I made a pot of coffee, and sat down with my thoughts. I sat at the desk that I made to hold the computer. The computer was like an old nag that I couldn't ignore, and yet didn't want to touch. Whatever I was looking for, I wasn't going to find it in that annoying glass and plastic bitch-box. She wasn't there for consummation - only frustrating bits of banter and half-cruel, half-knowing, half-public displays. I shouldn't have bought the computer; I shouldn't have made the desk; and I shouldn't have been drinking coffee.

I had the usual internal debates about suicide, priesthood, and other unhealthy things; I considered deleting my e-self. As I began to write, I imagined the typical questions and lack of response that would follow. And seeing the end from the beginning, I wondered why I should start. The itching-ache in my gums and teeth increased. I took the Sex Pistols disc out of the drive, and put in something new.

More often than not, my days begin that way. In all honesty, I'm confused. And the harder that I search for meaning and purpose in life, the more elusive it seems. I find myself keenly aware of the fact that I exist for only a little while, and in an imperfect state; after that, I don't know what. My belief in God is sustained in no small part by the horror of the prospect that we suffer and then fade into nothingness. Because even if religion, or astrology, is synthetic, science is too. And I don't think that science is my friend.

As my coffee grows cold, the disc in the drive repeats: Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings and Second Essay for Orchestra fill the room in that order. The clouds in the sky thicken, and then thin. The sun emerges, and then is concealed. It's a nice sort of metaphor for the progress of my life, thus far.

There's a frustrating tension between the personal knowledge that we're not supposed to be attached to the things of this world, and a social order designed to promote the gradual accumulation of real, worldly, property.

It's becoming increasingly difficult to support, and be a part of, something that I don't believe in.

I need a new epiphany. And I don't know what the Hell to do.

all material copyright paul e. germanos
contact: paulgermanos(at)msn.com
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