Duty, Loyalty, & Values

Why do I even bother sometimes? How many times will I try to do something that obviously doesn't work? Why beat my head against a wall? Isn't it better to just give in? I mean, I feel like shit all the time nowadays. Not literally all the time, of course. I end up forgetting about it again and again, and there's always something to keep me distracted. Always something to do, something urgent that needs tending to and demands my attention. I decided this year to write every single day. I figured that I might forgo my fitness goals, miss out on all the learning opportunities, break my harmonica practicing streak constantly, and still be completely fine as long as I keep writing. I figured that as long as I polished one skill for the whole year, it'd all be worth it.

Safe to say that I've failed miserably. I fucked up every single thing on my list, and then some. I backtracked, hit rock bottom, and carved out a newer low. I disappointed myself so many times, that I don't even believe that I can do anything at all anymore. Luck vs. Skill. That idea keeps bouncing around in my head. How much of it was external circumstances beyond my control and how much was just horrible decisions? I think it's abundantly clear that I am a certifiable failure-walking piece of trash that I have every right to feel like. I started two more blogs this year and did nothing with them. I joined a gym that I don't go to 85+% of the time, and it's really fucking expensive. 

I let down my friends, my family, my coworkers, and most importantly, I let down myself. I can't help but feel bad about it. I can't even cry about it, because I can't even be bothered enough to be frustrated anymore. I just feel like I'm starting to be completely fine with being a piece of shit useless excuse of a human being who's nothing more than a cumbersome wasteful burden on God's green Earth. I can't help but do things that disappoint me constantly and give me no joy, and I can't even be bothered to try killing myself anymore. I've grown ashamed of myself, grossed out, and disgusted, yet somehow more comfortable than ever before. 

I don't want to see anyone, face anyone, or speak to people anymore. The thought itself makes me sick. I'm scared, worried, and anxious so very often. I thought about writing and working on so many things. I was so fucking serious about it. I wanted to build something, create something, earn, and generate true wealth. Yet every single time I just fucking failed. Again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again. Now, I'm worse off than I've ever been before. I don't even know if I can get out anymore, but there isn't an option, maybe there never was. Just as there is no freedom without commitment, there is no goal without a struggle. People always rush in so fast to give you a fix, but sometimes you just want to suffer.

Truly, there is no nobility in suffering itself. Yet there is no greater joy than that righteous pain. Lately, I've been wondering. What is the right way to live? I always thought it was better to live for others. I figured there was some great nobility in it. But to serve one means to betray another, and to serve all is to waste away without ever truly leaving a mark on anything. I always loved the idea of writing. Nothing else ever seemed such a pure kind of work. So honest, just a person and their words, tangled around them, enveloping their being, unraveling, sorting, shuffling, and being rearranged, until something meaningful comes out of it. Creating something of value out of nothing at all. I've seen, tried, tested, and tasted so many different things in life. I've dipped my beak and parched my throat. 

Yet in all of tarnation, nothing else ever came close to such pure unbridled beauty. I looked around and saw people to the left and right of me. I saw them struggling, aching for support, and I thought perhaps it was best to do something more tangible. Perhaps I will be better served as a slave, earning money for my masters. Shouldn't I aim to give back to those who have raised me? Shouldn't I try my best to ease their burden? What is a man without loyalty? The whole world runs on trust, after all. The tortured artist in his shanty cave, crouched over a desk, self-serving beyond belief. What use is he to the aching masses? Content to tend to his visions, inside his little bubble, why should anyone care? I thought happiness was only real when shared.

Give and you give, bleed, and ache. For he who sacrifices his everything is sure to be liberated, but only because he doesn't do it for liberation. He serves others in this wretched world because no one else ever will. He looks at the poor and the suffering in their eyes because no one else will. He simply does what he does because he wishes to make the change he wants to see in the world happen with his own two hands. Yet it doesn't take long to become painfully familiar with the limits of his flesh. He knows now that there is only so much he can do before he starts scraping the bottom. Having given away his all, he doesn't recognize himself anymore in the mirror. He wants to feel miserable and wallow in pity, but he's bound by the burning chains of his own wretched virtue.

He thought that people were important, but he began to hate them. He thought that duty and responsibility would lead him to his highest self, yet he's never felt further away from that guiding light. He's lost in the dark, unable to tell up from down. He who is loyal can fulfill all his missions. The burdens will make him stronger and do him good. That's what he thought, anyway. But the time has come to begin anew. It's time to start wondering and questioning these bare assumptions. Loyalty to whom? Duty to whom? Value what? To be loyal to God, one must be selfless. Doesn't that make sense? Man was born in sin, after all. Ever since Adam and Eve bit into that apple, splitting their world in two and hiding behind the bushes. Thought, judgment, self, those are the harbingers of sin. 

Separation is the greatest illusion, isn't that what they always say? From where I stand now, I can see it clear as day; Nothing could be further from the truth. The ego, the self, the lone individual, he/she is not a demon born in sin. A person simply is, as it always was, a holy being. The separate ego is the 1 to the spirit's 0. Only when both collide can there be real divinity. Blending into each other, strengthening their characteristics while balancing each other out. The self completes the spirit, just like the other way around. For I do have a duty to my fellow beings, but nothing is more holy than my duty to me. I value all of God's creation, but only as much as I value me. I may pledge loyalty to every tom, dick, and harry, but it's meaningless unless I can learn how to faithfully serve me. 

As for my dreams and the hopeless chase to greatness. The never-ending torturous climb of frantically chasing that unreachable perfection. That is simply what it means to dream. If it really is your dream, you can't help it. If you truly love it with all your heart, it'll never leave you, because you'll never be able to let it go. If you, just as I, have tasted that God-given love of life, you will never ever be able to quench your thirst with even the richest most luxurious of all ambrosia. Taste all the pleasures, thrills, and fruits imaginable, but it'll never stop haunting your every waking moment. That's just what it means to have a dream. It is to burn with a fire that can never be put out, with the sole desire to let it consume your every fiber. If it is truly your dream, you'll keep at it for as long as you live, because there was never anything else, and there never will be, and nothing will ever take its place.

That special, ineffably magical feeling, of creating something, out of nothing.