ECSTASY

it was music, your voice held the strain,
and I heeded to the mellow sweetness of its rhythms-

your moan, your scream, your silence,
I gathered in my psychic mind - and in that hiatus
that fell between our illogical words
where swelled the numb silences
     I heard a tale of hope....

We have come a long way here
like two shadows at dawn without a promise

we didn't know anything, we never had any faith
But we knew each other, we had each other.
and this road we walk on, what shall you call it?

That your voice echoes through the retreating silences
of my dream. Irrevocably. Meekly-- like the royal tunes of Elfland.
The shimmery glow of your face, just like the tattoo crafted
on your nook --- Ah! with stars that shine above despair.

wonder -- grace -- and, litheness
commingling in the ordinariness of just being you...
like the shared embrace, feverish--
between two fumbling searching hearts,
touching like buds unfolding in the primal rays of light
yet knowing each other for eternity.

there is something I can't help seeing die in you.

the simplicity of dusting away these loose particles of dust
in my hearth, then the chicken cooked over the blazing fire,
watched and tended till it becomes --
 delicious.

Then,
      the gaze without words,
      the laughter without sound,
      the touch without contact...
when we bathed in the clear presence of one in another --
what did you call this, what do you call it!

Then-
     the longing and the waiting,
     the patience and the hope
of just knowing that we belong....

if you ain't believe in this, then there is something higher.
it is in you, and i have sought through sundry years
and sought in vain.

it is this echo of me in you and you in me --
bliss, ecstasy, longing, fulfillment
then the start of longing all over again.

now the shadows dissipate with the word you spoke
like you did not mean it. yet it surged from that hidden depths of you.
and the light drifted over our blurred vision--
we have taken too much of each other and yet we have much more
just far much more to give until ....
shadows cede to a new light of dawn.

and you are in my arms, and i am in yours.

SOLITUDE

Solitude is a creative space. I am not talking about loneliness, I am not talking about the feeling of just being pushed away. I am talking about this space of being with oneself, this spiritual space that makes us remain in contact with ourselves. But being alone with ourselves isn't always an easy thing. That choice is difficult because solitude is like a light that makes us see terrible things about who we really are, if only we dare to look. 

We are used to hiding behind the huge mask of the crowd, letting our voice drop in the maddening hum of the multitude. Sometimes we may be afraid to stand alone, yes... because we might not even stand alone. We want to learn on someone, we know we are so broken, if we stand alone, we crumble down into a rubble heap. And when we are left alone, to walk the wide stretch of the interior open space, to hear nothing but our discordant strain, to see nothing but our belated dreams, to hold nothing but our brokenness. No! That is scary. 

But mind you.... relationship doesn't blossom without this choiced solitude which lightens perception. When we choose to enter into this sphere, it isn't always a kind of flight, it is a journey where we meet faces we love... where we repose in our wounds, where we become patient with ourselves, learning to love and accept who we are without carrying any "grudges", regrets, or negative sentiments. In this way, solitude doesn't only become creative but healing. Solitude places us before our choices, before our dreams, before our hurts and most importantly, before our gifts, our strengths and our talents. We rediscover them always with gratitude. We also get hints about new prospects of growth, about a beauty we might be ignoring. 

It is not healthy to always be in the crowd. Standing out is triumph. Most often it is. And it always leads us somewhere.

IMAGE

Don't just know if it's like stalking,

but indifferently, your image stays my mind:

like a passive log drifting along 

and irrevocably flow -- rivers I'd never known;

Your image glitters in the clear beams

of the crescent moon. Its music is silence,

and I recollect it in the chilling hours of dawn

when hope and life are born of a dream shared....

Were you part of me, or I

part of that solitary road you have walked 

listening to yourself, reminiscing--

Part of a secret lived?

when you return, your vision changed

and this indifferent gaze flushed in the twilight

of a beginning that leaves nothing back

of all we have talked and lived and hoped for?

IT IS ALL IN YOUR IMAGE.

Wordless

without words, silence encircling me with louring shadows,
my ken flusters... I seek you, not with the language we have known;
I reach out to you in the clear silence where distance is nothing
but the opaque reality of those who had never touched each other.

