In the Quiet Hours

Do you ever wonder in the quiet hours about your existence? Whether are not you have been a bane or a boon to life in general? Sometimes I do. In those quiet hours at night when I am alone, those quiet hours that I simultaneously dread and long for. I am an atheist so I often wonder what motivates me. There is no god in my world who will judge me, no eternal reward or punishment. I have no desirer for any lasting legacy for when I am dead and gone, retuned to the universe in the most elemental of ways, what then would I care for what people will think of me. To tell the truth I have little care for others opinions now. What is my motivation for choosing good over evil or as my friend might say heroism over villainy? In those quiet hours I sit by myself going over the mental balance sheet of my life and realize that at 40 years of age I am half way through life and have accomplished nothing of any significant value. There is no great invention for the benefit of humanity. No work of prose showering enlightenment on the unenlightened. Does this mean I don’t value what have? Do I value these lofty endeavors more than what I have? How did I get here to this point? I have to come to the conclusion that while I have not been rudderless in my voyage, neither have I had direction. I have proceeded willy nilly to the point I am now at. Now don’t think that I am unhappy or unsatisfied, rather I guess I am just wondering if I could have been something more, something different. Would I have been more fulfilled choosing a steady course as either hero or villain rather then meandering back and forth between the two? I guess I am at that point in my life where I am feeling my own mortality and wondering what the purpose is. I have lived a simple life of carpe diem, climb the hill because it is there, enjoy the satisfaction of accomplishment at the top, enjoy the view, and discard these things and move on to the next hill. From hill to hill with no other purpose save to see what lies at the top of the next hill, driven by curiosity. I have to wonder though if Robert Service was talking about me, I have lived life by half?

cdl

The Men That Don't Fit In

There's a race of men that don't fit in,
A race that can't stay still;
So they break the hearts of kith and kin,
And they roam the world at will.
They range the field and they rove the flood,
And they climb the mountain's crest;
Theirs is the curse of the gypsy blood,
And they don't know how to rest.

If they just went straight they might go far;
They are strong and brave and true;
But they're always tired of the things that are,
And they want the strange and new.
They say: "Could I find my proper groove,
What a deep mark I would make!"
So they chop and change, and each fresh move
Is only a fresh mistake.

And each forgets, as he strips and runs
With a brilliant, fitful pace,
It's the steady, quiet, plodding ones
Who win in the lifelong race.
And each forgets that his youth has fled,
Forgets that his prime is past,
Till he stands one day, with a hope that's dead,
In the glare of the truth at last.

He has failed, he has failed; he has missed his chance;
He has just done things by half.
Life's been a jolly good joke on him,
And now is the time to laugh.
Ha, ha! He is one of the Legion Lost;
He was never meant to win;
He's a rolling stone, and it's bred in the bone;
He's a man who won't fit in.

R. Service