After a momentary standing self imposed break, a self exile, from the intellectual pursuit of thought and reason, and commenting, ruminating, and expanding my understanding, before attempting to compile my thoughts here for myself and possibly others to digest and integrate, I found myself suddenly lacking any true motivation to return to form, and create either here or in the realms of my pursuit of fictitious works, the old millstone of mental and emotional blockage once more dragging my head down, and crushing my heart, sapping any and all inspiration and motivation (I use NOT the term "Muse" for a most pointed reason) to even bother making notes for later, as a dark small voice snarling at me that even if I were to try and preserve even the outline of a possible inspired thought, I would simply never take it up again, leaving it a scrap on some page or a collection of wasted bytes on some device, forgotten and misplaced for the next decade or two, as so many others have become over the years.
Fool that I can be, I listened to that voice, not truly hearing it, not really paying any mind to it, just accepting the hint it drilled slow but sure into the back of my soul... Until I realized it sounded strangely like her voice, as if some edited and spliced sound file had been downloaded onto my metaphoric eardrums and set to repeat its false message from her, sent from beyond the grave of our relationship, a parting shot hidden, embedded in one of the last emails she so spitefully sent with such cold and emotionless detachment.
It was then I racked myself, cell to mote, atom to thought, hair to marrow, emotion to choice, unto action.
It would not do for my progress and healing to be so derailed and nullified as to allow the end result and person at the center of ten years of my life to further live rent free in my headspace and dump into my heart (without beneficial end no less), nor would it do for this to make a mockery of my goal to not only be well shed of such an encumbering weight, dead and useless, but to thrive less in spite of and more because of its removal from my person, to once more embrace not only the ideal of freedom, but to live it out as best I can in the way I find it with all the clarity I might manage.
Yet even I, refuse to ignore the lingering effects such a burden, noble it might have been at the time (the likely false pretenses not withstanding) still have on me, even now. The trick, I think, is turning such things into lessons, forge them into, tools for myself, fuel even, for the motivation I was now gasping for like an orgasm denied at the fingers and lips of a maniacal mistress.
As is my base nature, I finally took matters into my own hands, and wielding humorous irony, and the personal benediction to move forward at any cost, started pushing myself, even through the facebook reminders of the anniversary of the start of the worst 3 years of my life, only now barely behind me, looming big and ugly in my rearview mirror, I reminded myself, the punchline from a sermon taught to me by a beloved mentor some 20 years pryor, "Don't play with dead things, keep them buried and were they belong."
It was then, the point finally, after germinating for 20 years, came to me and bore fruit: This is what makes sacrifice worthwhile; moving beyond it, and what lead you to it, not repeating and rehashing and replaying everything that brought you to that alter, blade in hand, incense staining your feet, tears in your eyes, and anguish in your chest. Make not cheap the calories burned, the sweat dropped, the work performed, the time or money spent, or even the blood shed, by ignoring where that sacrifice has brought you, which is beyond that impasse that should have by rights, stopped you, broken you, killed you, ended your story.
Be it metaphor, or practical, spiritual or mental, singular or all of the above, do not let yourself be distracted from the now, nor the future, because sacrifice brings you forward, so that you may continue, that you may achieve, that you may live, so take up your tools, be it a pen, a sword, a hammer, a brush, take up your life, take up your mind, and engorge it with motivation, paint it in hope, temper it with resolve, pick your poison, and laugh as you grind away at that obstacle, even if it so happens to be yourself, burn away the debris of a failed past, and embrace the future, be the change you need to be, cast your eyes forward, and prick your ears to now, plan, work, grow, survive, thrive, persevere, adapt, improvise, overcome and by god endure.
In the end, no matter what efforts taken by whom, it is only yourself who can actually stop you, blaming someone else for your reticence neither proves nor solves anything, and may actually cripple you further.
Keep your head down, your eyes up, your feet moving, and keep on swinging, because after all, you're only ever beaten, when you quit.
Now get out there and fucking DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT...
~Mac
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