I cannot touch you. I cannot hear you, but your thoughts inhabit
that sphere within where silence opens with its solitude to a vast universe
of love. In silence, I hear you speak to my heart, words I have uttered
words that hurt you -- though they bring you closer to me...

the shadows enfold. But it is not you I see. I see and hear myself
in the clear memory of moments we've lived, moments we long t relive
feeding in the thirst of each other, resting in the open wounds
that hurt our loving hearts: You are so far, yet so close to my thoughts.

Dusk was the time we met. Dawn was the moment of light, where all things
saw their beginnings. And it was then you went to recluse
with the receding silences of  solitude... seeking yourself that you may find us.
I see you... so near, but so inaccessible, so gloomy, yet full of light.

Dusk was the time we met. Dawn the moment of passion--
I write at dawn, with the veil cast over my eyes, dark veil of unknowing.
Listening to the silences, watching and waiting. And when the doorknob creak
I am sure, your bright visage, emerging from night, will meet mine.

Shall we still speak the same language that makes us one?
Shall you still be she in whom I find myself...? Shall the glimmer of light
on your face reveal the one thing I have longed for and feared!!!
That all we have built, was but preserved in the beauty of the silence of your heart?

the seasons

The heat is on again. And when it hit, I feel it right down the very marrows of my bones. It is the roughest period of year, at least to me. The pollution, then the air we breath reeling with loose particles of dust and viruses that make u cough before you are aware you are coughing. And when I wanna I complain, I remember the rainy period with the torrential rains that gets you tucked to your room. Hmmm...

Every season has its thrills and its curses. Every season has its vermin and gives an antidote to another season... just like the seasons of the soul.

The heat that beats on my naked flesh... the sweat poring, the sleepless hours. I gather them jealously remembering that age when I walked the barren cracks of the woodlands east of my little hamlet. Sunshine was a promise. Night was made to dream.

as free as a bird...

I think no one who went through the walls of education and studied his grammar well would be unfamiliar with the classic simile, “as free as a bird”. There is that sudden sensation of freedom when you walk up the top of a hill and feel the gentle wind on your forehead blowing freely, meekly, and gently. Then out a blue you watch a sparrow flap its wings, then spread them out gracefully and cuts its flight through the air. It flies lightly like the wind.

This is an image that had always fascinated me. First as a lad who sprang from humble origins, born and raised on the mountainous sites of Mbiim. I used to hunt for birds, laying snares for them. But I hardly caught them. I had always admired something about them, it was this: that they moved freely, that they flew with grace.

As free as a bird! That is one of our illusions. The bird could be something other than free. It is attached to something. It is attached to its nest. The bird is responsible for its nest as the spider is responsible for its web. The bird is free because it is responsible.

words... gestures... signs... silence...

The art of communication... that is one thing we often neglect. Words we use, gestures and signs, even the silence that inhabits us are things we need to put together to weave a good communication--

There is one way of loving and recognizing the other who is before me. It is in the quality of communication maintained between two people. When things are smooth between two individuals, words are sweet, flattery, we find enough space where gestures are posed that open the heart like petals unfolding over the first streaks of the sun rays... we are creative in looking for signs that convey what beauty lies within us.

but....

what happens when we are hurting? When things are falling apart, slipping off our palms? We are gloomy. We listen to our hurts more than the efforts for reconciliation from whoever might have hurt us. Our silence is no longer peaceful, but hurting also and full of nuances... our gestures are grimaces.

Words...gestures...signs...silence. I have often had a problem with them. You may understand signs differently from what they are intended to portray especially when communicated by someone from a culture that is alien to yours... some gestures might be misleading also.   I have also discovered that the best moment to keep cool is when we are hurting terribly. Yes, because we might be violent with words --which are sacred-- and misuse them. For quality communication there should always be a space for silence, for words, for gestures, and silence.

It would cost a great deal of pain if you are numb.

friendship and creativity

have you ever thought about the dynamics of a good relationship? I have often heard people saying, when asked why they love someone, stuff like We have a lot in common, we have been on for many years... I know her, or I know him so much. We know each other.

I sit back. I think it over again... and I am afraid of a danger that may be in the way. To claim to know the other people that enters into relationship with us may be a daring presumption. What really makes us feel the warmth of a relationship is the surprises that go with them... the discovery we awaken to every day, that the other  before me is so different. It inspires wonder and awe at the same time, something of reverence and welcome.

