This is the way the world ends

The sun shone cold on his face, warmth sapped by the frozen ocean of sky over his head
and all his limbs shook with that clinging frigid death. It pooled around him as he stood, radiating despair, casting it against the frozen ground like the gray light of a winter moon. He stood, breath freezing in front of his face, catching in his lungs, and he coughed blissfully in unison with the harrowed slaves, dragging their chains as they passed by him into the distance. He didn't know how long he had been standing there.

Perhaps he had always been there.

But inexplicably, he began to take a step. Frost crunched and fell from his clothing, his legs barely able to move, for he was tired from his long vigil. He lifted his leg, heavy with ambivalence, but the wind kicked up, driving him back with heart-piercing daggers. His tears froze on his face as he bowed his head against the gale, whimpers of pain ripped from his throat and swept away. But he stepped again, and again, his heart pumping vital suffering to every limb, until he was running. He ran until he reached the wooden pillar, jutting out from the middle of a frozen street, and he climbed up, heedless of the wind.

He pulled himself up to the top and stood as the wind ripped into his body and the gray clouds pressed close against his face, smothering him. All the sky crushed down on him.

He would set it free.

(He pulls off his jacket, peels off his shirt. He grits his teeth against the wind.)

He would set it free.

(...or does he smile?)

He would set it free.

(He stands, every muscle clenched in the most triumphant, soul wrenching fire.)

He would set it free, he thought.

And from the blackness behind his closed eyes, from the pit of his stomach and the grips of his shaking fists he rent the sky with his agony.

The clouds shattered like glass and fell to the ground, and the air caught fire, the cities fell and the earth crumbled.

He screamed because he had no words.

He screamed until reality shook around him.

He screamed until he forgot himself.

He screamed until there was nothing.

Trains, first attempt

I like riding on trains. It reminds me of how much I will never know and never see. I stare out the windows at the places in between, all the places I'll never call home, and wonder at the strange fortune of ending up in my own skin. On the train, I smile at everyone, and I love them in a way I couldn't love them if we were to pass on the street. We're all on our way somewhere I think, and I smile. We're only together for a short time, in a small place, with the whole world outside the window waiting for us to turn our heads, to look out at places never given to us to love but for a fleeting second until they pass beyond our vision. And maybe we look at each other, weightless in the void, to see ourselves - small things adrift in infinity.

How much like life it is.

My Hobby:

Trying to give passers by the impression that I'm not standing in a particular place because I'm waiting for someone, but that in fact I'm there for the special purpose of warding off malicious spirits from the area.

Assumptions

Every once in a while, I need to reevaluate my assumptions and the foundation for my conclusions about how to lead a more meaningful life.

Assumption 1: There is no absolute purpose given to us by a higher power. Our lives aren't so simple as doing what someone wiser than us has told us to do. The corollary to this is that there is no immortal afterlife, and as time increases to infinity any possible effect our mortal lives have had on the world and its people will drop to zero.

Assumption 2: As long as life can possibly be more enjoyable than non-existence, it is worth staying alive. With regard to the lack of imbued purpose discussed in assumption 1, there is no concrete obligation to serve anyone, since everyone and everything outside yourself will meet the same end eventually (whether or not you WANT to serve other people is a different matter entirely). As a result, finding happiness for oneself, since there would be no real value in living an unfulfilled life purely for the sake of others, would seem to be the best use of an otherwise meaningless life. In my experience, the most rewarding and enjoyable feeling comes from a sense of purpose and belonging, a notion that one is where they are most happy being and doing what they are most happy doing. (Before I'm accused of being totally self-centered, it's easy to imagine one can be most happy and fulfilled in the service of others). By that token, the best use of one's life is to find that place and do that thing.

But of course, it's not that easy. How can you know what else you could be doing?

Assumption 3: Everyone has a unique potential. What is fulfilling to one person might not be fulfilling to another, but no one is obligated to fulfill the potential of another, only their own. If a person feels like they've found a particular place and occupation that gives them the greatest sense of fulfillment and happiness, they have made the best use of their life, despite the judgments of others regarding what that person has chosen to spend their life doing. Happy plumber > unfulfilled investment banker who's only in it for the money.

Maybe even more important than finding a place and an occupation is cultivating a way of looking at the world that looks at every moment in life is a step toward that fulfillment, a worldview that asserts that life is fundamentally, necessarily good.

In this moment, I feel like an artist sitting before a pottery wheel, hands caked with the physical substance of my experience, mind and pencil sketching and resketching the ambitious designs for my life, which sits in a misshapen lump that hints at my previous unskilled and heavy-handed attempts at craftsmanship.