In the chaos of my life I find stillness in my mind. As my diaphragm violently expels the CO2 from my lungs I find a solace so deep, so instantiated in a circuitry as old as the oak trees in my periphery, that I wonder if I will return. In the coming 9 minutes I am to be reminded of my mortality. I grasp at life itself, fighting for each step, battling for each breath. My body, powerful and durable, an unfathomably intelligent machine birthed by supernova and forged by 100 million years of survival, responds to the imaginings occupying my subconscious - a dozen men, hands reaching towards me. They want my job. They want my girl. They want my friends, my possessions, my wealth. They want my family. They want my life. Chills run down my back, meeting the serratus and oblique muscles straining to support my legs. I curse the elevation in front of me. No matter how hard I train, how viscerally I feel the enemy in my mind, no matter the years of effort, contemplation, and focus, this fucking mountain laughs at me. I believe to my deepest core, that this is a noble pursuit - the relentless journey towards strength and capability, and away from weakness. Years on this journey have revealed one thing to me, clearer than anything I've ever known. There is no switch to flip. No life hack to implement. There's no instruction manual or textbook. No easy way out. No shortcut. In this life there are simply 1's and 0's. Every instance I choose 1, I choose to move further down the path to inner-peace, salvation and prosperity. Life is binary. Life is choice. Choose 1.
I recently stumbled across the written correspondence of Vincent Van Gogh and his younger brother Theo Van Gogh, which is well preserved apparently. I read numerous letters that Vincent wrote to Theo from the years 1880 to 1883. Ever since I first saw an exhibit of his work at the Biltmore in 2020, I've had a certain fascination with Van Gogh, particularly by the way his work became increasingly dark and disillusioned as his mental health declined over the course of his life. In reading the correspondence to his brother, which would have been intimate and honest, I feel a particular empathy and relatability to the busyness of his mind, which clearly caused him angst and separation from society and loved ones. He was brilliant and it was that brilliance which was both the cause of his legacy and his demise. Dostoevsky summarized this phenomenon in Crime and Punishment, "Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The really great men mus...
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