Again I'm back at the stage where I'm trying to start wrapping things up. I have to decide whether to go back to work or whatever, and before I make that decision, I have to see if I can even stand being here anymore. Perplexed. Not easy.

Again I'm back at this wall. Again I keep stepping back away. But a very loud voice inside me is telling me it's not a choice anymore. I must do this. I have to do this. There is no or. There is no delineating reasons, no justification. I've lived my life, I know my life, and I simply have to do this.

It's my duty, it's my responsibility, it's my sacrifice, it's my destiny, I have to do this, I have to let go, I have to not cling to this ego-perspective by making the ultimate sacrifice for my soul, my karma, and my future.

If I entered the monastery, I could be doing good, improving my karma, but I would still be clinging to this ego-perspective. I would because I would know it. When I was at the monastery before, I could talk the talk and walk the walk; I could fool anyone but myself that I was still clinging to this ego-perspective.

I am really facing it, often staring at the wall and realizing there's no reason why not right now. Right now, shut up, go! And I answer back, "Wait!"

And I know it might as well be right now. I could be making the decision right now. It's a wrap. Wrap up those last few things and go. Wait!

If I don't? Yea, it's bad. Really bad. Everything is bad if I don't do it. It'll be dire if I don't put in a good attempt. I'll have to do something absolutely crazy. If I don't do it, it has to get bad.

Now, or soon, because the time is perfect. It doesn't matter that I still have enough in my bank account to last a bit longer. Part of now is about the unbearable; part is about not wanting to continue languishing, lingering. Mostly it's because the time is perfect. Again. I know I've been here before.

The truly pathetic part of all this is that all of the above, I cut and pasted from what I wrote exactly one year ago :p I haven't moved an inch. I'm in the exact same position as I was a year ago.

I'd like to say there is a difference, that even though the words are still fairly accurate, the feeling isn't. I'd like to say that although it sounds like I was still trying to convince myself, and I maybe still am, it's to a lesser extent. I'd like to say that there's a much more prevalent feeling of conflict back then that doesn't exist now.

But, no, since I can't place myself in the exact space I was in a year ago and make a comparison, it's very possible that everything is exactly the same. Even worse. And not.

This has been a difficulty about writing about these topics lately, because when I say things like "even worse", it sounds negative, but the negative aspect doesn't describe it accurately.

It may be because I've been training my mind to diffuse negativity once it occurs that I don't like describing my reality in negative terms, but the only words available to me to describe my reality are the ones that sound negative.

There must be a psychologist somewhere in the world that wants to study me.

Like, yes, "even worse", but I don't want that understood as being qualitatively worse, just descriptively worse. My view and assessment of reality that I've chosen precludes taking a negative view of it as something real.

However, I can describe aspects of my daily life now that describe "worse than a year ago". Such as back then, I was still able to maintain morning sitting and being active and going for long bike rides. My sitting routine fell apart a couple months ago, and I haven't taken my bike out in weeks. Photography bores me now. I pick up my guitar or bass and I get bored very quickly. No joy there anymore. I stopped going to the drum practice rooms sometime last fall.

My active participation in living life has fallen apart. I only go out once a day to eat, and I don't have much of an appetite anymore and even that one meal a day is sometimes too much. I go out for about 3 or 4 hours, often ending up in the library, and part of my going out is to make a neurotic show that I'm not stuck in my room all day. I usually head out just before my neighbors start coming home. I still routinely buy a bottle of liquor every 2 days, sometimes less.

My isolation is about the same, but now it's been another added year of this isolation. How much of this can I take? On the rare occasion I do meet up with someone, I get antsy very quickly and hastily bail.

It sounds bad, but I don't want negativity to be a part of my reality. I decide that, not my circumstances. Any sense that any of this is negative, I diffuse it, I deflect it. Denial? Maybe. Would I want things any other way?

See, that's another hard question. Why would I want it to be this way? But if I say I would want it different, then that's admitting dissatisfaction and negativity. There's also the point that I created and drove my current life to be this way. So actually, no, I don't want things to be any other way. I should accept it the way I created it.

I don't want things to be any other way, and a new window of opportunity just opened. I'm dying to know what's going to happen.