Story...

I feel so drained...anytime I finish any sort of book series...there is just this exaustive drain on me. The longer I've lived with the series the bigger the drain. This one was only about four years so it wasn't so bad...the Harry Potter series was the worse...close to a decade worth of memories and imagination.

But it's a good tired.

It reminds me why I love story and how some days it feels that the imagination is more real than real is...if that makes sense. The Matrix Online was good for that...World of Warcraft is a pale imitation of what that could be...sort of like comparing Harry Potter to Twilight...it's not fair for either party but still the superior brand is clear for those who are looking and know what they are trying to see.

I'm quite excited about Donald Miller's new book coming out this month "A Million Miles in a Thousand Years"...it's about the importance of story to our lives...how the ideas of plot, character, conflict and resolution are a part of that makes life life...life and art being one and being what drives us.

Ever since I first encountered Story when I was a child...I've been obsessed with it...the desire to explain what I've seen in story, in metaphor, in the idea of experince points and epic battles to right the eternal wrongs. I was told young to dream big but that my dreams were stupid, it's amazing what memories jut out at you and this memory has always cut me when it poked out. I feel like I'm trying to run from myself so often that I never see what it is I'm doing...I'm so full of medication that I forget to breath, forget that I exist for a reason and that everyone around me has meaning.

That is the chief lesson I think there is in Roland's quest for the Dark Tower.

Is the end the chief reason for being?
Do we exist for the sole purpose of reaching an end?
Is food an end?
Is sex an end?
Is marriage an end?
Are children an end?
Is a quest to reach the end of the world, to stop creation from unwinding the sole reason for a hero go journey?

No.

It is the daily progress, the dull words of conversation, the ache of muscles too weary to walk another step, the bitter taste of loosing love ones, the sting of realizing time and people are moving on without you, that eternal is only eternal indeed...it is all these things in the progress of the journey that makes life truly life.

Part of my disappointment is expecting to find this sacred reason beyond living as a reason to live...what was the quote Donald Miller mentioned in 'Searching for God Knows What'? Something like "Real life is like fine wine, something children cannot appreciate."

I can't help but still feel like a stupid little kid; sick, tired, confused and hurting deep in my soul and still, here I am.

I haven't given up yet and will not.

I don't need to know that life, fate, ka or whatever is a wheel...things will continue to rotate but none of us are fortuned with a second change to learn from the heartless mistakes we make as we plow through people like they were nothing more than paper dolls.

Maybe that is one of our greatest sins...not realizing people are just as, if not more so, important than ourselves.

If we aren't willing to put ourselves up to sacrifice, how can we ask others to lend their lives for our 'quests'?

It's not mere sentimental romance running through my mind...but realizing I have forgotten the face of the only Father I have known...I've traded it for the love of self and indulgent self deprecation.

Jesus mentions loving other as much as you love yourself...what if you forget to love yourself? How can you love others, much less the Author of Love without loving yourself?

It's a paradox, one I've neglected for fear.

Of what exactly...I'm not sure but for sure it is one in which I have focused on the impossible in order to have some sense of relief...some sense that is as false as any fool's gold will be.

Learning what to love means, learning to heal as much as my body can and then I can progress.

Somewhere.

To something.

I'm not sure where it is going or where I am not going.

As far as I've been able to tell time is not linear nor will be the rest of my life.

There are no happily ever after endings...but there is the possibility of a longer life than the one I've so far have spent, there is a possibility of the night stretching into another morning and the possibility that every tear and heartache will have a deeper meaning...and be taken away in love...one day.

Good Day Rain

It is finished.

It feels like I have crossed a million miles in such a few years...just from reading the books...but it is finished...and yet only just begun.

I'm glad my part as a reader is done. The story can continue in the circle it was created to be and I can rest knowing it will be and it will forever be.

My only regret is being unable to speak to the one who introduced me to the path, introduced me to the books and the muse that is always willing to voice a differencing opinion when it is needed.

It is a good day.

"A World Alone" - Saviour Machine

Love leaves the soul
Blood feed the man who stands
Alone in the grasp of the hands
That fornicate the land
That emulate the past
To infiltrate a man to tear his brother's flesh
Then drink his blood as we confess
Unto the crimes, we lay at rest
We lay at rest

Rest upon the hand, rest upon the fortress
Hold me in your arms, hold on to the dreams
And the cry to wipe away the tears

In a world that takes away the seeds
And takes away another
To fill its evil needs
In a world that takes away the dreams
When dreams deceive a man, insanity proceeds
In a world that's drowning in its lies
Which persecute his brother
For the color of his eyes
In a world that radiates the skies
Intoxicates the oceans
So watch it as it dies, Alone

No one is home, now one will answer the call
The cry, hear the cry
Comprehend the nature of your soul

The horrors of a child that slips into the night
Surrenders to the fight to find his senses won't reply
Unto the evidence he finds along the way
He dies along the way

My world has no more meaning
I've not much more to take
Hold me in your arms, hold on to the dream
And the cry to wipe away the tears

In a world that takes away the seeds
And takes away another
To fill its evil needs
In a world that takes away the dreams
When dreams deceive a man, insanity proceeds
In a world that's drowning in its lies
Which persecute his brother
For the color of his eyes
In a world that radiates the skies
Intoxicates the oceans
So watch it as it dies, Alone

I want...something.

Not from people but it's what I look for and why I find such dissatisfaction so often.

I want perfection from the imperfect...it's almost like I'm expecting to find purified water in a diseased swamp.

I wish there was some real escape from the prison my own mind can be...

This is such a vividly painful day...