To you. It's the middle of nowhere, for me. It's where I became a person. The heart of the heat and home to the dark we no longer know. A place where an evening amongst the trees is all you need. Soon, you will leave the birds, and soon, you will go to your connections to those who came before you. Memories remain dormant in everyone you talk to, and the burden of what you have become is never far from thought. Some call it a trap; others call it accountability. The middle of nowhere. That's where I am.
The scale of the world is often hard for me to grasp. Some incessant desire to know what's out there keeps me up at night. An inundation about the risks that lay beyond your boundaries, or even that which lay just a couple blocks from where you lay your head. So much time spent directing words to be as meaningless as the people saying them. The fabric of reality that you can interact with you must not. For you can read, or hear about it with so much less effort. When trends become parabolic, what's left to even decide for oneself? How much can be left to learn when everything has been told. Who has ideas when peer-reviewed ideas or popularity-driven platforms have given people weapons to wield? Far from the ground, and far from the truth. To be handled by someone who knows how it should happen for who would care to know how it does happen. It's all a record player left to repeat that which has been heard. An existence shaped for those who need not live it.
Seven years. Seven minutes. How much of the change in one's life can you attribute to the minute moments. How vast of a painting our time here is, and which parts of it matter. How can we process our reality when change comes and goes with the sun? The things that ground us in who we are can change without notice or intent. Seven years, seven days a week, more often than not. Tireless hours spent trying to build an existence and be impactful to those around you. A lens through which you view everything. The importance of the outcome is what I must keep my eye on. The spoils of which were soon made mere pennies upon the release of some numbers representing the success of a group of people I won't ever meet. Who can square such an existence? The pain of the years spent still lingers, and for what? The time spent worrying about outcomes. None of it had any real value in absolute terms. The difficult conversations and the relationships forged in overcoming momentary collapses. Push, they tell me. Push for that which you want. Waiting pays more in my experience.
A need to survive the day-to-day often outweighs the broader arch of existence. Where you are feels like where you'll be. Who you are cannot be outrun. The deafening silence of the forest or the unrelenting streets of Manhattan. Who you are is there front and center. Never to be forgotten. The instinct to reinvent yourself is nothing but an opening of a void that will never be healed. The secrets always surface, and no answer will suffice. How can you frame a reimagined self? It's not real. It cannot become just as words spoken cannot be taken back. The string of existence moves forward, but never without the foundations of the past. Is acceptance allowed in a world obsessed with explanation and words with so many uses born out of therapeutic sessions in which very little is accomplished other than a broader vocabulary to say that you could not overcome that which lies at your foundation?
Reflections
To you, it's the middle of nowhere. For someone else, it's where they became a person. Place shapes us in ways we can't escape. The memories held by everyone you talk to, the burden of what you've become - is that trap or accountability?
Seven years. Seven minutes. How much change can you attribute to momentary decisions versus the slow accumulation of days? The spoils that seemed so important reduced to pennies by numbers released by people you'll never meet. Pain lingers, but what was it for? What has real value in absolute terms?
Consider the instinct to reinvent yourself. To become someone new. But who you are cannot be outrun - not in the forest's silence, not in Manhattan's chaos. The foundations remain. Secrets surface. No explanation suffices. The reimagined self isn't real because the string of existence moves forward but never breaks from its past.
When trends become parabolic, what's left to decide for yourself? When everything has been told, what's left to learn? When peer-reviewed platforms give people weapons to wield, who has original ideas? The fabric of reality you could interact with directly - you must not. You can read about it instead, hear about it with less effort. An existence shaped for those who need not live it.
Is acceptance even allowed anymore? In a world obsessed with explanation, with therapeutic vocabularies that give us better words to describe our inability to change - what would it mean to simply accept the foundations we can't overcome? To stop trying to become and just be where we are?