Shame
When contemplating, not always idly or by choice, the failures in my life, or the possibility of failure, I am finding more and more the overwhelming feeling I have is shame. What fundamental component am I lacking, what sensitivity to my surroundings am I deaf to, that I find myself again and again at the start, all efforts undone, all accomplishments reduced to events have no lasting meaning? I thirst, burning and dreadful, for some act or moment that will have life beyond its moment, almost anything that leaves a mark indelible enough that, at the least, some scrubbing is required to remove the dye I have laid down. Something more than over-the-top metaphor, I think. And in the midst of this, I am drowning in the tidepools of daily life. Looking back across my life, I cannot find any one moment when I have set my own little fire to the world, and cannot find the fire in myself to light my way. If the only things I truly desire are to be denied me, what aim can I have?
