Capitulation

The world is full of broken people, and I’m one of them. Right now, I’m as broken as it gets. 

Broken beyond repair.

Some things creep up on you. Life has a habit of doing that. An inexorable movement that ceased to be noticeable via our ignorance of the very nature of our existence. An incessant flow that carries with it sticky flotsam and jetsam. All that crap accumulates and wears you down. Weighs you down. Until you sink without trace. Laying there on the riverbed of reality. If you bother opening your eyes, you’ll see life pass you by. Not just your own. All of it. Precious time making its way out into the infinite and becoming meaningless yet again.

It isn’t just life that is fleeting. It’s the meagre meaning that we manage to carve out of the little time that we are allotted. We cry out into the darkness in the hope that we will be heard. Unremarkable existences that are made unique by the meaning that we discover and hold dear. Holding on with everything we have until the music stops and we can dance no more.

We still hold on though. We don’t know how to let go. We are selfish and covetous. Silly magpies hoarding trinkets we think to be treasure. We need a little help when it comes to relinquishing our hoard of wealth. I know that now. The angels come to us as we reach the final border of life, and they burn all that accumulated meaning away. I thought it was a punishment they were meting out. But it’s not. They free us of what we may once have needed, but will have no use for where we are headed next.

All that hard work. 

All that fierce living. 

They burn it all away.

The more someone has lived. The more meaning they hold. The brighter their flames. I believe this is the measure of a life. The light of those flames. The light that every one of us contains throughout our lives.

And here I lay. Forgotten and still. I don’t know how long I’ve been here. Time has no dominion over me now, and for that I am thankful. If I could worry, I would. It seems that I have been overlooked. I don’t know all the rules, but I don’t think I should have been left like this. Then again, if anyone was to fall prey to such an accident, it would always be me.

I have an idea of how I got here. I think I was blessed with a painless end. Not that that matters anymore. Pain is a transitory lesson, unless you hold onto it as though it had any value other than the questions that it asks of you. And how can a lesson not learned have value? We are fearful creatures, and in our cherished fear, we are senseless and ignorant.

We are wasteful in so many respects. 

I wonder whether my being here like this is so that I finally learn a lesson I chose wilfully to ignore. The obvious lesson. That life is short. That it should be filled valuably. We are so lucky when it comes to this existence of ours. We get to choose. We really do. Do or don’t. That is at the heart of our choices.

I did not.

I could have done so much more.

Been so much more.

For you are what you do. And although I’m not nothing, I am a vessel that rattles loudly with my vacuousness. Don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t lazy. I worked my proverbial nuts off. On my drive is a squat and purposeful car that goes very fast indeed. A reward for all my hard work. An object that I will now never use again. I think I will miss that. Driving. I loved driving. Driving was an escape.

Now I wonder what it was that I was escaping from. Why it was that I felt the urge to find open roads and press that right pedal down so that the engine was transformed from a purring cat to a roaring beast. The noise of it slamming through me and rattling my bones as I powered through corner after corner.

I escaped from my hiding place. That’s what I did. I hid in plain sight. I was conspicuously successful. I was going places.

Only…

I never really thought about where those places were. All I ever did was press my shoulder to the obstacle before me and push and push. Only now do I get that I was doing it all wrong. That isn’t how you deal with obstacles. I was leaning into this obstacle of mine and doing nothing about it. I was in this permanent state of pressure. I wasn’t going anywhere. Any movement was illusory. All that constant effort was, was anxiety.

And here I lay.

Burnt out.

I pushed and I pushed and something had to give.

That something was me.

And what did I ever give?

Oh, I made businesses successful. I made a lot of money for other people and I got paid quite well for that. I secured jobs for others. There is that. There was nothing wrong with what I did in this respect.

I don’t think I ever really asked myself what was right with it though…

I detest the twee statements people make about work.

You should work to live, not live to work.

That really does depend upon what work you do.

No one on their deathbed ever wishes they worked harder.

Says who?

A scientist who almost makes the breakthrough discovery that will validate their life’s work? How about them for starters?

Also, life and work are two interchangeable words. Language is a beautiful and amazing construct, but it isn’t perfect. How can it be? We’re as flawed as they come and we use words to describe our warped and twisted existence.

