Snippet from a journal.

[adaywillcome]

The only person I particularly was interested in surpassing was myself, because there was no one else that I could see who was my rival in investigating the truth and self-knowledge. So the bar was always so low and I could feel a certain kind of pride in what I achieved in my growth. And now it's like there is so much growth and struggle and really, really difficult things that I see people doing.

 

And I have an option here, I can run away and surround myself with people whose bravery and passion I will always surpass without having to really work at it. Or I can surround myself with the very best, most virtuous people I can find and open myself up to the failure of not measuring up to them.

 

And the first of the two options would be -- and was when I tested that out over the winter and spring -- a torturous experience because I would know, always, that there is this other world of joy and reality that I was denying myself.

 

And who the hell am I to tell my child self that, no, you're not worthy. All the struggles and trauma you endured to bring me to this place -- this place where I have the decision -- are for nothing. How heartless and cruel is that to deny that little guy what he craved for, what he needed his whole life. Who am I to deny him his birthright? Who am I to tell him that he can't be his most true self? Where do I get off hiding him away like he's some nasty little, embarrassing secret?

 

How dare I. How dare I put him in a position to question what happened to him. Not to question for greater understanding, but to question the validity of his experience? If I'm sitting with some shitty person who will minimize what happened to their childhoods and my own, then I'm engaging in actually minimizing my childhood. His childhood.

 

That brave little guy that did what he had to do to make it. To survive. To bring me to this future, that he could not imagine how much better it is than what he had. He did that for me. He knew that he had to give me the future. He could have given up. He could have not fought so hard to hold on to his reality as he did against the heaviest of onslaughts. Constant destruction of his reality. But he held on to what he could. He hid what he had to to get by.

 

And how will I repay him? What am I doing? He trusted me, he always looked towards that future that he knew would one day come. The day when he could say goodbye and good riddance to the shit that he had known all his life. It didn't matter to him that for all he knew he would be the only one taking this path, because he had been doing it anyway except keeping it inside his head.

 

He trusted that when he passed the torch on to me that I would continue his fight. All because he brought me here to the crossroads. As we proceed through life it's fraught with these crossroads. He made the choices that gave me this gift of options. Options that he didn't have.

 

I have a kind of freedom in my life and support that he could scarcely dream of. What will I do with this precious gift he has bestowed upon me?

 

And what of his and my future self? Did that little guy fight so I could step in and snatch away what he's worked to accomplish and leave it to decay and deny myself in 2030 this precious gift of a true, virtuous life?

 

No. C'est impossible! No, it's inconceivable. I care to much about morality and virtue and reality and truth and all that is good in this world to deny himself and myself that. I will pick up his torch and I will work to surpass him if not in courage -- who's to say that an adult can be anywhere as courageous as a child in this world? -- then in persistence and joy.

 

I will take my pleasures and my happiness where he could not. His was a long lonely, thankless, miserable struggle. My struggle. Our continued struggle can bring us great joy! If we don't allow ourselves great joy, then what has been the point of all this struggle?

 

To arrive in 2030 finally to enjoy the fruits of the struggle? No, I must take pleasure and real pride! Because it is just. He could not take his pride or his pleasure and so I will give it back to him. He has earned every bit of it.

[Slavik]

Thank you for sharing Jack.  The window into your past shows a lot of loneliness and pain.  Very inspirational, keep it up, you are both deserving indeed.