One moment, then the next; one day, then the next

There is something to surviving from one moment to the next, particularly since that's not guaranteed for anyone. Death is always near; life is short. Whether getting through a moment, or even a day, is good or bad, I don't know; I've thought about it from many angles, evaluating whether my life is worthwhile on different scales, and found myself wanting when weighed in the balance. No surprise there. But still, there is the instinct to survive, and I guess that's wet-wired into the DNA.

Since I exist, basically, to pass on DNA (which I have not done, and for which I deserve some credit, I guess, since humans seem to cause nothing but sorrow and misery for other humans and all other life on this planet), I see little value to what Camus saw in The Myth of Sisyphus—the value of pushing the rock that much further, of experiencing anew the weight and feel of the rock, even though I know it will roll back down again, and I'll have to go down there and start pushing again, only to have it roll back down ... It's never done. It's futility defined. I suppose it's too Camus' credit that he could see Sisyphus happy in this fate; I cannot. My failure, I suppose. But futility it is.

Which is human life. Solomon wrote about this:

All things are full of weariness;
   a man cannot utter it;
the eye is not satisfied with seeing,
   nor the ear filled with hearing.
What has been is what will be,
   and what has been done is what will be done,
   and there is nothing new under the sun. —Ecclesiastes 1:8-9 (ESV)

Weariness, indeed. Life wears itself down. Life contains its own death, as surely as the seed dies and the tree it gives birth to, in death, also dies. It all comes to a merciful end.

I am conflicted here, too. I long for an end to this seemingly endless spell of depression, and yet I know that the end I long for is the end of much more than how I feel right now. It is so utterly unimaginable to me that life could possibly be any better than this, and yet it was, not so long ago.

Or is that just how I want to remember it? My mind plays tricks. I imagine things different as I construct memories sometimes, without knowing it. Reality check can come when others share memories of the same events, and they differ in details or even meaning from mine. I don't trust my own (unless it's negative), so I trust theirs.

As the snow came over the weekend, I found a kind of solace in the midst of all this. I long to be covered in the snow, to feel it just blow over me and hide me, wipe out all sight and hint of me. Not to be, of course, but the thought was sweet. I slept, hours and hours. Just slept. Sleep was close enough.