Stay One's Course

Are you, then, so easily turned from your design? Did you not call this a glorious expedition? And wherefore was it glorious? Not because the way was smooth and placid as a southern sea, but because it was full of dangers and terror, because at every new incident your fortitude was to be called forth and your courage exhibited, because danger and death surrounded it, and these you were to brave and overcome. For this was it a glorious, for this was it an honourable undertaking. You were hereafter to be hailed as the benefactors of your species, your names adored as belonging to brave men who encountered death for honour and the benefit of mankind. And now, behold, with the first imagination of danger, or, if you will, the first mighty and terrific trial of your courage, you shrink away and are content to be handed down as men who had not strength enough to endure cold and peril; and so, poor souls, they were chilly and returned to their warm firesides. Why, that requires not this preparation; ye need not have come thus far and dragged your captain to the shame of a defeat merely to prove yourselves cowards. Oh! Be men, or be more than men. Be steady to your purposes and firm as a rock. This ice is not made of such stuff as your hearts may be; it is mutable and cannot withstand you if you say that it shall not. Do not return to your families with the stigma of disgrace marked on your brows. Return as heroes who have fought and conquered and who know not what it is to turn their backs on the foe.’

- From Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley.

To What End?

I was on XBox again, my daily effort to quiet the mind - like when a parent turns on a TV to quiet the child, to suppress my thoughts (which instigate anxiety), to forget about all that I haven't accomplished today.

As i was playing the numbness faded, I asked - what am I doing? Sometimes I fixate on the question for there is no answer, and the anxiety swells until I flog myelf - either by repeated slapping my bare belly until it or my hands hurt too much, or by beating my chest with my fists, knuckles driven into the muscle. This time I didn't beat my self but asked for the first time - "to what end?" To what end am I playing this game? To what end am I farming a new set of armor in the hope to eek out a few more dps? And if i do, then what? And then I looked back on my job - to what end do I put up with a juvenile boss, living in a state that does not fully accompany my outdoors activity desires? To what end am I living here in the DMV area?

Jim Carrey once said that if you are going to fail, fail at something you live? But the crush of failure is 10 times worse than at something you don't, isn't it? And if I fail at something I love, how do I restrain from suicide (never far from my thoughts)? Sometimes i feel I'm living my suicide - a slow, painful suicide of many decades. Maybe it's time to jump off the bridge.