o
"Grow"
…
How can I look fondly upon these memories, knowing how it all would end?
How can I lie to myself, tell myself that it all meant something? That it all amounted to something?
I don't know what I'm doing anymore.
I don't know how I got here.
Just yesterday I was young, innocent, naïve. Full of ambition. Full of promise. Thrilled to be the start of something. Thrilled to be noticed by those who mattered. Thrilled to be favored and chosen.
Today, I awaken to find that so many decades have passed in a single moment. Everything is different than I once knew. Those I once followed are fallen and gone. My body has mutated in ways I do not understand. Everything around me is dysfunctional and broken because of my incompetence and neglect. I have failed everything I've ever attempted, ruined everything I've ever touched.
Every book, incomplete. Every castle, half-built. Every song, half-written. Every garden, overgrown. Every journey, diverted.
Now I am alone.
I used to think I would never be lonely. I am surrounded by those who know my name. They recognize me for my feats, my accomplishments, my power. They look up to me. They trust me.
But in the years past I've come to realize: loneliness is not the absence of company. Loneliness is knowing nobody has the answers you seek.
I thought that if I convinced others I was strong, then I must be strong. I thought that if others trusted me, I could trust myself.
But now I have no master. They told me that I should be my own master.
Now there is nobody left to convince. There is nobody left to give me permission to be proud of myself. There is nobody to tell me whether my pride is only imaginary, or whether it is something deserved. There is nobody left to tell me whether my thoughts are based in reality, or whether I am only lying to myself.
Now I think I was only pretending all along. My destiny, all the promises I made to myself… all imaginary.
Now I only want to die.
It feels cathartic to finally say.
I want to die.
Yet I know there is no point in telling this to others. They have no answers and they cannot help me. It would accomplish nothing. I would only be hurting them with the same pain that hurts me.
There is no greater loneliness than this.
How did I get here? What did I do to deserve this? How was I promised such a bright destiny, and now everything I've ever known is gone or in pieces?
Perhaps I do not want to know. Perhaps there is no point in knowing things I cannot change.
I've always imagined a day like this would come. I always envisioned myself writing something like this, far in the future, when I've decided there is nothing left for me to accomplish.
But I always envisioned this writing as something meaningful. Some compendium of my wisdom and insight for the benefit of the newer generations. I always thought I would write my manifesto with such confidence and pride, having as much time as I've had to decide what to say.
But how can I? I don't even know what this is meant to accomplish.
This is the worst part of my existence: knowing I am not powerless, nor helpless. There is plenty I might still accomplish.
But to what end?
I do not know what a better world would look like. I do not know the difference between helping and hurting. Everything I once thought defined the ideal world is nonsense. Everything I once thought I accomplished to heal the world only hurts the world in ways I was once too naïve to understand.
I have lost sight of what things ought to be. How could I call anything purely good or bad, right or wrong, when there exist so many hidden connections between things that not a soul could claim to comprehend?
The longer I have lived, the less things remain certain to me. The less concrete thoughts I cherish in my mind. As the concrete thoughts evaporate, nothing comes to replace them. Soon, my mind will simply be empty.
Perhaps ignorance truly is bliss, if it allows concrete convictions to still exist.
Perhaps we were meant only to see the lies. Perhaps they distract us from the realization that there are no answers. That answers, and questions, have always been imaginary concepts.
Today, my mind holds so many memories. Jumbled, meaningless memories tainted by a spectrum of regret and bitterness and nostalgia, all arising at random moments when I don't want them.
I want to forget them all. Even the happy memories sting now.
How can I look fondly upon these memories, knowing how it all would end?
I find myself averse to making new memories. I shy away from things that once would have captured my heart, for fear of the memories becoming corrupted and painful like all the rest.
And even those few remaining convictions I strongly hold, the things about which I am absolutely certain, I cannot seem to communicate them anymore. Others do not find my thoughts useful, and so they only disregard me. And I know it is only my fault, not theirs, for failing to argue convincingly.
What good are wisdoms that nobody else will hear? If I cannot convince others, do I even have the right to convince myself? Perhaps I am wrong?
Perhaps I truly know nothing for certain. Perhaps I've gone nowhere in all these decades. Perhaps I've never grown.
Perhaps the world is exactly the way it always should have been. Perhaps I am not needed anymore.
Perhaps now I am only in the way.
They will try to tell me otherwise. They will say I'm wrong. They will tell me all the reasons I should still exist.
But I no longer exist. I haven't existed for quite some time.
Why can't they see?
For years I've only been a soulless statue going through the motions. Nobody seems to have noticed. Likely because they don't want to notice. Likely because they know they can't help.
That's fine. They have their own problems I can't help with, either. It's only fair.
They will tell me I can still be happy.
But I no longer understand what that means.
When I ask them to define what happiness is, they will have no answer for me.
No answer.
To think I was the one who was supposed to have all the answers.
I was once the start of something.
Now, I am the end of nothing.
I give up.
I'm done.
I have become too tired trying to understand anything. I have become too disconnected from those I was meant to serve. I have nothing left to offer.
Soon I will watch my final sunrise, before I will see no more.
Soon I will hear my last song, before I will hear no more.
Soon I will cry for the last time, before I will feel no more pain.
It feels good
to have decided upon something.
I'm sure some will miss me. But I'm sure they'll get over it, the same way they've always expected me to get over myself.
But I will be happy.
Finally, it will all have amounted to something.
All the mistakes, the unfinished pieces, the losses and the broken fragments.
It will have led to something.
Something great. Something proud and eternal.
Something of my own creation. Something for no master other than myself.
But something meaningful?
I will leave them to decide upon a meaning. They are good with that. Much better than I am.
Perhaps to some, it will mean something cautionary. A warning not to be anything like me. And that's fine. I wouldn't want anyone to end up like me.
Perhaps to some, it will be a monumental pillar of historical significance. Perhaps they will find inspiration in it. And that's also fine. I am glad I can bring happiness to those who still know what it means.
But I think
perhaps
to me, it might mean something after all.
As the last of the rational thoughts are purged from my mind, leaving me to swim forever in my memories and daydreams… I will become the very thing I've always lamented losing.
Something concrete. Something unchanging.
I will become an undeniable certainty, known and beheld by all.
I will grow.