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The Edge of the World

To those of us who think the sun is gone forever

Imagine opening your eyes for what seems like the first time. Everything seems so blindingly white, as if it were the first flash of life to illuminate a world of silent darkness, as if some higher power flashed landing lights at your very being, leading you to safety in a storm.
The whiteness seeping through your closed lids asks you questions you long to know answers to. You open your eyes to gaze with reluctant curiosity upon a sight that has haunted the steps of every soul, the shadows of every heart, since the beginning.
The world is a great expanse of temporary existentialism, the globe a child’s plaything, spinning, spinning, yet never moving, never going anywhere: Stationary travel dreaming of undiscovered horizons.
You look upon the blank pages of an open book thrashing in a terrible maelstrom, dreaming of words it will never be able to share as it floats out to sea: a lonely sailor of white sailing to no where on black seas.
All rainfall cries into rivers which run laughing into oceans. Those oceans dance, slowly but surely, towards an end. Your sails tattered, your cargo lost, your heading forgotten, you stand upon the remains of your capsized, fickle sanctuary and look upon the last steps of that ancient dance.
Once upon a time there were people you knew, places you visited, memories you collected, emotions you succumbed to. Now there is only an end, or a beginning, or an adventure. Once you knew everything there was to know about the world. You were so confident, so sure of your heading. The winds could be relied on, the stars could be trusted. Now the winds blow against you, and the stars have all gone out.
You could let go and fall into endlessness. The falls would surely take you to a death more grand than the life you left behind. You could trust in the grand design that led you here and just fall. Just let go. No more battles to fight. No more obstacles to overcome. Only the peace of endless falling.
But there is no light where your feet could never walk. There is no love, no pain, no music. No longing. No wondering.
What do you do when your whole world is floating past you on oceans that fall into an endless abyss? How do you face a day with no sunrise? What do you do when you’re standing on the edge of the world?
Look up. The Sun is still shining. Look upon the mountains that hide just behind the glare of the sunrise, gaze in wonder at the fragrant gardens of the phoenixes, hear their song... and remember what it is to know nothing.
Even at the edge of the world, never lower your gaze.
Even when there is nothing left to stand on, do not let yourself fall.  
Even at the end of a world, there is still something more for those who seek it.
Those who seek always find something.

(2012)

Just like the idea of lands beyond the sun, the notion of a flat world, with falls careening over the great edges of the earth constantly keeping the oceans level and our lives intact, is one of great interest for me. Think about what it would mean to fall off the world. Think about where you would go, what would happen when you got there. Would you simply fall forever? Would you pass by wreckages of other unfortunates in their eternal descent? And, again, I began to draw parallels with the notion of facing the end of all ends and facing what we feel is the end. Do you jump? Do you sit and wait for the storms to pass, risking being washed away in the maelstrom? Or do you realize that every end is another beginning, and look up to a sun that isn't destined to fall with you, and will continue lighting a world whether you stay in it or not?

#Depression #DeterminationMotivation

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