The draft of this post is from Sept. 4. I can't believe it's the end of September already. Summer's well over, even in Taiwan, and I totally missed it. It's almost October. October, November . . . December. Just the thought of moving into the winter months is encouragement to get on with it already.

I've been in a state of limbo. I'm not moving. I know what's next, what has to come next, but it's still up to me to make it happen. No one else is going to do it for me, no one's gonna help make it happen. As such, I'm biding my time, not rushing into it.

I think one of Morrie's quotes regarding his view on life and terminal illness was, "Hold on, but don't hold on for too long". I don't have a terminal illness, but I know what has to be next. As for holding on for too long, I think I already have. It's kinda moot at this point.

I'm fine with "not rushing into it". This isn't "neurotic dysfunction". Before, I used to deride myself when I'd make excuses not to move on, that my plan and aspiration were fake and that it wasn't going to happen, and something would always come up for me to carry on for a bit longer, and that would occur in perpetuity because that was my psychological makeup.

I do feel now that where I am is my final end state. I'm in limbo in this final end state, stewing in it, continuing the meditations and observations. I have nothing new to say or observe. Everything that I've thought of to say recently, I've already said before. And as much as I do tend to repeat myself, I'll avoid it if I can go back into my archives and easily find that I've expressed it already.

There's only one direction to move from this final end state, not because of constraints or inabilities, but because it's what I want and it's where I've led and directed my life.

Sometimes I get pangs of "how did it get to be like this?" with hints of despondency, and I poke myself back to realization that it's because I created it this way, I made it this way; there's no reason to be despondent. This is exactly how it's meant to be. And I can relax and smile to myself and encourage myself to keep moving forwards toward what I want.

There is just this path that I'm on. There's just this path that I've engineered. I'm sure I've said this already, but whenever I think of alternatives and possible paths, I realize I don't want them.

I have to admit that before, there was always a sliver of a possibility of a different path, but I'm pretty confident that they have all dissolved now. Bah, I know I've written about this before.

Now I'm just writing to encourage myself. If I don't write, I might fall into complacency and that will just lead to pushing myself into a corner, and I don't want to do anything just because I've been pushed into a corner.

When I had those excruciating abdominal pains, I entertained the idea that I might be dying and I resisted it. Not because I have a fundamental problem with dying, but I have a problem with it not being on my own terms.