When

When your life plan collapses into a heap of reality, when all the hope and dreams implode into a pile of dust in your mind, and when all the ideas you had for your life with and after the plan dissolve on the floor of your thoughts, what do you do then?

When your body betrays you from age and genes and robs you of your plan to be fit and healthy with and after your life plan, and all the effort to get healthy don't work and all the work to be fit won't get you back to where you were, what do you do then?

When your mind becomes tired from the weight of all the lost hopes and dreams, the failed attempts to keep going with your work, and the only words which come to mind are, "I don't care. Not anymore.", what do you do then?

When getting up in the morning offers little if any hope of a good day and only going to bed at night feels good, forgetting every minute of the day because you couldn't remember it anyway, and knowing sleep is the one thing you value most, what do you do then?

What do you do and how long do you wait for an answer from yourself?

The Grand Plan

We all have grand plans for our life. These plans evolve over our life, some get trashed, some remade or reborn anew, and some arise from our experience as we go through life. It's just part of living and part of why we individually believe we and our effort is important in life and the world.

We know that many grand plans don't survive and we keep focused on those that do survive and define our life and work, and define ourself to ourself. It is why we get up in the morning, why we go through the day, and why, at the end of the day, feel better about ourself.

Then there are times when we lose ourself and all the grand plans don't matter because we lose the passion, motivation and inspiration for the grand plan we most love and believe is important to us and our life and work. It simply disappears.

And try as we can and must, we can't find it. The only question we have then is, "What do I do now?", and we can't find an answer, for weeks, even months. You may have had similar thoughts and feelings before, but they faded as you found new hope for the grand plan, but this time that hasn't happened.

Some folks will tell you it's a sign to find something new, but you know that's just what people say, "Go find something else which interests you.", and you know it's not true, both what they say, because it's just an empty, mindless thought or question, and what you know.

You don't want to do or find something new. You love what you were doing, only the passion disappeared. It's what you wanted to show the world, what you wanted people to know who you are, and what you know defines you.

You know that but you still can't find what happened to the passion. You have ideas why, but ideas and why doesn't change anything, not even your thinking, the proverbial, "Yes, I know.", answer we give ourself without realizing what we know let alone we know anything is actually truthful.

And the question remains and continues to haunt us, "What do I do now?"

Last Moment

I was lying in bed the other night when the thought occurred to me that when we die we may not even know we die, we only know the last moment before we die and that's only if we're awake. Otherwise, if we're sleeping or in some other state, unconscious, etc., we wouldn't even know we've died.

I've read some of the "near-death" experiences people report being medically dead but coming back to life. They all reported a white light consuming their mind and thinking, like it was some sort of revelation from God or whomever.

I think it's not that but simply evolution's way of protecting us from the pain of death. Death is painful as the body stops and everything dies. It's seems to me a reasonable adaptation that evolution gave the human mind an escape from the pain.

So in the end there is no pain, just white noise and then nothing. And all we know is the moment before we die.

Dreams of Emptiness

Recently I finished the routine monthly work on my Mt. Rainier NP for February, not only ahead of schedule, usually saved for the last week of the month before, but before the first of the month in over a year, always posting it late in the first week or two of the new month.

I then set to finish some edits of seasonal Web pages before planning to work on the last of those for winter and look to write the spring seasonal Web pages, but that's for another time in the future. Then suddenly my mind went blank.

I've had problems since the Siatic nerve issues last July, the infection last September, the realization of the digestive issue was from drugs I was taking for another issue where I had to choose between them but not both, which killed a lifelong plan.

That left me mentally drained of almost all my motivation, inspiration and discipline to do anything. And then after last week's work I started having dreams of emptiness. Dreams of rooms in a house, blank of anything discernable on the walls or ceiling and devoid of anything in the room.

Just emptiness, and try as I could in my dreams I couldn't add anything, nothing, not even a plot let alone objects or people. Just empty, blank rooms. I'm not sure where it relates but the walking, now up to 5-6 miles 4-5 times a week is leaving me exhausted every day, and eating is becoming a chore.

I've discovered the farther I walk and the more days I walk, the less I eat, even the days I don't walk, I eat far less than I used to eat on non-walking days. I know my body is adjusting to the walking as the leg muscles fight over their weakness from the pinched nerves to get fit.

I'm not walking as far or carrying as much as I did a year ago when I easily walked 6 miles with 20-25 pounds of groceries (including 1 or 2 half gallons of milk), and discovered 6 miles seems to be the physical limit the legs will walk as farther just leaves the muscles too tired to do much for the rest of the day.

But it's the dreams that are bothering me as they're occuring successive nights since last week. My mind  during the day just seems blank of much thought and memories to put into dreams, or something else is happening that I don't know and won't know until the dreams change.

Until the emptiness ends. So I wait.

Smarter than Therapists

An article released in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) found 55% of people, mostly young people, successfully attempted or commited suicide after or while in therapy, noting therapy isn't the answer to preventing suicide.

Like any teenager, young person or any older person seriously depressed or seriously thinking of suicide couldn't have told them, their therapists and especially their parents, that?

Their findings are a statement of the obvious, therapy won't work and therapists don't get it. They don't realize with all their education, knowledge, experience and understanding they can't change people thinking of or determined to attempt or commit suicide.

My nephew fooled a number of therapists, his parents (my sister and brother-in-law) and friends before he took his life when the family went on a weekend trip and left him alone in the home, only to discover his body when they returned home.

No knew? Really? I won't argue or say anyone was wrong, they weren't. They tried and tried hard to help him. Sadly it wasn't enough. And sadly he learned to hide what he was really thinking and planning behind a wall of silence and pretend.

Pretending to be ok. And that's what everyone missed. The silence and the acting. I know this because I've been there, twice before not going through at the last minute the first time and more so the last time. As I tell people now, there won't be a third because I will succeed.

And all the therapy won't stop it. That's the reality and what therapists miss. People are smarter than therapist and will only speak about what they really and truly think and feel if they want, otherwise, therapists, parents, friends, will get either silence of okspeak, ie., "I'm ok."

And it doesn't take a study to tell anyone that, just human understanding. What don't they get about that?