I don't write much anymore. Just got into the site I noticed the following trend of rising and then falling posts per year. What does all of this mean?- It takes 11 years for me to cycle through a fad?
- Years that I became increasingly happy/thin then sad/fat?
- Rise and fall of blogging? (don't laugh I was late to the party)
- The impact of money on my happiness as I reached a point of diminishing returns in 2013 and then watched my life plumet?
- Maybe I just thought I was getting old and had nothing left to say.
From the Preacher (Ecclesiastes 1:12-18)
"I the Preacher was king over Israel in Jerusalem. And I gave my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all things that are done under heaven: this sore travail hath God given to the sons of man to be exercised therewith. I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and, behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit. That which is crooked cannot be made straight: and that which is wanting cannot be numbered.
I communed with mine own heart, saying, Lo, I am come to great estate, and have gotten more wisdom than all they that have been before me in Jerusalem: yea, my heart had great experience of wisdom and knowledge. And I gave my heart to know wisdom, and to know madness and folly: I perceived that this also is vexation of spirit. For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow."
Since turning 40 last April I feel like my life has come undone. The harder I've tried to make things better the worse they've become. Now I've pushed things to the point where just about everything I ever thought I cared about and believed in seems like its going to either leave, change for the worse or become poisoned. But in my hubris I thought:
I've become an angry kid fed up with life who turned 40; stormed into the room filled with all his crushing expectations and announced "I'm tired of not feeling worthy. I should be enough! I'm done trying. I've got nothing to lose. I'm a man!! I'm 40." But instead the following months have manhandled me into a seat to hear:
"Guys from your world have so 'much' to lose. Now, you think that because your daddy died while you were young, you know about the ugly side of life? But you don't. You've never tasted desperate. You're a privileged white male, a Prince of Opportunity; you'd have to go a thousand miles to meet someone who didn't think you had every advantage in life. So, don't come down here with your anger, trying to prove something to yourself. This is a world you'll never understand. And you always fear what you don't understand."
So now I wallow, brooding over my past, locked up with my fear, insecurity and resentment; trying to beat them to death while my thrashings just hurt the people around me...
A petulant 40-year old is just a fool lost in the scramble for his own gratification . He can be divorced, estranged or lose all his possessions. But...
Which is? ... I honestly don't know. Yet.