beforeduringafter

disconnection, distance, anticipation, not feeling ready, approaching event, eclipsing anyway, change, outgrowth, returning to new self, distance, disconnection

over and over and over and over and over until
there is nothing left to push
(it has devoured it all)

if there is truth in poets' prophesies,
a faint memory lives on
(but only in your audience):
you are out of the picture as you once were

~

it is 8:03am. my windows are patterned with streaky droplets like condensation that coats a soda can. are the effects of this typhoon my doing for chilling my bedroom at such low temperatures? yes, probably, maybe. the water is swimming downwards, barely casting their unpredicted shadows, and i am reminded of the snake game i used to play on my nokia. that being said, this rain is self-cannibalistic enough without my interference. i wonder where they will host their grand reunion in a few weeks when all these small things become one single thing

~

i sketched this timeline out in my journal in april in hopes of rationalizing my aversion towards adopting roles of traditionally older, archetypal figures, and by extension, aging (a recurrent theme on this site– i'm aware). the animation sort of shows how although you must surpass a certain age/ milestone/ role (assuming they are contingent upon each other), that it often feels unmanageable until you actually eclipse the actual event, since temporally you are in front of something you cannot see beyond. alternately, in retrospect, younger figures can also assume the identity of the constant, the unchanging– one moves away from instead of towards them. youth becomes evermore obstructed by personal experience

∴ (for now) i feel like these 'constants' are just generalized ideals/ concepts/ expectations that we make up due to a) a lack of empirical understanding, or b) forgotten empirical understanding. but hey, what do i know? it's probably much more complicated than that

~

tasty passages from de rerum natura (translated by rouse):

thus each man tries to flee from himself, but to that self, from which of course he can never escape, he clings against his will, and hates it, because he is a sick man that does not know the cause of his complaint

there is an end fixed for the life of mortals, and death cannot be avoided, but die we must. again we move and have our being always amidst the same things, and by living we cannot forge for ourselves any new pleasure; but while we have not what we crave, that seems to surpass all else; afterwards, when we have attained that, we crave something else; one unchanging thirst of life fills us and our mouths are forever agape. and it is uncertain what the next years may bring, what chance has in store, what end awaits us. 

therefore you may live to complete as many generations as you will: nevertheless that everlasting death will still be waiting, and no less long a time will he be no more, who has made an end of life with to-day's sun, than he who fell many a month and year before.