Void

I find myself increasingly at an impasse faced with the imponderable mystery of what it means to be human, to be me. The more I read and the more I think, the more I find myself standing at the edge of an impossibly high cliff, so high that no ground can be seen below – depths receding into depths of impenetrable darkness. What has led me to the edge of this abyss and why am I here? Why can life not be a comfortable round of gentle pleasure and easy satisfaction? Why am I thrust out of the sheltered valleys of companionable society onto this solitary peak? It seems I have been climbing, searching for an answer, only to find myself faced with a great void. There is nowhere further to go, not even a glimpse of another peak beyond – nothing. Nor is there any going back. The imperative to search, to go forward is as great as ever. In any case to go back would be to give the lie to the mystery within, the dream that is not a dream, the urge to be. And so I stand looking into the nothingness. Perhaps I should throw myself off and into the darkness. But I don’t know how to do that. I cannot leave the solid ground beneath my feet. I am weighed down by my heaviness, unable to launch myself forward, unable to go back. And so I stand, looking out into the void, trying to block out the siren calls and the mocking jeers from the comfortable valleys behind.