Our mythology sinks deep.
It is whispered through us since birth, the axioms of our doctrine.
"Blessed are the wealthy," they whisper, "for they shall be protected."
"Blessed are the beautiful," we are told, "for they shall obtain love without end."
"Blessed are the busy, for they shall hold a lamp to the truth and then smother it with their to-dos."
This mythology ensures a life of movement with no meaning, relationship without communion. But it is the life this world offers, we think.
We are all self-isolating at home. I am tired of those who insist on "making the most" when some are unemployed and under unbearable stress. But this much we should agree on: that silence is always the beginning of healing, if we let it burn to the point of pain, if we let it inscribe in us a fresh reality.
Isn't desire for death a longing for a new reality? Can't a person suicide the old mythology instead of their lives?
I guess I am still thinking about my neighbor. I know that suicide often isn't a thought thing; it's a symptom of acute mental illness which seems to spring as a foreign force, threatening to consume. Still I find myself offering solutions. "Die metaphorically instead," I want to tell him, "to the old story. Weave yourself a new mythology, one in which your life matters infinitely and you are welcomed into your own skin, your own loves, your own community-"
I don't know what this would mean to a man already carried out cold, "the pill bottle in the body bag." All I know is that we must become co-crafters of our mythologies or we will slowly (or quickly) be drained of life.