11. Do The Work

March 20th 2020, Friday

Dear Blog,

Binge-watching shows is a very unhealthy activity. I shall not do it again. I will not fill the void with visual entertainment anymore. If you are bored out of your mind next time, try to capture this moment of peace and think. If that’s hard, sit down and do nothing, perhaps listen to some music. I cannot keep making the same mistakes, watching the hours go by because I am scared to think on my own and ask the hard questions raised by my soul. You want to discover the truth from books and shows, but they are elaborate lies. Nothing can replace the hard work of reality.

When we move from one scene on the stage to the next, it becomes clear that what we thought was real with simply make-believe. In just the same way it will become clear to a dying person exactly which things have been real and which nearly stage scenery.

— Leo Tolstoy

The hard thing to admit is that if I am about to die in the next few hours, it would become incredibly clear that my life has always been about stage scenery, that almost nothing substantial occurred. All can be forgotten without lasting impact. I was sheltered by my resistance to fear, the need to run away from threats, the drive to remain calm by convincing myself that I want nothing, that I am comfortable with having nothing and being no one. That is but a story, a story to tell the frightened kid who doesn’t want to sleep. Now that he is asleep, he doesn’t want to wake up. Yet the entire meaning of life is forged when we are awake, when we do what we choose to do, with fire and fury, with the energy that has been bestowed upon us.

We come to know ourselves not through what we think but through what we do. We can only know our worth in our efforts to do our duty.

— Goethe