One Hundred and Sixty One

I’m closer to death now than I’ve ever been.  Not because I’m old(er) now—we can die at any age—but because I’m closer to suicide now than I’ve ever been.

Knowing that should the whips and scorns of time become unbearable, I could always my own quietus make with a bare bodkin, used to comfort me, as it did Nietzsche; but it does no longer.

Knowing myself used to comfort me; but what little self knowledge I have has always come to me in dreams, and it does no longer.  I used to have vivid dreams when I was young(er), and remembered them clearly when I woke; but though I still have dreams that I know are just as vivid, because I feel exhausted when I wake, I no longer remember them.

I had a dream last night, which I remember vaguely because it was—or seemed to be—very long.  It began when I entered college, and ended four years later, when I dropped out.

I always dream I’m back in college, or in high school, when I’m learning something.  What am I learning now?

Even though there were nights when I rode up and down the highway, trying to summon up the courage to crash my motorcycle, I remember my college years as a relatively happy time.  I had friends and lovers.  I was liked and respected by my teachers and fellow students—people who I wanted to like and respect in return, but couldn’t, because they seemed to me stupid, unwilling or unable to see what was obvious to me.   

The dream begins as I enter the building on my first day.  It’s crowded and noisy.  Everyone is talking, getting to know each other like passengers on a ship setting out on a voyage together.  But they all fall silent as I enter. 

They turn and look at me, and I realize I'm the spectre at the feast (This is not what actually happened—Diane sat down beside me during orientation and flirted with me; David and Paul both asked to be my roommate—nevertheless it's true. I've always been the guest who spoils the party for others because he arrives bearing bad news).

We come into this world, out of the everywhere into the here, in media res.  The world was here before we were, and I used to be comforted by the knowledge that it would still be here when I'm gone.  But no longer. 

I'm old(er) now, but I still haven’t learned to accept the world as it is.  Instead I feel more strongly than ever that I don't belong here.  None of us do.  It's even harder for me to accept that most other people aren't as disgusted as I am by what we've made of the world, and don't want to remake it, as I do.  They want instead to remake themselves, into people who can fit into this world.  They want a deck chair on the Titanic. 

What I have accepted is that I can’t remake this world alone, and no one else wants to try.  Therefore this juggernaut can’t be turned, this engine of destruction can’t be turned off.  It’s a bomb whose timer was set at the beginning of our history, and soon will explode.