A strange little thing just happened to me. I was walking home when I spied a lone shadow walking behind me down the street towards my door. I looked, saw a woman, then looked back at her shadow. Then I saw her lift her arm toward me, and I had this paranoid thought: maybe she has a knife. After the briefest flash of fear, I told myself, gee — what if she really did have one, and she stabbed me? An exclamation mark of pain, then it would all be over. And all those things that are left unfinished, would they say of me how a tragedy it was that life was taken from me at such a young age? But then I turned a corner, where she kept walking, and no, there was no knife anywhere in the picture.
This little episode made me realize I hadn’t changed that much, even considering that my recovery has for the most part been rather miraculous. That proud and eternally depressed teenager standing face forward at the ledge of death’s leap was still in me, the one who thought it wouldn’t have been so bad if the nuclear missiles had flown and he had lain down in the middle of the street, waiting for impact. Through all that has happened, I’m still me, the same me that I was before whatever madness gripped me. I have survived, that me is yet there. Sometimes I wouldn’t have thought it was possible that the soul survives such harrowing things, but I guess it just does. Amazing.
chris
11:55am friday, 18th february
been there mate.i was about to say suffered but had a number episodes and it is true your soul still lives on but with a different view or angle on life.
once you become fearless of death you can achieve a hell of alot in life.
Chris, but a different chris
3:38am sunday, 20th february
Hey, why don't you just love life and live it awesomely and fully. That way, if you actually do walk aroudn a corner and get stabbed by a random stranger (which btw is not too likely) you'll be ok with that.
Just a thought. You seem to dwell too much on your past and your future. I give you mad credit for trying to understand it all, but you're not going to be able to. Maybe you should try differently.
Stand
9:27am sunday, 20th february
Hey, Chris. The fact of the matter is, I live a great life. I am a happy person. That wasn't the point of this piece. And I was okay with being stabbed. These are just thoughts I have, and welcome to them; I wonder a lot. That's all.
Strawberry
11:58am tuesday, 22nd february
Most likely your madness has taught you things. You have the same soul, only now you make different choices in how to live your life. You don't use prostitiutes, you don't use mind altering drugs (well, only the ones that help put you in the world rather than remove yourself from it) and you have created something that helps Bart.
“Sickness, diseases trouble many, but without a cause. It may be ‘tis for the good of their souls….the flesh rebels against the spirit; that which hurts the one must needs help the other. Sickness is the mother of modesty, putteth us in mind of our mortality; and, when we are in the full career of worldly pomp and jollity, she pulleth us by the ear, and maketh us know ourselves….Princes, Masters, Parents, Magistrates, Judges, friends, enemies, fair or foul means, cannot contain us, but a little sickness (as Chrysostom observes) will correct and amend us.” -Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy, 1621
Disease may well have been the ground
In full for that creative urge,
Creation was my body’s purge,
Creating I’ve grown sane and sound. -Heinrich Heine
“It is unbelievable what a human being, even while suffering, can achieve through strong willpower - suffering might, in fact, be the only means of obtaining that height of willpower.” -Kant
Richard
10:17am thursday, 12th may
Wow! cool site, nice design! lots of usefull information! will visit it often!:)
Oleg Netsakov
1:21pm tuesday, 24th may
Somehow, im guessing that the only conversation that happens is between the audience and the poster, and only in that direction in the comments. For example, i would have never known about your entry had it not been trackbacked to mine. And you only know about this comment because you will get an email about it. But if you respond in the comments, theres a low probability that i will read it due to the fact that my RSS feed doesnt tell me about updated comments.
chris
Stand