Greetings,
It has been a while since I posted here, I have been somewhat busy writing and fencing, as usual. I have come to a bit of a block, and now I am figuring my way around it, just as I have done for all the other obstacles placed in my path. Fibro has sucked over Winter, but that was expected. Enough of the guff, time for the post...
Cheers,
Henry.
A Fight for Life
I spend much of my days either writing or
fencing. This is the nature of my life, it is the life I have to me. The reason
for this is that I have determined that I will fight for life. Not just to
exist, but to live.
I have had some sort of illness or another,
physical or mental, from the day I was born. The thing is that my parents did
not coddle me, they did not try and prevent me from doing things, quite the
opposite, they encouraged me to do things. They encouraged me to get out with
my friends and have fun; they encouraged me to take up sports; and did what
they could to support this process.
They encouraged me to try things and find
out what I was good at, they encouraged me to succeed where I was drawn, not to
be shoe-horned into some path I was not interested in. I decided I wanted to
become an historian, not an accountant or some other occupation which would pay
a significant amount, my parents supported my decision. This was evident even
from when I was in secondary school, and further into high school. I took
history subjects wherever I could find them, to increase my knowledge, to increase
my critical thinking.
All of this imbued me with a drive for what
I wanted, regardless of what that was; if there was a way I would find it, if
there wasn’t a way, I would simply find a way. The concepts of “can’t”,
“shouldn’t”, “mustn’t” and other such words simply waved a red flag in my face.
I will admit some of this tendency did drive me toward trouble and things I
really should not have, but each was a learning experience. Every time I
failed, I learnt something from the situation. This drive has led me to the
place where I am today.
I have sacrificed opportunities and
different paths to lead where I am now. Some of those paths were simply closed
to me due to my circumstances. I did not berate the situation, curse it, I
simply found another way around, some other way to achieve what I wanted to
achieve. I am not saying that I have not had my set-backs, times when I could
have chosen better, times when I could have done better; no, this would paint
the wrong picture of me, I am no saint, no genius, I am just a person who
decided what sort of life I wanted and have striven toward it.
Is my life perfect? Certainly not. I still
have struggles, and not only with my health. Am I yet where I want to be?
Certainly not, I have found a path with no end in sight, a path that will only
end with my last breath. This appeals to me that I will never find the end. The
Wisdom of Silenus states that we should prefer to die early than know we will
never find the end of the path, never learn everything, never do everything we
want; I take this not as a reason to be depressed, but to accept the challenge that
I will do what I can, I will do as much as I can before my life ends, I will
strive to the dizzying heights, even if I never make it.
I fight for life. I want to live,
not just exist, and if this requires me to stand outside the normal bounds,
then so be it. I will strive for life; I will fight for every little bit of
life I can get.
