Though my last post may cause some to question this statement, I've never considered myself much of a superstitious person. At one point you'd have gotten the canned "I'm spiritual, but I fucking loathe religion" response if you tried to peg me down on the subject. Anymore, I don't know what I feel. It's bothersome in a great many ways, not least of all because my view on life and existence in general seems to weigh in much more heavily on the spiritual dimension than anyone else's that I've yet encountered.

Bottom line: at what point have you simply worn out the allure of life to the point that leaving the physical realm becomes more interesting and possibly fulfilling?

Don't mistake me, this isn't some veiled suicide note or similar internet bullshit. My question is simply, at what point have you ceased to "live" in any sense other than the literal? This has been a question that preoccupies my thoughts a great deal of the time lately. I find myself wanting to interface minds, to collaborate on creative works, or to throw feces at random passersby so I can have a good laugh and feel my sides hurt.

These are all life-affirming activities and meaningful ones, but I seem to find more and more as I age that people don't want to be bothered with the life affirming. It's as if this is our prison sentence and we are simply to be satisfied with it because there are no alternatives. Bullshit! A person can always die - whether literally or figuratively, the end is about the same!

I suppose it's my stubborn refusal to allow myself to die in either sense of it that sees me still here, still writing, and still questioning the very foundations of my life and thinking as I did nearly a decade ago as an angry teenager. I suppose the only real difference is that I'm not halfway out of my mind from an overabundance of caffeine and far too little sleep (and that I don't hallucinate small rodents running from my view when I turn my head as a byproduct of both...). What concerns me... Actually, shit - fairer to say that it scares the shit out of me - is that I don't meet many people who WANT to be vibrantly alive, let alone those who actually are.

I understand survival. I understand working to pay your bills so you don't have to sleep in your car or under a bridge (did the first, and not quite but almost the second myself - not fun or recommended). I understand wanting to be able to feed yourself, buy books, listen to CDs and have internet access on your own dime. I understand wanting privacy and a place of your own for various sundry and unspeakable reasons. What I don't understand is how it is possible that we live in an age of goddamn decadence where it takes very little to survive and yet people still don't find time or even attempt to summon an interest in actually living. Were we in a war-torn third-world country, I could understand a purely survivalist lifestyle. As it is, I do not.

This song illustrates an excellent example of what I'm talking about. I had lost my job. This would have been maybe 2006 or so. I was feeling wretched and I honestly wanted nothing more than to drop dead. I wasn't too concerned about the means. Then as now, I wanted to do whatever it took to shake that thought process. I drove hours to a place where I feel whole and where I've always felt whole. I was alone in the car and I threw in The Glove's cd and this song came on as I crested over a hill. The sunlight just seemed to cast a glow on miles of open land as far as I could see. I felt a calm settle over me, the kind of thing that just makes you feel that everything will be ok. I was alive - completely, wonderfully alive in that moment.

I suppose in some ways I'm looking to find that on a more permanent basis and hoping to find others on a similar quest. How this story ends, I have no clue.