It Flickers, Comes Back.

We never give up that shiny part -- that green thing on the inside, the thing that makes us who we are. I guess some would call this a core. It obscures so easily, this core, buried by our cravings to be [fill in the blank] enough. Pretty enough. Quick witted enough. Successful enough. And our resultant insecurities [you will never be enough.] prevent us from seeing this core stuff in those around us; we become so preoccupied with how others are perceiving these shiny little icons we project out onto the world that our minds can't focus on anything else. [If I cannot be enough, I will act like I'm enough. It takes so many little grey cells to keep a lie going.] These shiny icons will occupy you for your whole entire life (!) if you so allow. They leave no room for thought or cultivation beyond the singular struggle of self against self. Like the coiled serpent devouring its tail: quod me nutrit me destruit.

This is all so far from what I had wanted to say. I should have started, "It never gives us up -- that shiny part," because it's always there, waiting for our straying to be over, waiting for our focus to return to that which truly matters. So much stuff and nonsense.

Just: I worry so much about how all of this will end up. No more of the stuff and nonsense. How I waver. A fronte praecipitum a tergo lupi.