The First Thirty Years: A Review
“We always find something, eh Didi, to let us think we exist?”
- Estragon, Waiting for Godot
To review the life I have lived up to this moment is a very futile thing, but then again, so is life. It is made to be merely lived, silently insisting towards a minuscule something, to have it end mid attempt. Yet here I stand, a temporary subject to life and its march, seeking to show right my existence and begging the skies to agree. I know that I will not receive an answer, but certainly the contemplation of life (as in the mere fact that I have experienced it) should make it worth the attempt, and without universal markers of human standard, I am free to determine success by my own means or acquiesce to someone else’s.
Of course, it is easy to say all of that, but even by personal metrics, my life has been a difficult plot to follow. And considering where I am now, a darker place and invariably farther from realization than I had hoped, it perplexes even more. And how to even criticize, when we consider how our consciousness wasn’t ours to begin with? We are never able to see the start of it. We simply are at some point, and continue to alter that which we had found. Like a gleaming trinket found on a path, we merely arrive at our consciousness one day and proceed to carry it from then on, affecting it until the end.
Certainly, within these first thirty years, I had many firsts. I got to try food for the first time. Grew a mullet. Broke a bone and injured a heart. Flew in the sky. Made homes and love. Stole. Set my hand on fire. Rendered gods silent. Slept naked in a decommissioned ship at a locked port in Amsterdam. Met Death. A divorce. Climbed the corporate ladder. Outgrew a favorite toy. Made a lot of money. Wasted it. Experienced resounding defeat in battle. Tasted unbelievable triumph.
All of these things were remarkable in their own right, along with every moment in between them. I have been witness and recipient to a great many things, each worthy of possession and existential definition.
And yet, despite the great voyages, notable victories and ever increasing salaries, I am holding less now than I ever have; in my keep are only a few sentimental possessions of note, a passport and a small amount of dollars to my name. The acquisitions and investments seem to add up to very little now, no destiny appears assigned and the world I thought I was building toward has changed dramatically. Even memories, which most would want to fill several mansions worth by this age, have been carefully picked over to a minimal collection of events and fondest thoughts. Though I can recall many things, I cherish very few. What does it say of me that I have let more go than I could have kept? And why does chaos take the progress I had been making, small that it may have been?
Nonetheless, the beautiful things I have found and will always remember: The evening streets of Vienna. The lifesaving purrs of an orange cat. A Bosch painting in Bruges, illuminated by candlelight. The entrancing stare of brown eyes and the smile that always followed. The smell of Lagavulin scotch after a decadent meal. The incomparable safety of a mother’s hug, to a curious smile from a stranger in Bangalore. The wrenching swell of an Iranian requiem, to the intoxicating flutter of trees by an old castle. The unpredictable dynamite of love and the catalysts of change found within unspeakable loss and fear.
Through inexplicable means and volatile circumstances, did I find such transcendent moments to hold. I may be preparing to write the next story and letting go of what was, but I will be making these things eternal and definitive of my limited time here.
Obviously, all of this is not adding up to a concise review, but there are things to take away. Despite the cliffhanger of now, the narrative has been fairly good. The locales and characters of the last thirty years were rich and interesting. Could have used some more explosions, I suppose. And I really hope a love story is in the sequel.
—-
In looking at all that has transpired, where did these thirty years put me? Unexpectedly, I have returned to the beginning — little resolved, more questions than answers. Less to show for it than I desired. I am not where I thought I’d be.
Life continues to prove its recurrence and the shape is that of a square, not a circle; we are given a few reaching linear paths to walk, only to encounter a sharp wayward turn to get to the next one. It will keep going until we return to the start. And so I have returned. As broached, if the cruel joke of life is to simply experience it, then I suppose I am now experiencing it all over again, our battle leaving nothing, consuming everything. Why now?
After thirty years, the answer reveals itself again, like it has before—it is because I have subjected myself to it. As my consciousness grew, so did its desire to stray from the worn road. Wanting a considerably variant and honest course on this futile road of life has exposed me to the plain, stark realities of our actuality — it will always be a volatile black sea, shifting and warping, thrashing until a temporary state of rest, only to pulse again. Constantly renewing, constantly rewriting. To sail into it only pushes you away, blasting your ship along the stone, taking more than last.
