Friday, January 15, 2016

Fifty-Two

All my life I’ve waited for my life to begin. Now my life is almost over, and I'm still waiting. 

Others expected great things of me. I expected them of myself. But I’ve done only what I had to do, not what I knew I should do.

I think most people live this way, never doing what they should do. Or rather they don’t live, any more than I do. They waste their lives doing what they have to do, not what they know they should do. 

I’ve always tried to take pride in doing the things I had to do as well as I could, but it wasn’t easy to take pride in doing well what I knew was a waste of time. Even worse, I knew the things I did not only needn’t, but shouldn’t, be done. Most of the things we do to survive are harmful not only to others, but to ourselves.

How can they live – or not live - this way? Aren’t they depressed, as I am, by the knowledge that they’re wasting their lives? 

If they are depressed, they hide it better than I do. But apparently I hide it well. 

People have always come to me for advice and/or consolation. I used to tell them the truth, but they never listened. Now I tell them what they want to hear.

She once said people come to me because I'm strong, someone whom others turn to in an emergency. Everyone is strong in an emergency, because they know it’s only temporary. People become less willing to help others when hardship becomes the norm, as it is now.

If I am strong, it’s because I know that not only is life temporary, but I can end it whenever I choose. Nietzsche said thinking of suicide is always consoling; it gets one through many a sleepless night.

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