Friday 17 August 2007

Pic of the day: Reflections at sunset.

Fictional 2017

This is my somewhat arbitrarily chosen last entry in the series of imaginary future journal pages. It implies some potentially terminal illness. In reality, this could happen much earlier or much later, or I could just suddenly be gone. In any case, I leave the outcome somewhat in doubt. But all things that have form are subject to change, and all things in this world must end one way or another. This is how my imaginary cookie crumbles. (And yes, I have considered making an index of my best entries, but have not had the urgency to go through with it in real life.)

Fiction starts here!

17. August 2017: All the words

From early on, a motto for my journal has been "we must say all the words that should be spoken, before they are lost forever". (Actually a quote from a song by Chris de Burgh. Anyway, it is so well said that I can't say it better myself!)

Have I said all the words that should be spoken? I have certainly said many more words, which need not have been spoken. I don't think many of them are hurtful, but they are unnecessary. There is a lot of fluff, and so the valuable stuff is hard to find. I am not going to take it down, though. It all helps explain who I was, although you almost have to be a researcher -- perhaps a future historian? -- to read so much. So what I plan to do over the next days is make an index of my most important entries. (After all, only a paleo-gamer would be interested in reading about Daggerfall, but everyone needs to know how to avoid becoming a puppet off an emotional advertising, political propaganda or regressive religion.)

Once that's done, I intend to write one final entry, attempting to crystallize the essence of what I have written, what I have been, over all these years. Before it is lost forever.

You know I had not planned to leave you so early. I had hoped to be here to write about growing old in an age of wonders. But this is how the cookie crumbles, and so do I. And even should a miracle happen, I feel no wish to return to the life that was mine. It is completed. I have been drawn further and further away from the hustle and bustle of human life. I wish nothing more than to quietly prepare my soul for the longest of journeys, the one that does not require even a single step. Whether it be now or later, my eyes are turned to that far shore. I have done what I could, although it wasn't much. And I hope I have said all the words that should be spoken... before I am gone forever.

It is not easy to explain. I am not ready... perhaps I will never be. But I'm finished. What will come, I do not know. But what was, is over. No more hopes, no more dreams in this world. This may be unique in our time and place, but it is certainly not unique in the history of the world. In parts of India, it was long a tradition that a man would leave his home and his belongings once his children were grown up. He would then devote himself to pilgrimage and worship for the rest of his life. Of course, I didn't even have the strength of will to go that far on my own, until my hand was forced. But there will be no more Sims now, no more anime, no more global economy, no more computers and gadgets. There will be no more whining, no more dreams. They are gone forever.

I was looking at a photograph
taken in a garden long before the war.
And out on the lawn
there were old men and dogs and little children,
all of them gone forever.
There were people by the waterside,
standing in the same place where I am today.
Nothing has changed...
but you know
that time is moving like a river;
there can only be love forever.

Chris de Burgh, Shine On.