You get out of life what you put in, which is to say, you have to work at it. Living hard is what it is all about. Working hard at life.

Put another way, choosing easy eventually makes life hard. It’s cheating.

Life is a series of cycles. The trick is to see those cycles for what they are and do something about the ones that aren’t working. Now that ain’t fair, because we inherit most, if not all of those cycles. Some of them are many generations old, and with each successive generation, the cycle is harder to break and reforge into something better and more meaningful. We have to do the work that our parents, grandparents and great-grandparents never bothered with.

But if we don’t do it, who the hell will? Hell being the operative word there. When we choose easy, we steer ourselves and each successive generation closer to the gates of hell. 

Soft people make for hard times. Whereas hard people make for easy times. And so the wheel turns. I’ve seen the children of driven and successful people swanning around in their Mercedes and I can see where they are headed. Nowhere of note. Desperately directionless and sad trust-fund kids. Their children won’t have it handed to them on a plate, and eventually, there will be another generation of grafters who will make something of themselves. They’ll fix what it is that has become broken. Those things that have fallen into disrepair.

And all it is, is healing. And if we really have to place a value judgement upon healing? No, it ain’t fair. A car’s handbrake fails on a hill, it rolls down the road, mounts the pavement and breaks your leg in several places so you have to wear some impressive scaffolding? That’s not exactly fair. But no one else is going to do your healing for you. You can’t even subcontract that work.

When it comes to the invisible wounds, we have this odd tendency to avoid healing. We pretend instead. And much the same as life and work being interchangeable words and concepts, so are healing and learning. Best throw in growth for good measure. Because if we don’t learn? If we don’t heal? The potential for growth is severely stunted. Literally stunted. 

So many stunted people pretending that they’re OK. 

Plenty of them are so convincing that they end up believing their own bullshit. So, it’s no surprise when they hook up with someone and a year or two later they’re popping out the next generation of fuck-ups.

A sad conveyor belt of degradation that is seemingly countered by our ability to invent technology and arrogantly display our supposed intelligence. This is the mask of civilisation that hides the cancer beneath.

I was a part of that. I latched onto the teat of Living The Dream. I was a Good Worker. I pushed hard against that false edifice and believed.

Now ask me what it was that I believed?

Go on. I dare you.

I wasn’t a scientist on a crusade. I was only one of a billion worker ants. I kept busy and I avoided living as a result. There was nothing wrong with that aspect of my life. It was just that I didn’t have much of a life outside work.

I was…

Too busy.

Too tired.

Too blind to the excuses I was making in the stead of actually living.

And yet on some level, I knew. I knew how fucked up my life was because I never resorted to using another human being as a sticking plaster on the ailing life I was failing to lead. Nonetheless, I went looking for my scapegoat. I had this idea that there was The One out there. A personification of my personal Holy Grail that I would bring my lips to and drink deeply from, and in that consumption I would be saved. My eyes would be opened to what life was about, and I would live it in a way that had eluded me until the moment I found my salvation.

Belief systems can be very cruel when they don’t fit properly.

I somehow knew that I was being an idiot and thankfully I never felt right around the women I dated. That lack grew as time went on. I was a hot prospect. An eligible bachelor. What could be called a Good Catch. But I didn’t want to be caught. I just wanted a friend. I wanted someone to love me for who I was. Someone who listened to me when I wanted to pour my heart out to them. 

Problem was, I didn’t know who I was.

Now I realise that none of us do. We talk a good game, but in the end, it takes a lifetime to get to know ourselves. And good job too. If we sussed who we were and what we were about in our twenties, and in this knowledge, we then went out and did our thing. I think we’d be done by the time we reached our forties. We’d have completed this game of life. Done what we came here to do.

Game over.

I don’t think the game is ever over.

We’re never ready.

Maybe there’s a resignation when a person gets so very old. The youthful captain looks at the limping and leaking ship in the mirror and in the end, has to face facts. Time to go down with the old ship and make room on the high seas for the newer and faster vessels.

I wasn’t old, and I certainly wasn’t ready.

And I’ll tell you now. Those people who say that if they had their time over again, they wouldn’t change a single thing? That’s poppycock. That is rot. When the final bell tolls, we all know we could have done more. 

