I would like to not need the risk of it. It would be nice if the harshness of extremes didn’t demand as much shadow and dark. Yet the harsh light of those high points demands something be cast; that some shadow exist on the other side. Yet that is what we get. We get intensity that is not sustainable. We get fire that burns too hot. We get something that costs a little too much. Yet that is what makes it worth pursuing for me, that it costs more than I often am willing to give. That then, is why the experience has so much value. If it didn’t cost more than I had, then it wouldn’t produce the change that I am still looking for. It wouldn’t have demanded that something be stripped away. That something be sacrificed in the fire to let me come back yet again.
Yet what is left after years of cutting away, of looking to be stripped down to a core essence. What is that. When will I know when that has been reached. Or is the process something that will continue year after year until nothing else is left at all. Until I vanish completely into the environment, and nothing is left but silence.