I wrote the first draft of this essay around a year ago, in between the bouts of delirium that long covid was beginning to deliver me. And I couldn’t quite tell back then how real it was, and as long covid consumed more of my mind it drifted further away. It began to feel impossible that I had ever had, or could ever have, courage. Because courage requires capacity and I was losing all of mine. And the doubts grew larger, and the clarity dimmed, and I forgot about Frodo for awhile, forgot about most everything, as I was left for many months staring directly into the bowels of deep atheism, wondering if I may ever be free from its merciless hold. And it really tested the fortitude of my soul, for there were moments when completely giving up felt the most natural, and really the only, option. But then somewhere in the grappling with this miserable new world I had come to inhabit I remembered Frodo again. And it was not instant, and it was not easy, but developing this concept of solemn courage did help my spirit recover.
I do not get to choose the world I am given. Reality is such that your mind can be randomly corrupted, some molecular demon etching away the grooves that were you until you are a nothingness. Reality is such that everyone I love will likely die. Some distant, plaintive conclusion accelerating into the present by that mysterious process so ravenously set to motion. And there really might not be much I can do about it, for all of my effort may just be drops against its tidal wave. God! Reality can be so unkind. Yet there is something powerful in the orientation of trying anyway. Because in the end that is all there is. In the end the stakes are what they are, and the situation is what it is, and all I can decide is what to do with what I am given. That’s really it, and accepting this has given me clarity. Yes, there will be days I cannot overcome illness; yes, I may not much affect the looming god machines; and yes, that is all very painful. But I’m not going to get lost in it. I’m going to look at it—the uncertainty and fear, the grip of disease and the overwhelmingly large and complicated threat to all I value—and then I’m going to try. Because it is important, and that is all I can do.
I wrote the first draft of this essay around a year ago, in between the bouts of delirium that long covid was beginning to deliver me. And I couldn’t quite tell back then how real it was, and as long covid consumed more of my mind it drifted further away. It began to feel impossible that I had ever had, or could ever have, courage. Because courage requires capacity and I was losing all of mine. And the doubts grew larger, and the clarity dimmed, and I forgot about Frodo for awhile, forgot about most everything, as I was left for many months staring directly into the bowels of deep atheism, wondering if I may ever be free from its merciless hold. And it really tested the fortitude of my soul, for there were moments when completely giving up felt the most natural, and really the only, option. But then somewhere in the grappling with this miserable new world I had come to inhabit I remembered Frodo again. And it was not instant, and it was not easy, but developing this concept of solemn courage did help my spirit recover.
I do not get to choose the world I am given. Reality is such that your mind can be randomly corrupted, some molecular demon etching away the grooves that were you until you are a nothingness. Reality is such that everyone I love will likely die. Some distant, plaintive conclusion accelerating into the present by that mysterious process so ravenously set to motion. And there really might not be much I can do about it, for all of my effort may just be drops against its tidal wave. God! Reality can be so unkind. Yet there is something powerful in the orientation of trying anyway. Because in the end that is all there is. In the end the stakes are what they are, and the situation is what it is, and all I can decide is what to do with what I am given. That’s really it, and accepting this has given me clarity. Yes, there will be days I cannot overcome illness; yes, I may not much affect the looming god machines; and yes, that is all very painful. But I’m not going to get lost in it. I’m going to look at it—the uncertainty and fear, the grip of disease and the overwhelmingly large and complicated threat to all I value—and then I’m going to try. Because it is important, and that is all I can do.