In the middle of the web

Progression or regression, how can you tell?

I’ve been right all along about life. About what matters, and how much it really should. About what I’ve known since I was thirteen, and is now coming back in circles from where I left it all these years. About where I was supposed to go before I strayed. Before I got swayed, by expectations, by fear, by greed, by the parade of voices of “the supposedly wise” that stomped over my gut. 

Hopefully, I haven’t strayed too far from that kid to be able to find my way back home. To claim my voice back, to be unwise again, to be who I used to be. And still really am inside.

In matters of worldly success, I may not have set an example worthy yet of being in any Forbes list. But that’s okay, because I’ve never really read the magazine anyway, or any others that should claim to save me from the said parade of voices—so I can be left alone to lead my life in peace. Maybe the only true way to be rid of the need for approval from the world is to get it (or success or whatever), and then you can keep it as a visiting card in your backpocket if someone should call and ask for it. So you can show it instead of your middle finger on suitable occasions.

Meanwhile, you can continue to live a life of wonder in your backyard where nothing can pervade your spirit anymore or question your audacity for choosing such a life.

I’ve yet to find a way to do so. My world is changing, for good or bad I do not yet know, but there is pain. A lot. There’s not one world that exists for me anymore, but different worlds that pull me in opposite directions everyday as I try to play different characters in each of them. There’s the practical adult that has to take care of finances and find a partner. There’s the silent dreamer whose dreams come awake at night when the world goes to sleep, my fears have gone to bed, and there’s no more masks to wear or expectations to fulfil and I can be thirteen year old again, listening to Metallica and pretending I’ll still make it as a musician one day and follow what in my heart of hearts I still feel a feeble calling beckon.

Beneath all the rubble, still.

There’s a new born ambitious fucker that wants to make a lotta money—I’m not sure if this one is really me or is just me spending too much time in the ether and listening to voices that are shrouding my instincts and poisoning my mind and heart. There’s a dormant warrior that bangs the hilt of his sword against my chest and throat sometimes, that calls for justice and emergence of suppressed potential and true self, or something. There is transformation, but there’s also suffering and I can’t really tell which is which. I’m not sure if this is progression or regression, my life and me. 

And I’d hate to find out that the round trip was quite unnecessary, just a comic cadence that really would’ve led me nowhere, and the only way to reach somewhere was to exit the infinite loop in the first place.

I don’t know who I’ll end up being. Which one should I let win, and who should I disappoint? Which path leads to where I wanna go, and how will I know? 

How the fuck does a spider know where to spin the next thread, in the middle of the web??