Love has no limits. Its faintest spark could cover and infinite sphere... But often, the friction and tension we create in relationships stem from the fact that we want others to be the ideal we have created in our mind, thus limiting that person's growth and liberty of creative surprises.

Sometimes in relationships people tend to say stuff like, "I am tired", or "I don't feel at home here any more", "I am no longer happy with you." Well, there may be a point there. But I often wonder how much creativity such people give to see to it that there is welcome, that there is joy. If you want happiness in a relationship, you will not just reach out and have it offered as a coin that is thrust into the wrinkled palms of a beggar. You have got to create it. You have to give it. You have to create a space in which it thrives. I am not talking about extreme situations where living with a particular person becomes really difficult. I am talking about spicing up a relationship and making it beautiful. That space where joy and welcome reign must come from a creativity that maintains the rhythm of the heart.

This is what I have come to believe in, we can always know someone. We must always make efforts of knowing those with whom we interact or enter into a definite relationship. That is beautiful. But leaving room for surprises maintains a healthy dynamism where trust, openness and creativity become spices that awaken us always to the joy of discovering.

embracing our fragility

THE feeling of being loved by another, of having a price in the eyes of another human person is so soothing and uplifting. Our success in life may depend on this... on the fact that we have someone to work for, to make life living for. This feeling infuses a new wave of energy in us. As blinding as it might be, it also has its light.

That explains why the ache of a broken heart could be acute, painful and far-reaching. The pain of a broken heart could be very difficult to heal especially if we do not accept it. I have been thinking about this for sometime.  Someone shared to me the story of betrayal. She was bleeding. Her only love was cheating on her, making out with her best friend.

I did not know how to react to this. I know that every relationship is unique. The rules we imagine are always fake. Our models are fake. Our icon of love are fake. The only truth that defines a relationship is the dynamics of two unique hearts interacting, meeting, touching each other in their unique way. How could I therefore pretend to offer some help where I was a stranger. Yes, I will always remain a stranger to your pain. To anyone's pain. I will always be a stranger to another's wounds, they are sacred wounds, by approaching them, I am approaching a sort of sanctuary... I can only incline humbly, I can soothe it with silence, with a presence, with words, but I will never understand it. It may resemble a pain I have known, but it sure is definitely unique.

Well, this is what I told my friend: "That you are hurt. I am most certain about it. That you are losing the one and only person who has value before your eyes is nothing I can doubt. Yes you are suffering... sure that you are. But there is something you can't afford to lose. There is one thing you possess, which no one could ever take away from you, when you give it, it is out of freedom... out of an inner liberty that makes you what you really are. This thing is the gift that is you. You are your own gift, you are the only gift you can offer the world. However hurting, however flawed you may feel you are... you are precious. Can you learn to embrace yourself? Can you learn to touch your own wounds and to draw healing from them? One way is by accepting the fact that you are hurt, and then treating yourself with a little care, with some respect. It would worth nothing if you have value before others yet lacking this sense of dignity that makes you lift your head even if you are hurting deeply."

She smiled. And I dared say no more. I watched her in silence plunging into the depths of her tears. Yes, she was embracing her own pain. It is healing.

I can fail... many times though... but I am NOT a failure

It is understandable enough to find someone wearing a downcast face after failing in an exam, an interview, a match for which the person had invested time in preparation. You go in for something full of hope, courage and determination and then... in the end of it you are declared loser, or "failed"...

The worst kind of failure could be this feeling that we have wasted in life. To feel that you chose the wrong profession. The languid sense of having chosen the wrong partner in your love relationship. The frustration of an unhappy marriage, the pain of incomprehension from others... failure could be so heart-breaking sometimes. We may feel like all the forces of the world are conspiring against us.

There are two attitudes that follow failure: we may become intolerable, unforgiving towards our own selves. Or, we may choose to accept who we are and deal with it as faith.

Whatever kind of failure we may experience, the truth is that we are not a FAILURE per se. The pain that many people go through result from this: that they do not separate themselves from the experience they are living. They are so touched that they "take it personally" as we say often. You may fail in something or in your dream in life, but it is wrong to allow it to incite a sense of unhappiness in you. It is tragic to identify to your failure. You may fail, but you are not a failure... failure is just an instance of awakening, a point in the journey, a preparation for another kind of success that may not even be what we have been looking for.

