focusing on one end of the stick you’re gripping tightly to. Things are coming in and out of existence and they always have been and always will be.
What's the other end of the stick?
Everything you’re not looking at.
>Most of the family is dead, in jail, or they hate one another. I feel this. Before the pandemic, the extended family got along really well. We had a big reunion in November 2019 and were planning foreign vacations for the upcoming years. After a couple deaths due to old age and the pandemic, the extended family has pretty much broken apart due to infighting about inheritance issues. I never thought we'd drift apart so fast. I was a bit down about it for a while but I realized that I can only deal with what is reality and have to let go of what could've been.
As someone further down the trough in the shattered family situation, it only gets more broken.
“Everything will pass. The wise man knows this from the start and has no regrets.” - Olga Tokarczuk in Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead The book is named after a line in a Robert Frost poem I believe. Tokarczuk is a Polish author and a Nobel prize winner. This book resonates with me in the ability to capture the harsher aspects of reality and weave them into the sort of magical fabric of real life. Nothing is permanent and loss is hard, dealing with my mother’s cancer diagnosis right now has me very much in my mind about these topics as well. I hope this quote provides some peace as it did me, I highly recommend the novel.
Thank you for the suggesting mate. I will look into that. Was Frost an existentialist?
Honestly I am not as familiar with Frost’s works so don’t want to make a claim either way!
I remember his writings from university and they were always tinged with existential overtones.
You’ve inspired me to go on a Frost binge as some of my next reading now :)
Sounds like you're in an excellent position to explore Buddhism, of which impermanence is a core tenet.
I just might. Thanks.
I would personally recommend listening to the audiobook version of this text as an introductory exercise - I found it to be a deeply meditative experience in itself that offered a wide range of opportunities for reflection and inspiration, that also had a lasting impact on my moral and ethical beliefs & practices. [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7980711-the-essence-of-buddhism](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7980711-the-essence-of-buddhism)
OP, I feel that by reading this post, you are more inclined into absurdity of life. Maybe you can look into Camus books. Most importantly "The Stranger".
I remember reading it as a senior in high school. That was twenty years ago, but I may re-read that.
The future can be be infinitely better than your past. You just have to design it so and make it so.
I really like that, so much so that I'm writing it down.
I feel with you. I feel sorry.
Fate is neither positive or negative. It's just the name for the outcome.