Lost pieces

Pieces of yourself remain attached to the things, people, events, and times that had great value to you, but were lost upon their exit from your life. The fear or reality of losing those pieces forever, may be the most painful feeling of all, leaving you diminished or less than before; one of many deaths that you will perpetually experience over a lifetime, as you mourn the lost pieces of your former self, until they’re recovered in weakened form, or finally discarded and put to rest.

In the end, the many pieces of you will be scattered by the proverbial winds of time and consequence, leaving them here, there, and everywhere, still attached to their hosts, but nowhere to be found as what was once the wholeness of YOU.

Defeating insanity

“Imagination does not breed insanity. Exactly what does breed insanity is reason. Poets do not go mad; but chess-players do. Mathematicians go mad, and cashiers; but creative artists very seldom.”
~ G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

We avoid insanity through imagination. Reality, with its banal, loveless logic, is too harsh and dry to accept as our one and only experience of the world. To remain sane, we create stories, poetry and art that are full of passion, love, mystery, conflict, surrealism, and even pain.

Dissolution

“You think it will never happen to you, that it cannot happen to you, that you are the only person in the world to whom none of these things will ever happen, and then, one by one, they all begin to happen to you, in the same way they happen to everyone else.”
~ Paul Auster

By middle age, a myriad of wounds had accumulated, one on top of another; the sheer force of their emotional weight clarifying my predicament, that no matter what I do or where I go, the “road of dissolution” is beneath my proverbial feet, poking holes in my existence; an inexorable progression of decline, moving me forward like a conveyor belt, from cradle to grave.

There was and is no turning back, no stop button on this road, no return to the garden of blissful ignorance—AKA childhood—despite my resistance and great protest. The long, painful takedown being an incurable, terminal condition of existence, shared by all of humanity.

Oh yes, the demons of Thanatos are lurking from beginning to end, lining our roads with their pitchforks, poking holes at will; tasked with disassembling and removing the many pieces of human lifetimes.

If I’d avoided my road for a time, then it was only through the wishful illusion of invincibility and immortality, set against the background of my all too human fate: the slow dissolution of body, mind, and spirit.

Intimate connection

Humans are wired to seek intimacy with something or someone: physically, chemically, emotionally, mentally, psychologically, and/or instinctively. Call it romance, bonding, relationship, sex, spiritual communion, religion, attachment, obsession, lust, addiction, or whatever you prefer; all of us are seeking it on some level or in some form, but often frustrated, depressed or traumatized by its elusive nature.

Toxic virility

“No one is more arrogant toward women, more aggressive or scornful, than the man who is anxious about his virility.”
~ Simone de Beauvoir

This is “sometimes” true, especially when a man makes virility the center of his male identity. His mission in life being the validation of his masculine worth and supremacy, defending himself against anyone who challenges or adds an air of doubt to this egocentric ideal: the proof and recognition of his manliness.

Rather than explore his underlying fear of emasculation, he scapegoats or blames others for it—sometimes with a vengeance. Unconsciously, he attracts or seeks those who poke at his fear—intentionally or otherwise—increasing his level of anxiety, anger, and aggression.