There is never failure as such. I don't believe in failure... that is a sad term coined by cynics whose gaze looks down the slanting curve. No one ever fails who never tried. The guts to try is, in itself, self-conquest. I always remember a stanza of the poem of Bernard Fonlon Nsokika, he wrote it, remembering happier days. That was almost at the close of his life:

I see my dying bed,

The futile years behind it;

A life all fruitless led,

With scarce a soul to mind it.

that is dismay, sombre, dark...challenging... but then he moves on, searching hope.

Great men the stories say,

Oft also stood uncertain;

Of what before them lay,

Beneath the future's curtain.

And lo, comes the peace of knowing it was not all in vain...

But forging on

The end they won

While God illumined their way;

And buoyed by this 

I feel some bliss

The thought that I had tried.

I can fail... I can see no happy end to all my strivings, I may not bloom in my relationships, I may not be top in my profession, no one may not read these lines I am writing. But, I would never despair, I never shall be a failure. I move on, clutching and hugging the thought that "I had tried"

facing bitterness

I am writing this in view of the reactions I got from the post on bitterness. Identifying its causes could be on of the great paths towards healing. Before I say whatever I would say, I deem it worthwhile pointing out a common characteristic which hinders healing in depressed and bitter persons. It is this tendency to point a finger at others, to feel that others make me feel the way I do, to shift the blame...

I have never thought of myself as being a scapegoat to any form of injustices. We all will suffer injustice as a matter-of-course. But the way we allow it to affect us is another story. I equally believe that we would hardly find a common antidote for a particular emotional ill... because we are all unique in the way we suffer.

Self-awareness is the process of consciousness, of knowing who we are, of being able to identify our hurts. But identifying them is always a starting point and not the end of the process. Awareness disposes us to measure our emotional strengths, to identify our frustrated dreams, our broken hopes, our strengths and weakness, the hurts, both ours and those of others.

Awareness prepares us for acceptance... Very often our initial reaction to hurts is that of denial. We get into that pattern of thought we we stress the "this isn't just possible" or "it can't be happening to me" or "I don't believe this". We want to push the reality to a sphere of forgetfulness... we want to estrange ourself from it because it hurts. We may refuse to look into the pain in us, but the truth is that pain remains and nags at us and follows us everywhere we go.

Once we face any kind of pain, the moment we admit the hurt, we rob it of its sting. Acceptance means we are ready to put the hurt where it can heal. It means we are ready to move over it. It means we know it. Once we know it, we can figure out how to handle it. This is just an approach that I propose in facing bitterness.

The Magic is Every Moment

Mediocrity!


I know that word. And I know how many of us have gone through it, and many of us who make a great show of personality. We say a lot of things, but we are not quite sure of it. We do not care to dig to find out the deeper meaning of things. So we wallow in mediocrity... yes, because we prefer leisure, we prefer the easy path always. 

Sometimes I wonder how remarkable our life could be if we seized each moment as an opportunity to learn, to discover, to develop and to grow. 

Each time I wake up, there are a million opportunities before me to welcome and give life. From that moment I walk down to my bathroom, and have my toilet and my breakfast... the miracle of breathing begins to happen. There is something in each of us, a throb for a thing we are good at. Sometimes we approach this thing, say a skill, a profession with timidity... sometimes we seek the easy way around it, avoiding effort and strain. The result is, we remain unfulfilled or mediocre, thrust mid-point between being satisfied and wanting. 

Yes, little things are important. Insignificant events are full of surprises... Sometimes there are those simple things we ignore, very simple happenings that may make a big difference in our life. You never know the role the man sitting at the threshold of a building may play in your life, the gate man who seems insignificant, the beggar who walks up to you. The stranger you ignore at the gate may be the person bearing a secret that may save your life.

The call to say "Yes" to life happens every moment. You can decide to welcome and live it fully, without the distractions with which we are wont to dealing with little things. Such an inner disposition of spirit certainly opens us to the grandeur of the world, to the infinite spirit of finite things. Only large hearts discover the miracle concealed in petty things. That is why I need to do every thing as if it were unique and irreplaceable. That is the only way of doing things perfectly and finding fulfillment:  we discover the beauty of things also by approaching them with the idea: there isn't ever a second chance!

where this bitterness comes from

A friend has asked me after reading the most recent post to explain where this bitterness comes from. I have decided to answer the question here so others may be able to make an input. Well bitterness may come from others as I mentioned somewhere. And bitterness breed with hatred directed towards someone, or something that might have hurt us...or that may be hurting us. What is common is that most people who are bitter hardly identify where their bitterness comes from. And this makes it a disease hard to cure, a scar difficult to live with. 

