Path to Absolution

Often I sit and ponder the turmoil I feel when my words are at rest, when all the world around me seems at peace. This is the supposed ideal for which I strive, the calm that we all hope will eventually return to us when we are at war, and yet, in these peaceful times – and they have been rare occurrences indeed in the last few years of my life – I do not feel as if I have found perfection, but, rather, as if something is missing from my life.

It seems such an incongruous notion, and yet I have come to know that I am a spirit, a creature of adventure. In those times when there is no pressing need for adventure, I am not at ease. Not at all.

When my path is not filled with enterprise, when there are no external monsters to battle, no internal mountains to climb, boredom finds me. I have come to accept this truth of my life, this truth about who I am, and so, on those rare, empty occasions I can find a way to defeat the boredom. I can find a mountain peak higher than the last I climbed.

I see many of the same symptoms now in life, returned to us from the grave, from the swirling darkness of the corner of the abyss. But I fear, now returned that the state of living has transcended simple boredom, spilling into the realm of apathy. Life too, was a creature of action, but that doesn’t seem to be the cure for her lethargy or her apathy. Now, in this new way of living, I’m calling out to her, begging for action, asking to assume leadership of the tribes of my soul.

But she will not heed that call. It is neither humility nor weariness stopping her, I recognize, nor any fear that she cannot handle the position or live up to the expectations of those begging her. Any of those problems could be overcome, could be reasoned through or supported by her friends, myself included. But, no, it is none of those rectifiable things.

It is simply that she does not care.

Could it be that her own agonies at the clawed hand of oblivion were so great and so enduring that she has lost her ability to empathize with the pain of others? Has she seen too much horror, too much agony, to hear their cries?

I fear this above all else, for it is a loss that knows no precise cure. And, yet, to be honest, I see it clearly etched in her features, a state of self absorption where too many memories of her own recent horrors haze her vision. Perhaps she does not recognize someone else’s pain. Or perhaps if she does see it, she dismisses it as trivial next to the monumental trials that she has suffered as a prisoner. Loss of empathy might well be the most enduring and deep-cutting scar of all, the silent blade of an unseen enemy, tearing at our hearts and stealing more than just our strength. Stealing our will, for what are we without empathy? What manner of joy might we find in our lives if we cannot understand the joys and pains of those around us, if we cannot share in a greater community? I remember my years in the dark, after running out of the light. Alone, save the occasional visits from assassins, I survived those long years through my own imagination.

I am not certain that life even has the capacity left inside her, for imagination required introspection, a reaching within one’s thoughts, and I fear that every time my friend looks so inward, all she sees are the minions of the abyss, all the sludge and horrors.

She is surrounded by friends, who love her and will try with all their hearts to support her, and help her climb out of eclipses emotional dungeon. Perhaps someone she loved (and perhaps still does love) so deeply, will prove pivotal to her recovery. It pains me to watch, I admit. For she is treated with such tenderness and compassion, but I know that he does not feel her gentle touch. Better that she get’s stung and scornful looks thrown her way, eye her sternly, and show her the truth of her lethargy. I have nothing but life’s best interests in my mind, and my heart, and yet, if I showed her this, it would be displayed in a way less than compassionate, it could be, and would be, construed as interference.

Not true. For though I do not know emotions honest feelings toward this woman, I do not recognize that she is capable of love at this time.

Not capable of love.... are there and forlorn words to describe life? I think not, and wish that I could now assess life’s state of mind differently. But love, honest love, requires empathy. It is a sharing – of joy, of laughter, of pain, of tears. Honest love makes one’s soul a reflection of the partners moods. And as a room seems larger when it is lined with mirrors, so do the joys become amplified. And as the individual items within the mirrored room seem less acute, so does pain diminish and fade, stretched thin by sharing.

That is the beauty of love, whether in passion or friendship. A sharing that multiplies the joys and thins the pains. Life is surrounded now by friends, all willing to engage in such sharing, as it once was between us. Yet she cannot so engage us, cannot let loose the guards that she necessarily put in place when surrounded by the likes of her demons.

She has lost her empathy. I can only pray that she will find it again, that time will allow her to open her heart and soul to those deserving, for without empathy she will find no purpose. Without purpose, she will find no satisfaction. Without satisfaction, she will find no contentment, and without contentment, she will find no everlasting joy.

And we, all of us, will have no way to help her.

Written 30/09/2015