I don’t want to exist. I’m tired of being here. Haven’t had a win in a while, and I don’t feel like I’m going to have one soon, and certainly not as soon as I’d like. Where am I? That’s partially an honest question, partially existential hyperbole, and partially disingenuous silliness. I really don’t know though, except I do, but admitting it is both hyperbole and all too real. Hell. I guess I’m in Hell, perhaps Limbo, Limbo feels better emotionally, and it’s true enough, but it’s not quite as real as admitting I’m in Hell. I’m really not in the mood to hold anything back right now, I suppose I’ve been edging for awhile now, and I keep getting right back here. It’s amazing that I can’t do what I want to do right now. And I don’t even mean the things I want to be doing right now that are the reasons for me feeling this way. Those are simply off the table and outside my control. But I can’t even do the things I want to do because I feel this way. Not existing is hard, and usually permanent as far as I can tell. I’m not suicidal, never have been….well not seriously anyway. I suppose the form of non-existence I’d like here is to spend a week or month as a hermit in the woods. Sounds lovely on some levels, on another level it would leave me horrifyingly alone with my thoughts, but that’s exactly where I am right now. In a mostly empty building, office door shut, no desire to go home, no desire to go anywhere but into the ether. That shit just doesn’t work though. I have responsibilities that chain me to existence, not in a permanent way, I could do it, I could just walk out and come back next week, but obviously there would be consequences. First off, I’d be declared missing and that causes annoying problems. Evaporating from work would be lovely for awhile, there’s a fair chance I wouldn’t even lose my job over it, just have to deal with whatever when I got back and for awhile after that. Would make the personal relationships weird though. Girlfriend and best friend notice, they check in with mom, now that’s three people concerned. What do you do? Leave a note? “Hi, won’t kill myself, but also won’t exist until Tuesday after next? Don’t worry, just checking out for awhile.” I don’t think they’d be that alarmed if they found that note, wouldn’t be horribly out of character for me. I’d have plenty of questions to answer. Mostly I’d just feel bad because they’d feel bad, I don’t need them to feel bad, they want to help, but can’t….see the beginning of this damn thing where I talk about that being my problem. I think sometimes we just can’t change anything and that kills us. I hate not being in control of anything, I don’t have control issues, I’m not that type A. But the whole captain of my soul, master of my fate thing? Yeah, not right now. Every single aspect of my life is currently out of my control because it’s waiting on things that come next, or that need to come next. There’s simply nothing to be done about it from my end, and as someone who has really embraced the concept of extreme ownership and discipline, as a way of turning my life around for substantial improvement, this sucks. It’s about the worst thing that could be happening. Of course this means I’m also discounting all the things currently in my life as meaningless, doesn’t it? Which in a way maybe I am, or at least devaluing them compared to the future. Attempting to live in the future, but stuck in the past…yeah, something like that. Life is suffering, and this could really be looked at as penance for past mistakes, obvious past mistakes are why I’m in this place, and not in a vastly different place. But I’ve moved on from the me that made those mistakes, like I said, substantial improvement, but this is the reminder? Hell is other people. Sort of, but not really. Hell is a transient thing, there’s a belief in some versions of the Abrahamic religions that Hell is a temporary state, that you stay in Hell long enough to atone for your sins, then the impure parts of you are burned away, and the rest of you is allowed to move on. I’m paying the price for past sins right now, even though I already paid for them. Maybe Hell needs to serve you with reminders once in awhile, the Devil wouldn’t want you to forget him. But there isn’t a Devil is there? Not a God either….not ones that are separate from ourselves anyway. I think God and the Devil are ideals people have. Modern people see the Devil as the source of all evil in the world, but that’s probably not the original intention, and probably not the truth of existence. God rewards, the Devil punishes? I think that might be closer, I don’t think God is good because God is good, I think God rewards the things you think are good…..well obviously, 9/11 beliefs in 72 virgins proves that. Hades could be the precursor to the Devil, and Hades, the precursor to Hell. I think it helps people to personify things, but the precursor for Hades is Hades, it begat he. And Hades was probably predated by things like Ginnungagap. From chaos emerged order, but is it order and disorder? Are those Heaven and Hell? In a lot of senses, sure. But shouldn’t there be a base level? Everyone wants a base level, but I suppose that doesn’t mean there is one. They aren’t places, they’re meta places. Heaven and Hell are places you exist during your life? I can’t speak to what happens to the dead, only one way to figure that out, I’m extremely curious, and have nothing to fear from it, but I don’t seek it. Maybe Heaven and Hell are places that our legacies go in the minds of others? Individuals, and the collective? So I suppose the only question worth asking when one finds oneself in Hell, or Heaven for that matter, but why question the gift unicorn, is how did I get here? Because that’s it, no one forces you into Hell…well okay, no one forces most people into Hell, I can certainly imagine extreme circumstances that would turn people’s lives into Hell and absolutely shape their decisions for them, but I’m not talking about them. I’m talking about the majority of us, who had decent upbringings, and there isn’t anything inherently demonic about our lives or who we are. So what did I actually do? Or in some cases, what didn’t I do? I sucked in a relationship, or at least at the end of one, that would be the most surface explanation of why I’m here, but that only explains why am I here in a relationship sense, granted, a rather significant portion of my current issues are directly related to those relationship mistakes, there are deeper reasons for making those mistakes, and you can’t just pawn your mistakes off to others and circumstance.

