I sat. I wrote. Page on page on page. Brain and fingers bellow. Striving for purpose to emotion. Striving for value, this interchangeable life. Striving. For what, again, pauper raconteur? Sing purpose all you like. Purpose requires no recognition. Purpose begs only for action, in return, and action wants for naught. Action screams I am my own reward.

Value, then? Whose?

I’ve spent so much time pondering this madness, frequently choosing solitude for the purposes of self-indulgent, brooding thought. I’m not alone, I know. Many others, millions of others, have had similar thoughts and feelings. Similar wonderings. My words aren’t revelations, I know. This is simply my version of the nonsense. My chatter, as I fart about through life (Thanks, Kurt).

I feel the constant of time slipping away. First a trot, when you’re young and don’t know any better. Then a dead sprint as you age, become more aware of your mortality, and do everything in your power to deal with this situation you’ve been thrust into. Life. Your precious, fleeting life you did not ask for but are doomed to recon with. Will my teeth hold out? I know it doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, but will they?

I’ve started and deleted the next sentence, this sentence, at least 7 times (sneaky word, time, with its variant usages). I don’t know where I’m going in this document any more than any one of us knows where we’re going in life, whether we think we know or not. The next thirty seconds could be heart attack and death with so much left unfinished, unsaid, and the brutal acceptance that everything I think I strive for walks a tightrope of meaninglessness. What legacy have you, dead man?

I’ve chased and chased, too often at a snail’s pace, and am now left wondering if I’ve gotten it all wrong. Have I fought the good fight? Have I? Or did I let what might have been slip away?

You’ve let what might have been slip away, dummy. That’s how this works. For good or ill, what might have been is exactly what it is, what might have been. The last breath you took, typing these words in your easy chair in your easy life, that’s what is. However you fart about tomorrow (Thanks, Kurt), that’s what is.

I’ve pondered a lot about more dynamic lives. People who appear to have done much more bad and much more good in this world than me. People who’ve traveled the world and seen so much more. Accomplished so much more. People with a Wikipedia page. I thought I wanted one of those lives. Especially one of those lives that inspires humanity to improve. Did I really want all that stuff? I still do, but it seems like it would have been a lot of work. I still do, but time is in a dead sprint and I’m not necessary. None of us are, but one way or another, we all suffer the same shit.

Did I waste all this time protecting a soul that isn’t there? Did I waste all this time protecting a soul that is there but was prepared to take on more dirt? Are we allowed to do a shitload of bad and still protect our soul by doing a shitload of good? Could I have ever been as good as I had hoped to be as a child? Did I let it slip away (tee hee)? Did you? Could you have been that other thing that seems like a better version of you that most likely isn’t but feels like a genuine possibility because there’s so goddamn many of us and we’ve seen every possible fucking version of what this life might be for any particular individual and our emotions drive us crazy with regret and lust and joy and yearning and disappointment and self-love and self-hate and boredom and guilt and love and peace and confusion and dreams of cake and the desire for revenge and…and…wants, wants wants wants wants, and hopes and dreams and fears, and so many fears, and and and…the constant hiding from or placating or outright indulging of our unrequested emotions and the whole goddamn deal is exhausting whether your life is super dynamic or mediocre or shit? We all suffer the same shit. It’s different but it’s the fucking same, and I’ve got a love/hate relationship with the whole Bobdammed deal. Maybe you do too. Maybe you don’t.

Maybe, there’ll be heaven for those who deserve it, hell for those who earned it, and a closet full of loving souls who had no time for either.