The primary human instinct is to give back evil for evil. Eye for eye. Tooth for tooth. When we feel slighted, the wound gets deep and spurs us towards the sense of revenge. Thus we become bitter, resentful and willing to wield negative energy.

Bitterness may also result from a certain frustration that issue from our condition of being human. We are limited in every sense and could not get or afford all that we want... What happens often is that we feel low, frustrated and may even turn mean on others, blaming everyone for being the cause of our failure... but the truth is, we might not have accepted our condition of being human fully and freely.

Bitterness comes from within as from without. From within due to our ill-begotten fate which is blessedness also: our humanity. We might be bitter with an unacceptable illness, we might be bitter due to our pride which does not permit us to let others in... etc. But there is the bitterness which is a reaction to the way that society and others treat us.

a step beyond bitterness

The bitterness and the ache in your heart is something you definite carry around you. You may blame it on others. Yes, that others make you feel bitter and resentful and hurt is true... that they heap calumnies upon you and strike mercilessly at your personality is something that you will always expect. But the way that this will affect you will depend greatly on how you let it touch your mind.

Hurting people can affect society a lot. I mean they can affect people around them.

Positively, they can accept the hurts as part of the honing of their humanity... as something we can't live without given our differences and utter weaknesses. In this way, they become realistic, more comprehensive and patient towards the vulnerable fragility of others. In this way, they become conscious of the thing that may hurt others which may be what is causing them great pain.

Or, they may become hard-hearted, ruthless and bitter persons. When you carry the gloom of your hurts around you, you become intolerant, you become a frustrated and frustrating human being, scattering the bitter, nauseating perfume of bitterness around you.

The bitterness we feel do not often come from others. We often always carry it around, bringing it from our past.

Stress ... health... energy

I feel so depressed. I am not up to anything. I feel wasted.

And the swing goes right low. The common term we hear for this is depression. The feeling of being listless, wasted, tasteless, lacking desire and nerve for anything.  I have known this and have known it quite often than I am scared of it, known it so well as to feel like it is part of me.

It is a sickness of emotion, sometimes. I have often fancied it. When most of the energy surging up from deep within us is not well-channeled or directed to where it isn't needed. Or could it be this way round, that we receive a lot of negative, polluted energy into our system?

Negative energy causes stress. It is indigestible and makes the system suffer... it could be hatred, resentment, a sinister boredom that goes with lassitude of spirit. Something often, always touches upon our mind. A word thrown to us from the street, something like "nigger", this "brown" slave... and I bet, it doesn't just amuse you that people could think of you as being different from others. It might have seemed so little, well that meaningless, somewhat imperceptible gesture from your boyfriend or girlfriend, the somber look on this person who had always radiated light and warmth around you. And it has made you a jerk... you won't accept it, you feign it, you let everyone feel that you can stand it, you walk with your head held high... but deep inside only you know the ache and the strain at keeping your mind cool.

I have had the worst forms of stress in so young an age. I bet it isn't great things that give us stress, but little, intangibly good-for-nothing things or words or gestures we allow to get into our minds. Sometimes, things we can let go in that easy-going elegance of sweet carelessness. It is never easy to let go of those little things which like stubborn brier grips our mind. So how do we find life and health when the mind is tortured by cares we cannot divest ourselves of and rest is snapped off our palms? I have one easy way of coping...

.... so damn easy,

I exult in the thing I am best at, the thing I am passionate about... like stroking the strings of my guitar, slowly, loosely and feeling the vibrations through my body. Or sitting down on my laptop and releasing it on words, watching them slip out of my mind unto a notepad. Don't you know the fresh air out of this stuffed room brings you into contact with the purity and freedom of nature? A walk, a cheese game, a theater show... but remember, one of the best stress relievers is the thing you are passionate about. Get to it, touch it, feel it. Life returns, or at least, some life returns.