But such vivid journeys you will have, regardless if you make it back to land. I have sought the dynamic waves of chaos to guide me, and right now, it has merely reciprocated in my desire, casting me to places unknown and vain. I say that life is meaningless and believe it. Nihilism may sound like a terrible and uninspiring thing, but in fact, it’s the opposite: just because life is devoid of meaning, doesn’t mean you have to be. Give chase to the needle on your compass, try to find someone to share this voyage. And in reflective moments such as these, I have typically found answers through quiet proclamations and the rejection of a higher power to find it. But, perhaps in this next series of years, it is time to find and pay tribute in this uncertain albeit familiar moment of renewal.
And so, if I must capitulate to the gods for both the journey and the rewards, then I shall now fully kneel and submit to the chaos of the world itself that has manifested my worthiest of events — to the great and powerful Discordia. To Eris.
Like the sea, She is still and violent, possessive and evasive, giving and formidable. It is by Her Hand alone that the world divines, be it diamond or carbon’s demise. It is by Her Masks that the truth has been said, and Her Mischief that drives us all to action. How Eris has reigned throughout Her Days, making the truth simple but the lies beautiful, dripping joyfulness with poison and borning sores from stillness. But such swirls of color in the catastrophes She makes; such undeniable splendor in the broken pieces of hearts, minds, and bodies that lay across the lands. How She ambitions man to build temples and goads others to destroy them. How Her Will has created these extremes, but let us find the heavens— mine is a cabin called the Primrose, between the land and the black sea. The path was arduous to get there, but worth the little deaths that found it.
Eris, I beseech you; commit me to Your dual nature; show me the path by the ruins You make. Embrace me. Discard me. Take my past so that I can see it. Fill me to be emptied again, because when I finally cast myself again to the waves of the sea, I shall take comfort that it was a goddess that called to me.
—-
These first thirty years will never return. Whatever story I do have, it took me thirty years to make. Perhaps then, as I look to my few scant possessions and attachments, the progress of my life may be summed by its emptiness. The Tao Te Ching says that is when the vessel is most useful.
As I drink wine from the bottle that holds my name and empty its contents, that seems to be the contradiction that Eris needs of me. Dark waves pound and the new home I had built ignites in flames. The light burns more than the fire. I must grab what I can and set out to build another place. Thankfully, I am never doomed. These thirty years of supernal discord have taught me to build a shelter, so that I can live to build another.
And with Eris, no longer will I be deterred to make new memories to discard, nor to build what will be lost. For every scar shows beautiful skin, deceptions make art galleries, tears nourish the soil, and of the many cigars I smoked, the warm rubicund glow of the ignited leaf will always be more spectacular than the stiffened black that follows it. But, we had to set fire to the cigar, to destroy it, to see the beauty of it at all, didn’t we?
—-
As the clock ticks down the final hours of these thirty years, the black ocean in front of me is a disquieting but beautiful sight. The rock on which I stand, forged by those crashing waves, is obscured by the fog that surrounds the port. In the distance, the smell of smoke from a burning house. The few belongings that I have are with the sands of time to be scratched. I throw myself to the sea — to relocate again, leave behind the past, to chase goddess Eris upon her black waters. The compass points forth; a sole light in in the distance suggests a destination of some sort, but the obsidian waves will hide it. How cruel is the compass without a map — pointing the direction, but never the way.
Still, I venture towards the vast. I don’t know where I’m going. You would think I would have some inkling after these thirty years, but I don’t. And it is okay. How can I be lost, if I have nowhere to go? I am just an empty bottle on the ocean waves again, but the message found inside is this:
Drink the poison, and live! Savor the truth but feast on the lies. Let the light destroy and the darkness lose you. Ignite the cigar and cast a possessing glow. It is all for naught, this ash we will make.
And tomorrow can make it all new again.
