I was tweeting kind of prolifically yesterday, going back and forth, and started myself thinking about what it means to walk the path of Spirit. To seek my Will. To fulfill my purpose. And in the course of my conversation with Herbis Orbis I found myself realizing that I don’t feel alone as much as I used to.

I still feel alone. Often. Sometimes I feel as though my alone-ness will be the end of me. But these times seem to be growing less frequent with each passing year.

When I was a teenager, having only just begun to realize that I am called to something greater than myself, having just started to show painful signs of strong psychic talent, I spent a lot of time obsessing over my alone-ness. In fact, one of the oldest pieces of writing I have is this poem, written during that rather emo period of my life.

Alone

I am alone
I am here
sitting in the ashes of creation
destroyed by my own hand
Lying in the leftover muck of the universe
destroyed by my own hand

He left me
to do what was left to be done

He gave me strength
He gave me power
and will to use it
He left me to control myself
and that which I had no right to control

He left me to destroy myself
with my own futile efforts to save myself

I look back to where it began
I see the place that I often see in my dreams
The place I have looked back to a thousand times
The Beginning

But that is past
and I am left with my mistake

Alone
No more power to change
No more power to heal
No more power to give
No more power to live

I am alone
I am here
I destroyed what I had created
I destroyed,
Our Chance
In a single fit of futile rage at myself
and my own selfish mind

Destroyed by
My will
My freedom
My choices
My rage
My life
My hand
My mind
My self

Sitting in the ashes of my great accomplishment
Alive
Alone

I have no illusions about my skill as a poet, but there are words here that speak to me today, and though the final affirmation holds despair, I also detect a glimmer of strength. It’s a strength of purpose, of character that I would not come to find in myself for many years yet.

Alive.
Alone.

I’m fast approaching thirty years of age. Nearly twice as old as I was when I first wrote those lines. Am I any better off?

I destroyed what I had created.

In some ways my dismal prophecy has certainly come to pass. I believe it is the duty of all men to become who they are. In the process of individuation, of becoming myself, I have been many people and created many things. And to become the man I am today, I have had to destroy those other men and many of their creations.

Though I was not religious, I feel it is clear that I spoke both about my physical father, and the concept of father-god as I reference “he.” I was given many things by my father, and many blessings by the divine.

In the intervening years I have torn down, burned away, and annihilated the legacies I was given, and some of those I’ve created. The truth is, I’ve never really been alone. I have been always surrounded by the trappings of legacy and destiny. The two hand-me downs we all receive from our parents and the divine.

Maturation is the effort and process of learning to be alone in the universe. To be alone one must not be encumbered by the past or the future, although he must have knowledge of both.

And while I am not alone, and may never be, it is the struggle to become so that drives me.

And there we find the paradox that lies int he center of all things that are true. In becoming Alone, I am becoming less lonely.

I wrote yesterday, and I will write again: we often walk alone, together.

In the great journey, we are alone together.

I will not pretend to understand it. I reckon a conscious comprehension is beyond me, and far beyond my skill with a pen. But it is a great truth, and remembering it gives me a peace greater than death.