Musings of a Wanderer (Work in Progress)

Chapter 2

She wants me to find happiness, but I am lost without her. She was a shining light, a beacon, a torch I could hold high. In doing so she would illuminate the dark winding corridors of time and fate as I tried to navigate this life. Now it is as if she is extinguished, and I am left standing in the shadow unsure of where I'm going and more unsure of whether or not I've been travelling the proper path all along.

She had been there since my childhood, effectively all my life as she goes back further than even my memory. Never had two people been so seemingly destined for each other. This blessing has become a curse. I've never before known the chill of loneliness and now that we're so introduced I find it all too cold and unbearable.

Humans were not meant to be alone. Of that much I'm sure. We are a race defined by our teamwork, our groups, our societies. Our tribe mentality is unparalled in the natural world. We've survived and rose above the status of primal animals by these qualities, these instincts to seek the aid of and work with others. Perhaps it's from this our powerful desire for companionship has evolved? I'd argue it has at least played a role, but lonliness and the compulsion for love do not seem to be questions of survival. The sex and procreation aspect certainly is, but even that ties into the greater philosophical implications of our desires.

Our need for love and companionship has elevated itself past primal instinct. It is an existential drive for approval and purpose in a largely meaningless, harsh world. Our companions validate who we are and we validate them. The feeling of being loved is one of the warmest, most pleasurable feelings in the world.

I would've devoted my life to her, and that would've been even more satisfying than any degree of her love. Where her affection and devotion gave validation to my being, it was in my devotion to her that I would derive true life satisfaction, and purpose. It gave me a positive to strive for. Something productive that brings infinitely greater good to the world than any quantity of discovery or scientific writing I could have ever produced.  This is not something I know, but it is something I can distinctly feel, and it's loss has left a noticable void in my life.

It seems I am taking my anecotal experience for granted, but it is a strong and unifying experience. So much so that I'd wager anyone who is in love would corroborate my statements, and anyone who thinks they're in love but disagrees simply is not in love. I hold these feeling of satisfaction in devotion, and validation through affection as hallmarks of true love, and to those that do not feel them and do not see them I say you know not of love. Those that have felt as I have felt would now nod their heads in knowing agreement, for to those that have seen it it is clear, and to those that have not it is bemusing.

But now what do I do? It's been a week since Victoria's parting and every night's been the same. After a day of null productivity at the University I stumble into some dirty pub in some desolate part of Nicholsport where one doesn't go to meet friends or celebrate the day, but to drown sorrows and get really fucking drunk, and then I do what one does there. I decide to change up my routine this evening, in honour of it being one week since my heart was ripped from my chest, I'll make do without the booze this evening and wander Nicholsport by night instead. Up and down the cobblestone streets I'll go, my only companion the dim light of the street lamps floating above on thier slender perches, and I'll try to get my life straightened out in my head.

One week ago I was so certain. I was so sure I knew what I wanted in life, where my place was, what I was to do and who I'd do it with. It was all planned and all was going according to plan.  Granted for poor Victoria the loss of her parents was an unexpected tragedy, but I always thought we could work through it together like we've done with so many struggles before. She had been a stalwart companion in the past and I'd expected nothing but the same once again. I don't understand why this time was different.

As I reach the end of another alley I observe that it was much shorter than it appeared at the outset. In the dark of night one can't always see the end of the alley, but one must still decide if they'll walk down it, and we all make guesses about how far it is to the end. We're usually wrong. Did Victoria just not love me as I loved her? More often than not I'd be the one to say "I love you" first, to ask her to see me that evening, to advance our relationship further. I was always the one chasing, pursuing, trying. I always put it up to her just being shy or timid, and she certainly is, but maybe she never really wanted this as I did. Maybe she never really could reciprocate my passions?

But what can reciprocate my passions? Look at the fireflies dancing in the evening sky. It looks now to me as if there's always one light chasing another. There's the passionate and the objects of their passions. They romanticize their objects and blind themselves in their chase. What other areas of my life have I romanticized something, and pursued it relentlessly? Maybe if I can identify them now I can stop before I'm made a fool again.

Walking past the University enshrouded in ivy and mystery I come across the other hard answer. My work housed in the tall towers on that campus. What use is fervent study that only leads to more study? In those isolated chambers we study not but idolized problems that hardly return the affections we give them. We answer them, get a minute of fame, write a paper and then are hurried back into our towers to solve another. It never ends, it's a vicious cycle. Society doesn't really need us but they like the idea of us. It's a sham really. We're given enough acknowledgement to want to keep going, but not enough to really feel like we're doing anything of proper import. And we're not. Theory, abstraction, philosophy, and reasoning are all well and good but they're a product of our comfortable decadent society. In hard times research is one of the first things to lose it's money, and those workers of real value: physicians, builders, farmers and teachers get to shine through.

...

A river runs lazily through the middle of Nicholsport and under a modest rustic bridge. I stand now in middle of that bridge staring over the edge at the waters running below. Nothing I've ever done, will ever do, or will ever care about will return the feelings I bring to them or will mean anything to anyone, myself included. Like the current of the river washes away the sediment of the underlying bed the current of time will wash away all I've tried to be into the abyss. I don't want to spend my life pursuing meaningless romantic notions like Victoria or Academics only to be shunned and abandoned when reality finally catches up to my chasing. I still love her, but she left and couldn't care less how I conduct myself now. In light of that I no longer wish to conduct myself at all. I should simply jump and let that river carry me out now instead of agonizing in life waiting for time to do the same at it's much slower pace.

I lean over and now the waters look inviting. Like the answer to all my pain and suffering is in their cool blue depths. In the dark I can't see how deep the water runs, but I'm guessing it's not far. No matter, it won't take much to wash away my petty soul. I lift my foot to step over the edge. Time seems to drag on infinitely. Just as I'm about to move to step over I hear a cool voice behind me, "You don't want to do that just yet my friend." I turn to look and out of the shadows, silent as the night air around us, the slender figure of a man paler than the moonlight appears before me.