A Little About Me

This isn't quite where I imagined myself to be...

Are You Truly Free?

Humanity, it seems, forever seeks to wed itself to the anchor of stability. Yet time stagnates the foundation on which stability rests. And from its decay, the seeds of entropy grow until nothing of what once was remains.

This nothing is a snapshot of the typical human condition. It begins in childhood when we are schooled by those who know better than us. Not knowing better, we blindly follow these teachers, believing their fantasy of happiness and comfort in the arms of stability.

By the time we reach these promised destinations, most of us have lost more of ourselves than we will remember in a lifetime. We exist from one moment to the next, constantly reassuring ourselves through material success and comfort.

When old age reaches up to draw us back into the earth, sometimes our eyes turn back down the roads we traveled to reach this destination. Only then do we consider the road not taken. Wandering back through memory, we find forgotten pieces of the child that once was.

These memories glitter like bits of old pottery in the ruins of a garden that once represented freedom. But that freedom no longer belongs to us. We traded it for the road to happiness, accepting what was chosen for us without ever knowing an alternative existed.

But I didn’t stay on a path like the other children did. Their roads weren’t mine, just as my story wasn’t theirs. Yet no tale is complete without heroes and monsters, and I’ve been both, sometimes all in the same night.

Do You Ever Ask Why?

What you’re about to read isn’t about me. Rather, it’s the story of a road. One neither of us may have ever been down. Like all roads, it leads somewhere. But the question is, where? And if you dare, why?

Where and why, the urim and thummim of the alchemical what if. It is with the where that most journeys begin. And in the why, one can hear the disappointment of those who failed to attain their promised happiness.

This is where some might think my story would be about someone who never accomplished what he set out to do. But it isn’t. I didn’t fail, even though that’s what I was taught would happen if I went off the path others had traveled before me.

The emptiness of all I’d believed sacrificed for freedom rose around me like an abyss of regret, and I shouted why to the stars. Beneath the pale silence of their light, I saw my life as the prison I never realized it was. That was when I began to understand.

Without concern for the where of things, I departed the road to stability, trading the promise of happiness for my freedom. In the process, I discovered the pain of loss and the ache of loneliness draped about my heart like a shroud.

The only roads worth traveling are those so desolate that they leave us lost to the point we accidentally find our true selves. But in the modern world, these roads are forbidden. They break the mold on which society depends.

Will You Walk with Me?

My entire life has been spent on these roads, leaving me in a perpetual cycle of rediscovery. Every hurt or joy I’ve experienced has traced its path across my soul until my life seems to belong to another. And through it all, my cup has forever remained half full.

So, I offer you a drink from this bottomless cup and an invitation to walk with me for a few pages. It could be that we’ll only meet between the words of our shared experience. But one day, perhaps we’ll bump into each other.

Maybe we could meet in a coffee shop at the top of a mountain. Or only pass each other on the road. You’ll go in your direction, and I’ll go mine, shouting, “So long, and thanks for all the fish!”

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