No exaggeration, but for the photo alone this would have made it into this space even had it accompanied sunny J-pop or Disney soundtracks. It doesn’t, but it would have anyway. The music actually mirrors the photograph. There’s a dark story somewhere within even if it’s not exactly clear where the plot is going. It’s a strange one and that’s just fine. I’m a strange man in a strange mood. Perhaps it’s just the time of year. It could be the weather, but whatever is driving it, I’m in a strange place. It’s like sitting waiting for the hammer to drop. It’s a sense of low-key dread, like when you know bad news is coming but you’re not entirely sure from which direction it’s going to come. You just get the sense that you should get up before dawn, cut a hole in the fence and take off. No direction necessary. Anywhere but here, and maybe you can outrun the bad news but maybe not. We do tend to take our bad news with us, or maybe it just always finds us. OR, and I’m just putting it out there, but maybe we are our own bad news. Get what I’m saying?

It’s curious and beautiful that music can convey that doubt and dread. A single photograph can convey it. There’s a story in the image and it may not have a traditional beginning, middle and end in a linear timeline. The doubt and dread could be themselves the story and it could be one of those creepy tales that asks the big, open-ended question and you never quite know how it’s going to turn out. Maybe there will be a sequel. Maybe you’ll just be left to wonder. There are answers we don’t want to hear, and who are we to be asking questions anyway? By what right to we presume to deserve to have all our questions answered?

Just as I’m going to have to start this day and attend to tasks and duties I don’t really care about, we all have to settle for not having all the answers. I’d love to just sit here and sort myself out and figure out why I woke up feeling the way I feel, but given all the time in the world, that information may not come to me still. The bills still have to be paid. I still have to eat.

I’ll have to settle for not knowing, and maybe it’s for the best. If I thought for a single second that I could control all my outcomes then I would probably end up fucking something up. Always consider that the best things that have ever happened to you have happened despite you and not because of you. That appears to have been the case in my life.

And yet I still question the existence of a god.

Yes, I do.

And this morning I am in so much self-doubt that it frightens me to write that. It seems to have so much more weight when it appears in print. It’s got gravity. I’m okay with self-doubt though so I’m just going to take action.

I’m going for it.

Selah.