7/21/1997 (Rage On)

 

7/21/97

(Rage On)

 

One more day.  One more day to walk dazedly through the wasteland of my life. Occasionally, I find an artifact left over from a glorious time long past. The loneliness is crushing.  It is like a great void.  An emptiness that doesn't ever seem to go away. The hardest part is the waiting.  Not knowing if the phone will ever ring.  Not knowing if life has any hope.  Or any meaning.

The world is so fucked up.  People hate each other for no reason other than their own pain. We have all been tortured beyond any reasonable hope for healing.  We languish in our misery and we seem to wallow in the feeling of hopelessness that confronts us.  We are nothing but cannon fodder for an apocalypse long overdue.  If we had the guts, we would just cease our existence.  Instead, we trudge along waiting for something to end our suffering and take away the shattered dreams.  We cling to our precious few moments of joy like life jackets in twenty foot seas.  We know they won't save us, but what else can we do.

We are told we must have faith.  But where do we seek this distant shore?  Which way do we look for it?  Does it come to us like a hand suddenly thrust to us out of the dark?  Or is it an inner peace that comes with the final acceptance of our lot in life?  If we seek truth and are able to perceive to the moment of clarity that gives us a glimpse of it, how then do we not become cynical?  How then do we not say "fuck it, it just doesn't mean shit anyway"?  In looking at the glory of God that is left in this world, it is indeed a small flicker of light in a great field of darkness.  The yearning inside never seems to abate itself. The hunger never dies.  But, do we have the right to eat that sustenance which is so sweetly longed for?  Do we dare beg and reach for it like starving street urchins, just to have it yanked away at the last second?  Yet another cruel trick.  Or do we become arrogant and try to take what we feel is ours, only to be smashed to bits, our hopes crushed by our own insolence. 

I don't know how much more testing I can endure.  I hate the way I feel.  I feel like crying and laughing at the same time.  I want the gentle loving thing, but I want to rip the heart out of some of the people I see.  How can I pray for everyone and yet curse all I see.  I hate the conflicts within my being.  I feel weak and tired and I despise this.  I can not stand being weak.  I fear growing old more then I fear Death itself.  And I loath the lonely feelings I have had for so long.  These conflicts have driven every thing good away from me.  Damaged goods.  I wasn't keeping score of all the hits I had taken.  When I was little, I used to cry about them.  Then as I grew older, I fought over them.  Now I just try to tough them out or blow them off.  Sometimes, I ask God for the strength to carry things with me and I try to find a way to get rid of them.  But, it doesn't always work and my faith feels even weaker.  The dark side pulls at me very hard. It knows how much I liked it when I lived there.  It's a good place to hide.  Not safe.  Just good.  Nobody good ever goes there.  They never look for anybody there.  But, now when I go there I see faces that look at me as something that I am to them.  A hope for something better.  Because they look at me as a way out of the darkness, I know my being there hurts them.  I can't tell them the truth of what I see around me.  Or within me either.  Both would hurt them too much.  I care for them too much.  I guess I always have, but didn't admit it.  So I can't quite step into the darkness either.  No place to go.

 

No retreat...No surrender...No peace.