Weariness of life, contrary to what people imagine, is not weariness of breathing. It is weariness of days that bear no name of their own, each merely a continuation of the one before. As long as a person has something to hold onto, even if it is nothing more than an illusion, they make peace with the world. The breaking point comes when even that illusion collapses, and one realizes that the pillars holding up the roof of their soul have rotted from within.
At that moment, death is not what one longs for; rest is. A deep sleep, without dreams and without morning. Not because one has come to hate life, but because there is no strength left in one’s shoulders to carry its weight.
It is strange how others always seem to have a ready-made prescription in their pockets. They say, “Look, there are people who suffer more than you do.” As though suffering could be weighed on a scale. Is pain a competition? Does one wound heal at the sight of a deeper one? Every person has their own prison, and its walls can only be seen from within.
The hardest part is not the burden itself, but having nowhere left to carry it. Suffering, when there is a destination in the distance, is a road. When that destination disappears, the road becomes an endless torment. Each step exists only to justify the next, with no horizon in sight.
There is another sorrow, quieter than the first: to become a spectator to one’s own existence. A person can spend years working, sleeping, and waking, moving through the days without ever truly entering them.
That is how years disappear. One ordinary day at a time. We wait for something to change, for some distant moment to make the journey worthwhile, while the present slips quietly past us.
I was reminded of this by Another Round. Mads Mikkelsen has always been my favourite actor, but what stayed with me from that film was not the drinking. It was the warning beneath it. A person can become so occupied with getting through life that they forget to take part in it. Martin had not stopped breathing. He had simply stopped being present in his own days. By the end, nothing about his life had magically become easy. The music simply started playing again, and this time he chose to dance.
That is the lesson I took from it. The answer to nameless days is not another day endured. It is to give them names again. To do something worth remembering. To laugh when there is little reason to. To dance while the music is still playing, knowing perfectly well that it will eventually stop.
Surviving is only postponing death.
Living despite all the pain, is making sure it doesn’t get everything.
I want to make sure that when tomorrow comes, it does not feel like today wearing a different date.
The clock is going to keep ticking either way. I figured I might as well give it something worth counting.