Let's not fight too much, but a spades a spade

Whenever I read or watch a piece of history, I always start to wonder how much I would have been different if I had grown up in this time or that. True, with medical science how it is now it's doubtful if I would've ever even made it to adulthood. I don't want to get into the whole nature vs. nurture scrap, but I think that things would've been much different if I was born one humdred years ago.

I don't know what I would do without distraction, my life principally revolves around avoiding what is the true nature of all things. If I was religious I would have that to fall back on, but I'm not, and I don't think any era could change that part of my nature. The true nature of things, the problem that keeps me awake at nights is one of purpose. Thoreau and Whitman help me out, and a good dose of Joseph Campbell can always make you feel better about the cosmic joke, but none of it really shakes lose this whole feeling that life is a sink full of dishwater. In that I mean that it's all clear and full of purpose when you fill up the sink, but as time goes on and you keep on washing you begin to think, "at what point does the water begin getting the dishes dirty." It may be a bit of a jumbled metaphor, but for me it seems to ring true.

When I was a child I thought like a child. When I was young I thought perhaps I could be some kind of Christ, when I was an adolescent I thought I could change the world, when I grew older for those labels I would've settled for some kind of discipling position, but being a man I know that I cannot be those things and I don't want to be those things. Now I just want to be a good man, even if what I do at the time doesn't seem right. I want to be a good man, even if I don't believe in the right kind of god. Nature all put us on this earth for a purpose, and no matter how much we fuck it up, nature holds us to its purpose. I just don't want to fight it so hard anymore. A principle of Buddhist philosophy is that all life is suffering. In this age we have all kinds of ways of forgetting about that, but it comes back. It comes as the devil sitting on your footboard in the middle of the night, talking so loud that you can't sleep, and you lose interest in doing so. He acts like your friend, makes you laugh at your own condition, and weep at your inability to do something about it. The further you are from distraction the worse it is. In the country there aren't any sirens, no speeding cars, or yuppies on their harleys. Out there you have to face him, and maybe that is what needs to happen.