Random unrelated stuff

Soul Searching

If you go out looking for yourself, you’re sure to get lost. That’s all that’s certain about this business. Driven by idle curiosity, you set out, hopeful and confident, sure that your target can’t be so far away.

Time passes, and passes, and you haven’t found anything, so you decide to go back to where you were and try this again. The problem is, you don’t remember how far you’ve gone or how many turns you took to get here. You stopped to ask a man in a white robe for directions a while ago, but he obviously either didn’t know what he was doing or misled you on purpose because you’re still uncertain of where to go.

Sometimes you’re convinced you’re on the right street, right up until the brick wall looms up in front of you, and you have to turn around. All the buildings look different, and you’re not sure if they’re actually different or you’re just seeing them from a new perspective. You take a turn that you think you remember taking before, only in reverse, but, no, that’s not it either. You don’t know which way is north, what the world around you looks like, or what any street leads to. You could end up in a seedy bar or a country club or a bad marriage; you’re just not sure. If you ever catch that person who led you off, you’ll teach him to betray a person’s trust.

Finally you decide that it’s better if you just stop and get your bearings. So you sit on some street corner while people pass you, all going about their own business, and you try to remember how you got here, what streets might you have taken instead? Would that really have been the right one? Maybe you didn’t follow the directions right. You’ll never know now. Every hour or so you try to stop people and tell them about it, but they’re not interested, they all know where they’re going.

Then you start wondering where exactly you were going in the first place. Maybe your target was also moving, passing by a corner just as you turned past it. Maybe it’s not your fault. After all, you don’t know what your identity looks like. You start to wonder if you ever even had a soul, if you’re just a collection of impressions, like the philosophers say. What do you really know about yourself, anyway? Wasn’t that why you set out in the first place? But philosophy has never been very practical. You’re still lost, no matter what else you are.

A feeling of exhaustion creeps into you and pulls hopelessness along behind by the hand. You get up for one more go, this time silently begging to get lucky. You wander down a few streets, knowing they aren’t the right one. You remember some pleasant places you passed before, but you can’t even manage to find them again. Finally you collapse and don’t bother to get up again. Where you are isn’t the best, but it’s better than nothing. You no longer care what you were looking for or where it really is. In fact you curse it, that illusive knowledge of identity that made a fool of you and led you astray.

You set up shop right where you’ve stopped and never leave again. You give up on happiness and settle for complacency. Right where you are is good enough; sometimes, when you’re feeling desperate, you can convince yourself that this was all you wanted all along.

But at night, in the midst of your own darkness, you still wonder who you really are, and whatever happened to you.