A thief in the night...

As we laid in bed and I started reminiscing about the year I just had, I felt a sense of warmth that I very rarely get to experience. I was grateful that I have you by my side - even through what could be my worst moments as a person. And boy, did I have plenty of those recently. I dare not celebrate yet, though. Too often have I been given everything, just for it to be taken away the very next instant, so I will bide my excitement until the very end. Could it happen, though? Could this year, despite the challenges and downward spirals, still be the best year I ever had? Or maybe it will be the greatest, because of all those dreadful moments that I had to overcome? I will stop thinking about it now. I'd rather take your hand in mine, just for a few more minutes, and pretend like this is all that really matters.

Adversity is like a strong wind. I don't mean just that it holds us back from places we might otherwise go. It also tears away from us all but the things that cannot be torn, so that afterward we see ourselves as we really are, and not merely as we might like to be. But if everything was always smooth and perfect, you'd get too used to that, you know? You have to have a little bit of disorganization now and then. Otherwise, you'll never really enjoy it when things go right. Remind thyself, in the darkest moments, that every failure is only a step toward success, every detection of what is false directs you toward what is true, every trial exhausts some tempting form of error, and every adversity will only hide, for a time, your path to peace and fulfillment.

Simply singing my song...

 

Believing in nirvana...

The city is cold and empty...

My greatest sin by far is that I am an over-thinker. What if I said too much, not enough, just the right amount but was not clearly understood? And I have found that thinking about something is like picking up a stone when taking a walk, or skipping rocks on the beach, for example, or looking for a way to shatter the glass window of your current enemy, if you'll allow me to be a bit dramatic. When you think about something, it adds a bit of weight to your stride, and as you think about more and more things you are liable to feel heavier and heavier, until you are so burdened you cannot take any further steps, and can only sit and stare at the gentle movements of the ocean waves, thinking too hard about too many things to do anything else.

I'll be your cover...

Maybe it was all too much,

too much for a man to take,

everything's bound to break,

sooner or later.

You're all that I can trust,

facing the darkest days.

Everyone ran away,

but we're gonna stay here.

I know you're scared tonight,

I'll never leave your side.

The brightest days from the darkest nights...

If in me everything crumbled and shattered into tiny pieces, it is not because life had necessarily become an overwhelming one: it in fact had no other choice but to expand on all its contingencies. To become a full-flowing force that cannot truly be controlled or contained - something that has the ability to overrun everything. And now imagine all of that combined with a heart that can't be trusted? What if the heart, for its own unfathomable reasons, leads one wilfully and in a cloud of unspeakable radiance away from all that is rationally good and healthy. Away from responsibility and social connections and all the blandly-held common virtues and instead leads one down a path straight towards a beautiful flare of ruin, self-immolation, disaster?

The stillness of remembering what you had...

For me, this place I am stuck currently, is purgatory incarnate; neither good nor bad, but a gateway to great rewards or even greater punishments. And it has come to my attention that we can get nothing in this world worth keeping, not so much as a principle or a conviction, except out of purifying flame, or through strengthening peril. We err; we fall; we are humbled - then we walk more carefully. We greedily eat and drink poison out of the gilded cup of vice, or from the beggar's wallet of avarice; we are sickened, degraded; everything good in us rebels against us; our souls rise bitterly indignant against our bodies; there is a period of civil war; if the soul has strength, it conquers and rules thereafter. If not ...

Do you think there’s somewhere else, some other place to go after this one?

I wouldn’t know ... back to whatever void there is, I suppose.

I've thought about it ... it'll be lonely after death.

We won't be, though. We'll be dead, so we'll just be darkness, 

not much else, just memories, nostalgia and darkness.

I don't want to be any of that either. 

When we die, we'll still be nothing, the world will still be nothing, 

everything'll just be nothing!

You're real though, at least that's something.

No secrets or deception...

Coming all the way around...

The worst thing one can do is not to try, to be aware of what one wants and not give in to it, to spend years in silent hurt wondering if something could have materialised - never knowing. And yes, I've wasted all these years looking for something, a sort of trophy I'd get only if I really, really did enough to deserve it. But I don't want it anymore, I want something else now, something warm and sheltering, something I can turn to, regardless of what I do, regardless of who I become. Something that will just be there, always, like tomorrow's sky. That's what I want now, and I think it's what you should want too. But it will be too late soon. I'll become too set to change. If I don't take my chance now, another may never come again.

My perfect playground...

The uncertainties in life are so hazy they don't allow us to determine the kind of woe we shall be entangled in next. Because when you stay dormant, your life is at risk; when you dare to take a step, you take a step towards peril. We have a choice, though. A choice to choose to dare or to choose to live in mediocrity and conformity, but, we ought to note that it is riskier to risk nothing when the life we live is always waiting to be defied. It's no secret that trying new things, aiming high, and making bold choices can lead to failure or success. And putting yourself out there means you might fail miserably or succeed tremendously - or anywhere in between. Sadly, you don't get to decide which. But you do get to try.

Cleansing the demons...

When the sun had left and the winter came,

and the sky fall to only bring the rain,

I sat in darkness,

all broken hearted.

I couldn't find a day I didn't feel alone,

I never meant to cry, started losing hope,

but somehow, baby,

you broke through and saved me.

Acting brand new...

Victory is not to change the mind of the critic; 

it is to evaluate what you can learn and discard, 

yet still walk away with peace in your heart.

I used to think enduring struggles and hard days in silence and telling people everything was great meant I was strong. But recent events have taught me that hiding my misery just means I am scared - scared of people not loving me any other way. Scared of sharing the lessons that pain has to teach. It turns out people desperately need to see the full human experience, especially the dark parts. They need to know that other folks struggle, too, and that it's all part of a bigger story of triumph. They need permission to keep going, knowing that hardship is normal for everyone. Give them that gift. Have that courage. Tell the whole story.

You can find me chasing waterfalls...

 

I hope it happens for you...

Looking like an angel...

As it happened, and as it happened so publicly, I can't really explain all the emotions I was feeling. Such a variety that can only be understood as life. I thought; I shall remember this moment, and I now have the very unique opportunity to dictate how. Will it be an angry escalation that fuels further resentment and puts an ugly stain on my journey of the past 4 years or is there perhaps another way? A path with less words but just as loud? And being able to rise above it all doesn't mean I am better than others, it means I have made the choice to be better inside out. It means I have opted for forgiveness, dropped the drama, the pity, and everything else that dwells in a lower vibe. It isn't complicated. Rise.

I hear a lot about sinners...

There was something peculiarly gratifying about shouting in a blind rage until your words ran out. Of course, the aftermath was less pleasant. Once you'd told everyone you hated them and not to come after you, where exactly did you go? I guess my pride really does get in the way sometimes. I have turned out to be revengeful, ambitious, with more offences at my beck than I have thoughts to put them in, imagination to give them shape, or time to act them in. Then, when I looked over the horizon, it seemed as if a night of dark intent was coming, and not only a night, an age. Something I am quite sure I am unprepared for. 

As clouds enveloped the sky, they woke the being he was always lulling, and stirred up a craving cry he could not satisfy. It was the night of a thunder-storm; a sort of hurricane shook him in his bed: he rose in panic and started to shiver. The tempest took hold of him with tyranny: he was roughly roused and obliged to live. Outside was wet, it was wild, it was pitch dark. He tried to gather his thoughts as his night-lamp illuminated his face. He could not fall back asleep: too resistless was the delight of staying with the wild hour, black and full of thunder, pealing out such an ode as language could never deliver - too terribly glorious, the spectacle of clouds, split and pierced by white and blinding bolts.