I just saw a window into Heaven, the life I could be living, the life I will hopefully live. I can say honestly, they got Tantalus’ punishment right. Are those the most well known punishments of Hades? Tantalus and Sisyphus? There’s others like Io, but that’s not exactly a metaphor or lesson, just torture. Is Hell really a combination of the two? Or are those just two of the most common Hells? I suppose I’m Tantalus right now, I can ripple water with my breath, but can never meet it with my lips to drink. I can see through a tiny window, but not step through it.

But why am I here in the first place? I ruined a relationship. Why? I was a jerk. Why? I was self-absorbed and immature. Why? I didn’t want to lose something, or at the least, be deprived of someone amazing. And it wasn’t even all for selfish reasons, I knew things wouldn’t end well with her pursuits, and I was proven correct about that. If I hadn’t been so personally hurt by it at the time, and so selfish, perhaps I could have more tenderly articulated that and the whole thing could have been avoided. Although that wouldn’t have been the best course of action, even though it sounds like it. I could have successfully protected her, or at least helped her avoid something. But the me of today knows that wouldn’t have been the way. Sure, raising the objections and concerns in a reasonable way would certainly be a worthwhile thing to do. But the real goal shouldn’t have been to raise them to turn her from her decision, but to have actually helped her overcome them and be successful. That’s the role I could have played. Because it’s not just me dealing with the Hell of my actions. She did and does as well. There’s a lot to be understood there I suppose, many levels of failure on my part, and consequences of that failure, but they don’t necessarily necessitate exploration. One needed really plumb the depths of a void looking for the edge…it’s a void…it ain’t got an edge, just look at it and respect it’s enormity and ability to supplant the space around you.

Having vaguely established an understanding of Hell, an understanding of this particular Hell, and how I came to be in it…strangely I feel better. Why do I feel better? Doesn’t exactly make sense does it? Except it does. Your brain is an amazing thing, works on autopilot if you ask it to. Ask it a question, can be anything, it’ll give you the answer if you let it. Sit to write when you don’t feel like existing and you’ll figure it out. But here’s why it really makes sense…or at least why it makes sense to me. Way back a few hundred words ago, I was lamenting about not having control of my situation and thereby being miserable, but by trying to understand the situation I happened upon why I was here, and why I’m here, as it rather unsurprisingly turns out, is absolutely my own doing. I understand now. “The further back you look, the farther forward you will see.” I didn’t have control of everything when I made the mistakes….obviously, because if I did, I wouldn’t have been put in a position to make those mistakes, but while I wasn’t in control, it was exactly the way I acted in response to the things I couldn’t control that ruined everything. If I’d acted differently, things would be different, simple. So now…and perhaps always….if I’m honest….yeah, this might be a meta place as well…Limbo is the place where you don’t control anything, it is the default meta location of people’s existence? Because as people, by definition we don’t control everything….otherwise, we’d be God….and we’d really be in Heaven…kinda contradicts earlier doesn’t it? But I suppose that’s learning, or rather, evolving. Sooooooo….yeah I lost myself here, let’s back up a few lines. Oh I’ve got it, it’s a Venn Diagram! Ha, yes! You’re always in Limbo because there are always things outside your control and therefore some portion of you, in some facet of life, will always exist in Limbo. But you can also exist in Hell….and that Hell can and will absolutely amplify the effects of Limbo…because they’re synergistic I suppose. Because Hell is bad, Heaven is good, and Limbo is Limbo. To put it another way, Limbo is water, doesn’t really taste like anything, just a thing you need to drink constantly, but you can make the water taste bad, Hell, or good, Heaven. Because Limbo is Limbo…that’s a t-shirt. Anyways, if you’ve been messing up, and dealing with the consequences, then Limbo is worse than usual because you’re not just stuck in Limbo, you’re stuck in Hell as well….yeah…Venn. But back to the why I feel better now that I’ve determined that I’m the one that got me stuck in Hell. I have to be in Limbo, cause Limbo is Limbo, but I don’t have to be in Hell. IIIIIIIIII put me in Hell, no one else, just me. So now that I understand properly, yet again, that I’m the one who put me squarely in Hell…I realize I put me here! Isn’t that beautiful. If you don’t get it, you’re not seeing it. I put me here. From the place we all have to stand, I walked into Hell. Why didn’t I walk into Heaven? Well quite simply the person I was at that time wasn’t capable of such a thing, but I’m not that person anymore. So I put myself in Hell, Hell is burning off the portions of me that walked into Hell so that I will no longer be the person who walks into this particular Hell…so next time…I can just walk into Heaven. Put rather simply, if I put me in Hell when I didn’t control the situation, then this time when I don’t control the situation I’m perfectly capable of walking into Heaven instead, and that’s why I feel better.

All that said, I still need to walk to Heaven….probably isn’t around the damn corner, but oh well. As for how would I walk into Heaven? As I said, I think the brain gives us pretty good answers, and the answer will come if you ask. I will phrase the question thusly, if I were me in a story, what would I want me to do? The answer was, put this on the internet because maybe someone else will benefit from it someday, tell certain people you love them, go home, eat something, sleep, and ask again in the morning.