It's September and Summer is coming to an end. I feel dying in the air. It's wonderful.

I've been pursuing a "great despair", chasing it through dark woods, flying across interstellar space, digging in the dirt, wandering in a fog. Sounds odd. Most people have their despair walk right up to their front door and knock. I've got it so good. I don't know if it's that kind of despair.

If I'm not suffering from the despair that most people seem to grapple with, it's because I'm in denial. And I'm happy about that.

And because I've got it so good.

I really need to stop creating manifestations of abstract thoughts.

I first caught a glimpse of the despair when I was up at the monastery this past time, and it was pretty horrid and deep, sinking completely into my body and being, lying in the complete darkness of the dorm room. If I claimed to have posted about my deepest, darkest secret, I haven't.

But it's not the substance or source of the despair I'm going for. What happened in the past happened. I can torment myself feeling bad about it, I do feel "bad" about it, but attaching to it is something I just won't do. Torment is OK, but guilt is for suckers. I don't even know what the repercussions were or if there were any. There must have been.

Despair is just mind.

I don't want to make light of the great despair. I'm not sure I even understand it. Maybe it's the same thing as the "great doubt" I sometimes hear about. There seems to be many similarities. But just from the glimpse I got, I think it's something I need to chase for a bit because it's got something I need.

Not that I know despair. I recently re-read two books, Hasidic Tales of the Holocaust and Maus, and there is no even imagining that kind of despair. And the stories of the Holocaust that have come down are "only" the ones from the survivors! But maybe it is that huge, incomprehensible despair I'm angling for, but theoretical, conceptual. But that's sort of making light of it. Back to the sketchpad.