Slaves and Bulldozers

At the close of the Age of Fire, all lands meet at the end of the earth.

Great kingdoms and anaemic townships will be one and the same.

The great tide of human enterprise, all for naught.

That's why I'm so taken by this grand sight.

This must be what it's like to be a god.

Take the plunge. You won't die.

There are very few things that make as much visceral sense as the notion of home. Even the most profoundly nihilistic person will admit that, at the very least, the word has gravitas. With it comes the notion of belonging, yet another gut-wrenching word, and yet another word that the nihilist dismisses as an impossibility, voice quivering.

Scratch a cynic and you'll find a disappointed idealist.

Writing hasn’t been coming to me as easily as it used to. It feels like something's drying up, yet paradoxically I've been getting overcome with the urge to put some words to paper. Or screen. You get the idea.

It’s a lot easier when life is down in the dumps I suppose, because then there's adequate fuel for the fire. But what about when things are just okay? I mean, life's pretty good at the moment, all things considered. I'm thankful for the fact that I have family and friends I'd gladly give my life for; a good job that fills the day with meaning and a sense of progress, replacing the stagnancy that once stood in its stead; plenty of disposable income, been sticking to an exercise routine (and smashed through my deadlift PR, fuck yeah). Which begs the question: why the urge to write at all? I'm not entirely sure, and half the time even when I do write something, I don't feel satisfied.

Maybe the apathy's kicking in again.

It does get lonely here. Thoughts come and go and even the best ones, no matter how startling, go unspoken. Which is weird honestly because it's not like I actually have the time to meet people outside of the weekends.  It's odd. I want things to go back to the way they were, but some part of me knows that those days are long gone. I'm now quite convinced that never again will mum, dad, appu and myself ever live under the same roof like we used to. Life's gotten in the way, and I'm not sure how long it will be before circumstances permit it again.

That's probably it, to be honest. Working life and the breakup have forced a good deal of growing up. It's a stark thing to realize that life can change so goddamn quickly, especially it seems like the universe itself is frozen when you're going through those monotonous periods. And then all too soon you wake up, the car's stopped and it's time to step outside. The destination's ahead and it's not quite what you expected.

Sometimes I think everyone's just stumbling in the dark, frantically grasping at whatever promises a modicum of meaning, anything really to distract them from the fact that life is changing and that nothing ever stays the same. Paradoxically, it's this frailty that grants beauty; a lone lily at the end of a glacier looking over the edge of the world. How cruel it is that the best things in life end, while the dark times seem to linger on and on, that we are almost biologically programmed to view happiness as the default, and so begin to view the world itself as terrible?

I'm rambling again, forgive me. The ice splits the mountain, cutting a path through time older than time; groans unheard, icy behemoths stand tall, and somewhere, someone takes in the view.