On the Edge of Insanity

Are you willing to lose your mind?

I'll wake up in a new life, down by the seaside
I'll wake up in a new life, down by the seaside
Down by the seaside
By the seaside

My mind is definitely somewhere else. It usually is. I can picture twenty different lives in a matter of seconds, so every minute I’m stuck here means hundreds of visions going through my head.

An endless train of cars stretch before me, all with their brake lights constantly engaged, all of them prisoners of this modern hellhole we call a city. Their brake lights are prophetic, and so are mine: they tell me there will be no chance to step my foot on the gas here. They show me that if this is life, it will be lived with the brakes on. No chance to break free, hit the gas, and pick up some real speed.

It amazes me to think that within each of the thousand cars around me sits a person, and in that person’s mind, a whole world. Do all of them dream also? Or is it just me who cannot stop picturing all the other things I could be?

Red Rock Riviera plays on the radio, and the lyrics describe the dreams that consume me.

I'll wake up in a new life, down by the seaside
I'll wake up in a new life, down by the seaside
Down by the seaside
By the seaside

I dream of a new life. A life of sunshine and breeze. A life of freedom among the soft sound of the crashing waves. To wake up tomorrow and see God in everything around me.

It pains me to think that even such a life might not even be enough to quiet the voices in my head. I have lost my mind in this race, and I know not if I’ll ever come back to what I used to be. 

My mind is too restless, too dissatisfied, too consumed by impatience and flooded by persistent anxiety in knowing I could always be doing more. It’s difficult to stand still knowing there is another me somewhere else, waking up by the seaside, and that the only difference between us is that he never stopped trying.

That makes it impossible to stop for one second to look at what is already around me. In seeking to build something great, I worry that I might destroy the blessings that God has already given me. Soon they could be lost, because for all my efforts, life waits for no one. 

I might die tomorrow and realize during my last flash of consciousness that I pursued an impossible goal with such focus that I missed my entire life.

I only hope it will be worth it. I only hope I can look back and say I did things right. That I acted like a man should. That I gave my all for the right reasons.

I am completely consumed. I know I am. I’m fully aware of the fact that I don’t live in the real world, and that I exist only inside my own mind. I have let this get too far: not once am I fully present in the moment. 

I feel myself inching closer to madness, as I surrender more and more of my sanity, as I drive deeper and deeper into my own head and disassociate more and more from everything around me. But isn’t that the purpose of life? To let yourself go crazy in the pursuit of the highest greatness? Is losing your mind the price you have to pay for greatness? And if so, is it worth it?

No moment feels real, and I’m left to long forever for a future that never comes. It doesn’t matter how close I come to the dreams I have, because there’s always a new dream, a new future to build, an even bigger task to accomplish.

Is this a blessing? To be constantly plotting, planning, and visualizing the next step? Or is it a curse?

I fear that in this race towards a dream, I’ll let my entire life pass me by. At this moment, here, now, I can’t do anything but wish that, eventually, I’ll reach a finish line. And that when that moment comes, I will be able to look back and see that it was worth it. That I dedicated myself to a higher purpose until it drove me to madness, but that before I lost my mind fully, I could at least for a second gaze upon the fruits of my labor and see that they were good.

I can only wish that someday I can finally rest, and quiet the voices that quarrel in my head.

All I can do is wish that at some point I can finally look at my wife and see her, and just her, and not the visions of a better future, always out of grasp, always pulling me towards the edge of insanity.

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God bless you,

Simple Man

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