I wasted so much time. I did nothing when there was so much I could do. Some of that nothing looked like something. The same old same old that we are all guilty of doing over and over. 

Habit.

Routine.

That friend that I so desperately craved?

I should have started by being that friend to myself.

I wasn’t kind enough to myself. 

I didn’t look after myself as well as I could.

So how could I expect to meet someone who would want to be with me? I was a poor advert for what I was about. I looked in the wrong places for what I contained all along.

Now don’t think of me as a modern day Scrooge. I had friends. But only just. They dwelt on the borders of acquaintance. I maintained my associations with people I considered to be good. I made time for them. 

But…

You guessed it.

I could have done more.

My connections with these people didn’t grow. And that is on me. I was nice. But I never went beyond that non-descript spoonful of sugar. I held true love at bay and now, as I lay here, I understand why.

I could never bring myself to love. 

I felt unworthy of love.

Working hard was a substitute for that. I always told myself that the cars I had on the drive weren’t status symbols. That I enjoyed them. I never shared them though. They were mine and they were for me. 

There wasn’t room for anyone else.

Which is one of the biggest lies going.

The room in my life for others was expansive. Try as I might, I couldn’t fill it. Only people would fill those gaps in my life, but I put that off. I wanted to prove myself and achieve something in my life and become worthy. Worthy of a love that I felt deprived of when I was a child.

I wasn’t of course.

Not really.

There’s a lot of love out there in the world. I can feel it now. The walls of excuses. The noise  created to hide from all that love. That all fell away, when I… 

Changed.

I feel like the losing contestant in a game show.

Look what you could have won!

So many prizes within reach. Always within reach. We are wealthy, if only we will see this life for what it really is.

Bit late for me now. 

I wonder whether it was a heart attack? I suppose I’ll never know. It doesn’t matter now. The heart I thought I was protecting from being broken giving out on me anyway. There’s a sense in that somehow. I deprived it of what it needed. I broke it all by myself. 

I missed out on so much!

If I could breathe, I would draw in the biggest breath I possibly could. I would imagine that I was filling myself with love. Each and every breath filling me that bit more. That’s what I imagine it feels like if you are completely open to love. Breathing it in. Swimming in it. Being at one with it. 

That was how I was supposed to live my life.

I know that now.

And in knowing it, I also know that I did OK. 

You see, I know love for what it is. So I am no stranger to it. I’m not without love. I did try. In my own way, I really did try. I wanted the best for those around me. I just struggled with how I could be a part of that. I thought that if I kept working, it would all come clear. I felt useful. I wanted that. I needed that. I wanted to be reliable and dependable. For people to know that I’d get the job done. 

I should have diversified.

I shouldn’t have waited.

I was standing on a platform, waiting for a train that was never going to come. I built that platform and I never once looked beyond it to see that there were no tracks for the train. There was no point in what I was doing. 

But there was a point in me. I just got lost and I didn’t want to lose face. I didn’t want to admit that I didn’t know what it was all for. I thought that if I kept going I’d find a way. That I’d see a landmark and then it would all come together.

I’m sorry.

I’m sorry that I managed to let myself down.

But I’m not sorry for a lot of what I did and who I was. I’m grateful for the life I had and I’m going to forgive myself for losing my way. Given another chance, I think I’d get the whole destiny thing and I’d feel my way. I’d risk myself out there in the world and not get so caught up in avoiding being hurt. Hurt’s only ever a part of it. Hurt’s part of learning. Knees get scuffed as you throw yourself at life and learn how to live well. 

I wouldn’t be so obsessed with avoiding things.

I’d focus on what counts.

I had good people in my life.

I got that right.

I…

I can see it all now.

Opening up like a huge flower. 

So your life does flash before you in those final moments, but not in the way we’d understand. It’s different. It’s all so very different. 

I thought I was laying here for an age, but time is no longer the same.

Nothing is.

I needed to see the meaning of my existence before I could let go.

I had to know myself and forgive myself for all the missed opportunities and bad choices. I can see the course I charted in this life and it wasn’t so bad after all. 

I did OK.

No, I did good.

Now I can let go.

And the flower is growing brighter and brighter. The petals are flames and I can feel the beauty of the universe. I am one with everything. I’m the light. 

I am love.