Healing Stress

Healing Stress

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growing in love

We have teachers for all sciences or almost all sciences. But the science of love isn't taught... It grows with the intelligence of the heart. Instinct stirs us to respond positively, from that tender moments of birth onwards, to the maternal affections to which we are lavished. Where there are signs of this affection, the heart opens like petals to the warming rays of the sun... it comes to bloom. That is how the first instinct of love looks like, it is even more beautiful than that, the cuddles, the sweet kisses on the forehead, the tossing of the fragile baby into the air. They stir something within, something the heart alone knows.

When we grow up, we discover that the love we received was not a fulfillment in itself but a promise,  a seed that needs nourishing and growth. We understand that the center of the world isn't the child we once were, demanding of attention and affectionate lavishing. The truth becomes different. Love presents itself with another visage, it is no longer we who matter, but the object of the love we bear in our hearts.

"You shall love your neighbor as yourself." Says Christ of the Gospels.

What comes foremost isn't the neighbor. It is me. Unless I love myself, unless I start treasuring who I am, I will always love everyone in the wrong way. And that is how it often has been with many relationships.

The sad thing is that some people do not even know how to love themselves. And I do not mean a petty self-love that centers on what I desire. Loving one's self is gaining the fuller awareness of who we are meant to be. Henri Nouven uses the word beloved to point to the fact that we are created by a Source of love and loved infinitely. Such an awareness calls us to claim this blessedness always and to rejoice in it.

To be human is a great gift. To nourish one's humanity is greater. To grow in his/her humanity is the greatest act of love towards oneself. It is the only way of learning to love others. For once we have discovered the value of what and who we are we will be able to offer the best of who and what we are.

a little effort

Just a little effort, just a little effort gets you somewhere from where you are. It takes you higher...

welcoming change

the mist wafting in the air, the rains have gone...
the cycle of time where seeds of life scatter
with the chill we feel gnawing on the soft skin
of our naked flesh... the things we wrap ourselves with
will wither and weakening fall off...

we are left with our nudity, like helpless infants
waiting to be weaned... like butterflies bursting
out of their cocoon to a harsh and rough world
they are unfamiliar with... the bright lights sting the iris
of my eyes, it is daylight and the night is gone.

wilderness... dark... gore...

I have gone through a dark wilderness.

When my friend told me this, I smiled, and said it was a very poetic way of saying things. Of course it is poetic in the light of its image. But looking closely, it is not just poetic, it is hard prose... The wilderness itself is a horrible space to traverse, but traversing it when it turns dark is really a hard thing.

Whatever the desert may be, it has always meant a lot to me. I have written about this sometime ago. i did not want to go back to this, but I would like to encourage my friend in her own journey. I will do this by way of images.

The wilderness is not always a dark space to be. It is arid, it is scorching, it is empty-- like solitude. You can go for miles without hearing a sound, but the retreating silences, then you would look and look until your eyes become blind and itchy. You walk for miles, you hear nothing, you see nothing, but you feel the deep hollow within your soul... your own aloneness; you know nothing but the dire desire eating deep within you to go out, to meet other humans-- Rilke says you could open up to anyone who comes your way. Yes, there are times like that. You feel so alone, so abandoned, so misunderstood by others and by the world. There are moments like that when you feel like everything conspires to wrest the only one thing that gave you abiding joy from your palms. Times we are listless, without taste for anything. It makes you sulky, sullen within right? You can do anything to feel alive.

I have known that also. But I remembered the lessons of life.

When the night falls, it is time to rest. It is time to dream. A lot of things grow in that night. In that dark wilderness, nature is hiding an oasis, somewhere (-how cunning life could be), just there at the next turn where the remaining strength could get us. Do you know what? The water in the desert is most refreshing, but because of its purity alone, but because of the depth of our thirst. The more you have been alone, the more you grow in your art of welcome. Unless we know darkness, light will make no sense to us. We talk of friendship in relation to our solitude... and it is in this solitude that we discover that space we have to reserve for others.

The danger in this moment is to despair. And that is what happens o many people in their quest. How sad! The brave hearts know that the times of birth is always like this dark wilderness, we know nothing but desertion and pain-- we are not alone, we are just being weaned from the milk of an easy life so as to mature in our spirit. If you haven't known this distress, if you haven't been aware of this hollow emptiness within you, if you haven't had your own wilderness, then you are still far from being mature enough to love. For, in the silence of that stark desert you know your own word, you understand some of that which says you. Don't try to quit. You will hurt and hurt others. Go deeper into that wilderness. Let it shape you as gold is made to burnish under the heat of fire.