Meditation on Escapism

If there is one thing I am no good at, it is escapism. I hate it. There is something in my nature too utterly stubborn to ever allow me to just sit back and relax. I need to act, to fix, to move forward, to beat myself or my feelings into submission. I cannot simply ignore something. It will tear at me, and I'll struggle with it until there is something won. It's funny how I never consider how much it costs me to win.

I've been doing a lot of fighting. I've been trying to beat so many things into submission. I've been convinced I'm doing everything I can to live the life other people are living, the life I think I should have. Really, I've just been hurting myself by not living the life that only I can live.

I've been dwelling on the most permanent form of escapism, suicide. Today while walking to the coffee shop to read, I began to understand that suicide is just another form of escapism. I've been looking at it as release, but really it's just an attempt to escape things. Perhaps it does work. But, it is in the same way that alcohol or drugs or sex or any number of another ways we escape pain work. There's nothing to be learned from it. It means an end to that learning that we are here to do.

I feel better now. Perhaps a bit macabre still, but better. I've finally recognized something that's been holding me back, that's been keeping me from moving forward, and for me that recognition means reclaiming the parts of my world that I was giving up.