I’ll get back to posting pictures and amusing anecdotes about wilderness poop soon.
I went to the BWCA with a mission. I had to find a way to make peace with myself and the universe. To find a way to reconcile a universe that would kill my dog and reconcile with my own self over the ‘betrayal’ of my brain.
1. everything that we are, every element, every atom, every molecule is found throughout the universe. there is nothing here on earth that cannot be reproduced with raw materials anywhere else in the universe. If this is the case then what are we but the universe. and what was ghengis but the universe. the suv that hit him, his blood, the tears, the grief, the ashes, all of it is part of the universe. My anger? universe. all of it.
I went to the seclusion and quiet of the BWCA to try to make peace with the universe. To find a way to forgive the universe for kicking me in the gut. I was tired of being angry. I wanted an apology. From the universe.
I spent time contemplating. I spent time alone thinking. I was still. I was active. I waited for the sign. Because I’m like that. That’s right, bitches, the universe is going to give ME an apology! me! not you.
And what conclusion did I come to? What information did I take in when I relaxed and let it in? I went back. I went back to the time before Ghengis died. I went back to the understanding that the universe is without intent. That a great deal of my anger in grief was conceited. It was centered on myself. It was saying “fuck you, universe! how dare you kill my dog!”. The universe didn’t kill my dog. I mean it did, my dog died, but the universe did not kill ghengis because he was my dog. The universe just juggernauts forward. Anger, while completely natural in grief is misplaced.
Anger is a response that says “you wronged me! I am wronged!”
I was not wronged. I am part of this amoral universe. this unplanned, uncontrolled whirling fantasia. in 14 billion years stars come and go, planets form and get destroyed, life starts, stops and starts over. The idea of “fair” is a construct. There is no “fair” or “unfair”. Having you dog die isn’t about “fair” it just is. To say I was “wronged” is to say that I am somehow important enough to be noticed and plotted against. To say it is “unfair” is to say that I should be exempt from the vagaries of life.
To distill this down…Shit happens, but it doesn’t happen TO me. It happens and sometimes it affects me.
2. Depression is a pain in the ass. Going to see the psychiatrist every few weeks, tweaking your prescriptions, taking pills that make you tremble or sleep or not sleep or poop nuggets…it’s all a pain. Sometimes I feel betrayed by my brain, by the chemistry and the circuitry in there. Why can’t I just have a brain that creates the normal chemicals, why can’t I just ‘suck it up’ and feel okay?
Why?
There is no ‘why’. To ask ‘why’ in the metaphysical sense “why can’t I have what other people have? why can’t my brain be normal?” is to assume that you’ve been selected personally to be insulted.
I have not been personally selected for a miswired brain. Oh sure, we can point to incidents during development, but again that leads you to a question that should not be asked.
Again, in short…shit happens. asking ‘why’ just keeps you sitting in idle. I have stopped asking ‘why’ or rattling on about ‘fair’. It is neither fair or unfair, just a fact. To move forward you have to get out of idle and turn on your blinker.
I accept what there is. I cannot fight it, only work with it.
I did not get the answers I expected when I was up there, but I did find the answers that I knew all along.