If I can just be perfect, then I will be saved...

Sitting In Wind

Existential dread is always lurking in the shadows (for all of us so the psychologists say) and here, alone, I come face to face with the darkness. Often it is the wind that seems to trigger it. There is also sorrow and grief and loneliness. One of the difficult aspects of solitude, and one of its most powerful benefits, is that there is pretty much no way to avoid experiencing difficult feelings and thoughts for very long. I tend to try to lose myself in puttering around doing this and that to stay on the surface of things, but to no avail. All the existential questions and doubts that we are supposed to resolve or resolve to ignore in our youth are somehow still with me; neither resolved nor firmly put aside: what am I doing with my life? what should I be doing? how can I come to accept myself and the world and stop this endless judging and self justification? why so much fucking pain? and on and on. It is often so noisy inside my head with internal conversations that I might as well be in downtown Vancouver. And I have brought my anxieties, obsessions and compulsions with me: if I can just... get all my food and propane here; get this cabin built exactly the way I want it; get the electrical system working; get a couple more loads of firewood in; read and remember all those books on my shelf; get rid of this pain in my shoulders; just somehow have things be different than they are... then I will feel OK. If I can just be perfect, then I will be saved. I brought my dreams and illusions with me here; I brought myself.
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