“Two steps forward"/"One Step Back"

“Two steps forward”

It was just this compulsion- suddenness descending like a summer rain shower or the urge to sneeze. At least it felt that way, but I realize I can’t pinpoint an exact moment I was grabbed by this realization. Maybe I was in the shower. Or eating breakfast. Or taking the dog for a walk. All likely places, but perhaps it was just the feeling of suddenness that comes about when all of the small thoughts begin to pile up, a gentle snowfall that has suddenly made its way up to my knees while I was distracted by something or other. 

In my mind subtlety is the building blocks of suddenness. The more blocks placed on top of each other the greater likelihood the structure will fall, and the more commotion it will make when it does.

All of this to say, though nothing seemed particularly wrong on the surface, I felt my life was spiraling out of control, and I was overtaken with this feeling of impermanence, urgency. I had been living my life in fear for too long. Fear, with its shadowy foot pressed down against my neck even when I am standing upright. And the thought that presented itself was more comforting than it might appear:

If I don’t move now, in this very instant, I will be crushed by its weight, asphyxiate myself with my own doubts lodged in my throat. 

So what is there to do with all of this newfound energy and enlightenment but write?

“one step back”

Sometimes it feels as though I have exhausted my ability to communicate. I have more to say, I swear. But what comes out is the same drivel about how I am unsure, lonely, anxious, or melancholy. 

There’s more to it, I mean it. My brain is occupied most of the time with sticky thoughts, honey smeared into all the empty crevasses of my consciousness. But sometimes it drips down into my throat and clogs it up. What you see is a gurgling mess of a girl. The sweetness of knowledge on my tongue dissipates into dust before it hits the air.

Or maybe there isn’t more to it and this is just me trying to convince myself that I have more to say. Interesting things, worthy things about life, humanity, and the universe. 

But the universe has not been my friend as of late. We’re going through a rough patch in our relationship. Usually it tells me what it wants of me with the promise of something better as a reward, sprinkling the luster of success in the back of my mind. Study hard, and you’ll get into a good school, build up your resume, and you’ll get a good job. But lately I feel it’s fallen silent. It has not chosen a path for me, despite my incessant plea. 

Thus I fear I have become communicatively impotent, directionless.  I remember reading that Plato claims the first step to knowing is knowing that you don’t know, which I feel has a certain merit to it. It’s like… standing still instead of traveling in the wrong direction. Though I fear I’m now too afraid to take a step in any direction, lest it be the wrong one.

But the soul is infinite in its wisdom, so he says. You just need to remember what it already knows.

The universe has given me no inclination as to the veracity of that idea, though I desperately wish it to be true. The knowledge is simply within me. Maybe that will free me from my endless searching. My searching for a cure for searching.