Dear journal. I’m done.
Done with if and only ifs. Thusses and hences. Givens and furthermores. The sinces and when dids. Oh, and but why and why and why. The infinite sequences of whys. This obsession. This feverish quest. The deep continuing nagging of the nerves. How. Why. How. Why. And if and only if I’d think I have arrived, Gödel would visit us and respond: ‘Go on.’
So you start existing and your parents do their best. Well, some parents do their best. Most parents. Not all of them. Definitely not all of them. Maybe some do their best but are unable, you see, uncapable. And then some do their best and are quite capable indeed, but absolutely and devastatingly fail to be a parent. Then and again you have a few doing their best and succeed in becoming a parent, and then they produce failures. Aah, the tragedy! It is the most common of tragedies, but not the greatest indeed. A bigger tragedy is not having this specific one. I have thought a little each day about this peculiarity and have come to the following conclusion: the failures parents produce are those succeeding them.
Talking failures. When you start existing the first thing you’ll do is wander through a mist, wondering: “Why am I here?” A thick fog of tall creatures welcomes this first question of many. One of them has thick curving horns and gestures to look towards its point of interest. When you oblige to its presentation an iron bull statue appears within a patch of clarity, in an urgent pose far into the distance. Striking. And when you deviate your focus the fog closes in on itself again and then you decide to take a few more steps in the opposite direction. You encounter another spirit and with a royal gesture of its arm it opens the curtain of fog to a one-thousand-and-one-hundred-and-one year old tree rich in display of colourful edibles that disappear high into the heavens. A feeling of mystery hugs your exploratory child. You pause and decide to skim and do some more casual ghost browsing. You see green goblins with sharp ears and small skulls dancing on mountains of gold. A floating broadsword of with a blood stained grip and by just glancing at it you are overwhelmed with a sense of victory. Then a roaring eternal fire with a thundering burning and screaming? The smell of scorched meat waters your eyes. When you shake your head you find a first breath overcomes you and you return to yourself. An invisible audience comforts you with an approving chant giving birth to your name. And the journey begins.
I chose war. The phantom carefully explained to me that battles leaves victors in its wake and only those are recognized and allowed to survive. This scared the child out of me and felt like I had no other option. I approached the blade and took both hands to drag it with me, drawing a deep line through the soil to look back on, but I never did. Years later standing over my victim’s growing blood pool, I realized all former spectators left to approve of this triumph. Its once familiar chant now left a shouting silence. Looking down on my reflection I saw a dark red me. The face unfamiliar but the child in its eyes returning to the surface while I started to become self aware again. It was time to follow the broken earth back to my origin.
The Realm of Indifference 