Confessions of the Defeated

It's funny how certain sayings or phrases can attach themselves to the bottom of our tongues for our entire lives, waiting for your pallate to cleanse so you can remember it's there. Then, when you least suspect it, you find yourself whispering it to yourself all alone, in the dark, without realizing it. "And so the world ends, not with a bang, but with a whimper." The first time I heard this, I was struck still. "The world started with a bang, it only makes sense that it would end in the complete opposite fashion" I thought to myself. But, to be honest, I never completely understood what that phrase actually meant. But one thing that I do know, is that even now, fifteen years plus later, I still find myself thinking about this line. Most of my friends assume it's because of my melodramatic need to be melancholic. But here, at 25, I can start to asses the pattern that is my behavior. The world, is our "I"--our Ambition, Motivation. It is our Love and our Hate. To be blunt it is every positive aspect of our state of being that we have come to, very pompously, self identify with. And here it is: again, I found myself, very robotically, whispering these words to myself on my way to my NA meeting. And that's when I started asking myself "why?" Why is it that I can't seem to shake this fuckin' phrase from my memory? And today I came up with an explanation. That whimper is what happens when you grow tired of lying to yourself. There is no "EUREKA!" moment where all is made clear; when revelation walks up to us and turns on a light. There is no slap of sense that happens by destiny that shakes our perception. Given, reality may slap you in your face, but your perception and evaluation of said events happens at a slower pace. That whimper is made when you sit at rock bottom and you look up. It is the wheezing of air you make when you stop trying to rationalize what has happened. That whimper is the sound you make when your lungs are deflated of the Pride. That whimper is the sound you make when you realize you're locked in a jail, only you're not alone. You share this cell with Defeat.