At Odds

The certainty I have of the present is not near as accurate as the certainty I have of the past. I've seen it happen, time and time again. The person I was during our exchanged departures was very wrong. Yes, he was very mistaken indeed. I remember not wanting to be that person, but I couldn't help it. No, that's not true. Perhaps the person I was at the time was beyond the control of the will, but that's not the only utility I had then or even have now. I did not know how to not be that person, the opportunity never seemed real to me. But no, that doesn't mean that I couldn't help it.

The person I am now is the person I should have been when we departed from each other. If only I had been as forlorn as I am now! That sounds preposterous. Based on my reflections and writings, I have good reason to believe that internal willingness does not always bring forth external fruition. I'm ashamed to admit this, but I'm not actually the most charitable toward other people. Maybe this will serve as a reminder to myself and bring about something good.

I remember saying a long while ago that "things really can get better," but with the things I now hold in mind, my doubts are greater than they once were. These things I hold in mind both come from personal and non-personal experience, that is to say, the experience of other people. I won't say that all hope is lost though. I don't believe that I am the origin of hope itself, and with that belief I assume that hope exists somewhere else, and since I have not been everywhere else, I think there is still a chance that hope exists. That's not the most rigorous logic, but I think it has some substance.

I'm missing those times when my almost Gnostic tendencies raged inside of me. Not to say that I've shed them completely, but I miss when the spiritual was held in higher esteem than the material. I want the reality of the spiritual, but I don't know how to get there. Again, the will fails.

Thinking back, I used to really anticipate the thought of Heaven and escaping the earth. It seemed like the most absolute meaningful thing that could happen to a person. Now, this isn't a scot-free ideology, but I think there's something noble to it. It shows the excitement of witnessing God in his fullness. I'm not in that place anymore, though a part of me wants to be. Back then I didn't want human life but I wanted human death so that I could have spiritual life. That being said, this inclination toward physical death certainly wasn't brought out of despair, it's simply that I held a belief that the best spiritual life came after physical death.

And lately, none of these exactly appeal to me.