The fleeting nature of a beginning and end

Someone asked me today whether I felt a sense of accomplishment for my replanting project. I told him all that it really represents is just the sum of the beginning…the end I am sure is somewhere in the distant future…maybe you should ask me that question later…much much later.

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‘Just because there’s a clear start and end point doesn’t mean anything at all. A start and end point is simply a milestone somewhere in your head or perhaps a metaphor of how you see yourself in relation to time and space. There are times when it even gets awfully confusing such as the moments when you do really inefficient things just in name of progress….so you convince yourself? Maybe it’s just an illusion like walking on a hamster wheel? You don’t really know for sure, do you or maybe you just don’t have faith in the whole idea that you will reach this end point that you’ve marked out somewhere in your head….to me I don’t see things in linear terms like 0,1,2,3,4,5 etc etc. That’s to say I don’t even see it in terms of a defined beginning and end. Rather to me it’s like an ant walking the rim of a teacup or maybe just a man sailing around the world….sure you can put so much effort to cycle or sail round the world. You could probably sweat enough buckets to fill a dam or something. But the paradox is when you finish – you end exactly where you started from. Nothing has really changed at all. That carton of milk that’s probably long gone sour by then is still rotting in your refrigerator along with moldy cheese. You look at yourself in the mirror and maybe you have more white hair or that your teeth could do with a visit to the Dentist….but everything is still the same. Even the world itself is the same…your neighbors are still indifferent as ever. Everyone in the MRT is exactly the way they were before you started your world wide journey……and for all intends and purposes by every definition that the world would feel content to assess you…you are the same.

But you’re not are you….the same that is…not deep down at least…no! I wouldn’t go as far as to describe it as vampirism. The feeling associated with this change that you can’t seem to put a finger on.

But you know. Only you know. You’ve given up too much, turned away even from the things and people that you love to do this one thing that only seems to be like some great act of nothingness to the rest of the world. But only you know it for what it is – a lingering ach that grows on you like an illness…..you felt it fever thru the marrow of your bones…sensed it canal thru your veins like hot blood. It’s what keeps you awake in the depths of the night for hours on end. Where all you might have done is sit down on one spot for hours nursing the littleness of your courage…and now that you’ve seen it right thru to the other side. Or maybe it just grew tired of you and spat you out cleanly like a seed…you’re there like a forlorn passenger stranded in some strange airport that has a no smoking sign under a giant ashstray waiting for another connecting flight….in transit. Yes that’s the right word transit….as it’s not really here or there is it, it’s really just somewhere in between the point where you once started and hope to end the journey…you see the journey never really ends does it.’