A Debate on How to Breathe

Me: "Look. I don't want to lie to you, but I also don't want to scare you off, so you're going to have to read between the lines here a little. I know you have some embers you keep stoking in your soul, tucked away in a corner where you think I won't find it. I know you want to believe that pedantic chorus of platitudes, take off and see if you can make it to the moon. We both know that the "landing among the stars" is the cold, airless, lifeless, expanse of space where you have nothing between you and your failure. We both know the embers you expect to blaze into rocket fuel are more likely to fizzle into vapor once you hit that icy emptiness waiting for you.

Don't give me that look, I'm not the enemy here.

If you wanted it that badly, you would have taken the time to learn how to build f***in rockets, not sit around poking hot coals of envy inside. This was your call. You chose safe. It's safe here. We can breathe here.

We need to breathe.

We need to breathe."

Myself: "Right! We do need to breathe.

And I'm choking to death down here!

Plodding from minute to minute, choking on the dust of every day, feeling heavier with every passing day, I can't keep doing this. I can't keep on just to keep on, it'll kill me. Kill us. I need something more."

Me: "Oh, just 'something' more? What, exactly. Do you even know?

No, you don't, you have no plan, and no back-up plans, because to have a back-up, you need an original. And you've got nothing--not one thing--that is original."

Myself: "I can't find something original when all I have time for is practicing mundanity! And the only reason I'm stuck doing it, is so we can do it again tomorrow!"

Me: "Just... Listen.

Is it worth the risk? The possible failure. The end of what you can be reasonably sure about. The potential of disappointment from people. The finality of realizing you can't actually make it. The loss of the possibility.

Is it worth the end of who you are?

Is it worth dying for?

...well?

Is it?"

Myself:

[the end]