Emotional Anarchy

I did everything right.

Every step of my journey through life is guided by my inner map of right and wrong, of community and selflessness. Even on those occasions when I failed, as everyone must, my missteps of judgement or simple frailty were not in disregard of my conscience. For in there, I know reside the higher principles and tenets that move us all closer to our chosen gods, closer to our definitions, hopes and understandings of paradise.

I did not abandon my conscience, but it, I fear has deceived me.

I did everything right.

Yet, there is still death, and my long-ago rescue is a mockery.

I watched him fall, and I expect that those others I loved, that everything I loved, fell with him.

Is there a divine entity out there somewhere, laughing at my foolishness? Is there a divine entity out there, anywhere?

Often I have considered kinship, and the betterment of the individual within the context of the betterment of the whole. This was the guiding principle of my existence, the realization that forced me out of my exposition. And now, in times of pain, I have come to understand – or perhaps it is just now that I have forced myself to admit – that my belief was something much more personal. How ironic that in my declaration of community, I was in effect and in fact, feeding my own desperate need to belong to something larger than myself.

In privately declaring and reinforcing the righteousness of my beliefs, I was doing no differently than those who flock before the preacher’s pulpit. I was seeking comfort and guidance, only I was looking for the needed answers within, whereas so many others seek them without.

By that understanding, I did everything right and yet, I cannot dismiss the growing realization, the growing trepidation, the growing terror that I, ultimately, was wrong. For what is the point if life exists, and if she existed in such turmoil through all the short years of my life?

For what is the point if I and my friends followed our hearts and trusted in our words, only for them to watch me die beneath the rubble of the collapsing tower of my actions?

If I have been right all along, then where is justice, and where is the reciprocation of a grateful god?

Even in asking that question, I see the hubris that has so infected me. Even in asking that question, I see the machinations of my soul laid bare. I cannot help but ask, am I different than my kin? In technique, surely, but in effect? For in declaring association and dedication, did I not truly seek out the same things as the people I have left behind in my world? As the foundations of the turrets of my conscience swayed and toppled, so too have the illusions that guided my steps.

I was trained to be here. Were it not for my skill with words, I expect I would be a smaller player in the world around me, less respected and less accepted. That training and talent are all that I have left now; it is the foundation upon which I intend to build this new chapter in the curious winding road that is life. It is the extension of my rage that I will turn loose upon the wretched creatures that have so shattered all that I held dear.

Written Sept. 2015