The world sucks. People kill each other, talk over each other, lie to each other, break each others' hearts. Yet humanity is still worth saving because of art, poetry, love, creativity, life. Though we've managed to plunder this Earth, it's worth trying to save because of nature and life. It's depressing, yet inspiring.

People aren't perfect. People depend on feeling a sense of belonging, feeling loved, feeling needed. A lot of people can't seem to bear responsibility or standing alone, while some can't seem to bear admitting dependence. People are proud, pushy, intrusive. Yet they can be defensive, cautious, elusive. The conflict between wanting company and not finding any?

You can have a life of passionate work, towards some goal you have determined for yourself. You have family and friends. You have progress, you have people. For people and away from people. With people and for yourself. There is work and there is life. Life is work and work is life. There is the past and the future. Now is the weird interface between both that doesn't quite make sense and is not immediately attainable. It's alluded to by the past and the future. To preserve those relationships with the past may result in the severing of future relationships and opportunities. Which will end up as the severing of the past as time passes. And so as you go on, there are fewer and fewer relationships to keep ties with until you are alone (because people die or leave). If you let go of the past and move onto new relationships, then the path never converges anywhere, it just cycles around and around, collecting laughs and tears. Perhaps the same laughs and tears one would have gained from the past?

To keep or to let go? How do you value and balance the past and the future? How do you balance obligations with opportunities? Responsibilities versus freedoms? Acceptance versus change? Self versus non-self? Giving - to whom?

As I stare point-blank at these questions, I realise they are not dichotomies. They are ideas that can exist together and are sometimes the same thing. But I ask this: what is the point in asking? I feel like I've asked and asked, answered and answered - now I stand at the edge of the Universe, with no more wisdom than I started and no question unanswered. Yet there remains a question mark - without a question, without an answer. But an unexplainable need to ponder. For what? And am I stuck in this universe? Bound by what?

I have to leave. I have to leave, because I have to. I want to stay as well, but I cannot. On top of that, I cannot expect this world to stay the same for when I get back. People change. Scenery changes. On one side, it will appear as freedom. From the inside it will be a cage. Logic will tell me it is a choice - I know. But it comes at a price. It comes with the perceived freedom that will always set me apart from the crowd. The crowd, which sees my isolation as a choice - and perhaps it is - but they miss the small step that sees me choosing because I have to and a side-effect of that is that I am alone. My values give me great pain and inspiration at the same time. They detract from one set of needs and pours my efforts into the needs I have created. Guided by what I think is right. Guiding me through thorns and lessons. It shrouds me in darkness away from anyone else, anywhere. And I cannot be heard. I cannot reconcile my path with expectations. I cannot reconcile it with any sense of security. It is it. A question mark. Just one.

Staring down the barrel tells me I already knew this from the beginning. Felt it all along. Maybe it has taken this long to accept it.

I've lived in my head for far too long. Maybe if I took a step outside, I might find the sun shining. Or maybe if I opened my cranium, I would release some of this pressure that is probably large enough to compress protein aggregates.... dull aches pondering life. Sharp pains full of apologies. I'm grateful for what I want to achieve and the characters I have to do so. But I'm still sorry for who I am. I'm sorry I scare the shit out of everyone and I'm sorry I offend the hell out of everyone. It's hard to communicate (even with myself) how I view this world. It's just a huge question mark and it's heavy to carry.

You know, people tend to think I am so structured and disciplined. I guess I am, but I hate planning too far ahead and I hate having to answer to other people as to where I'm going to be or what I want to do. I am free as a bird and caged by my own terms. Right?.... right?