To Be or Not To Be

A little kingdom I possess,
Where thoughts and feelings dwell;
And very hard the task I find
Of governing it well.
~ Louisa May Alcott

...that more or less describes my situation!

~A Wise Man Said~

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
~ Aristotle

Monday, September 28, 2026
 

My heart feels a bit heavy, overwhelmed... it's a good thing I am flying to China this Friday... the change might do me good... might make me escape my emotional heaviness a bit... i will have no choice but to be busy... isn't that why everyone likes to be busy?... it makes the time pass and makes you forget that every minute, every week, every month... is taking you towards the ultimate inevitable.. the king and the pawn return to the same box as they say... as you can tell i am in one of my morbid moods... not for the gentle reader, but i hope i have managed to put off such readers already... sometimes when I am about to fly i ask myself a question as a thought experiment...  it's a purely philosophical question, mind you... how would i feel if my plane were to crash out of nowhere? out of nowhere as in with no warning... boom, and it's gone in seconds... i think i would be okay with that... if i have no inkling and it happens... that's fine by me... an interesting analogy comes to mind... it's like we are all running a marathon but there are no winners at the end of it... what you get in the end is non-existence... a release from the race so to speak... if someone were to release you from this race much earlier without warning, it would be a win-win wouldn't it? the people affected might be those who were running alongside you... maybe you made their run more pleasant, maybe they got used to having you around, maybe they felt more invested in their race because of you, maybe they love you... it might affect them for a bit... but sooner or later they will have to focus on their run... that's the thing about this marathon like any other (i have never run any but as a watcher i guess that's how it is)... you have to keep running... you cannot stop...once you're in, you're in... perhaps, as those cliches will tell you, it's not the destination but the quality of the run, etc... i do agree with that, cliche though it is... some exit the run pretty much how they started it... with no growth whatever... doing what everybody is doing, playing into neat roles, following the rules, fitting into moulds of tradition, never seeking any purpose beyond what they were handed out so to speak... and then there are some... who are not defined by the run at all... they are in a league of their own... they inspire you... not to run faster but more thoughtfully...carve your own path… they make that run worthwhile... it was not all for nothing after all... if such runners come within your stride...

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A very special person recommended that I read Seneca's Epistles... i am hoping to catch up on it in between my busy life in China... i suppose i'll be writing about it (if i reach China in one piece that is ;))