For the last few years, I’ve been consumed by this cloud. It feels like it’s constantly there, up in the sky, blocking the beams of the sun. Occasionally the sun seeps through, and you forget about the massive cloud. Some days there’s no light. What remains constant is the presence of the cloud.

To distract from the cloudy day, I seek out a picnic. A picnic is fun, right? Pack up a nice lunch, lay out a blanket, find a nice spot in the grass and for that short term you feel you’ve acquired normalcy. But then you remember the cloudy day. I mean, who pictures a picnic without a glowing sun, beaming behind you.

You hate thinking about the cloudy day, because you’re aware you can’t change the weather. So, you try to escape it. Maybe it’s a new book, maybe it’s a walk outside, maybe it’s song. Anything to run away from the cloud.

That’s naive, though, because this cloud is massive. It spans far and wide, constantly over top.

So you think – where can I go, that’s far enough, perhaps deep enough – that this cloud is no longer staring down at me?

Well don’t be an idiot, just go inside your house, and draw the curtains.

Problem solved – hide from the cloud.

Also naive – the naivety is real here.

You’re inside your house, finally away from those callous clouds. You carry on.

Proceed with life, chase your dreams, I mean, you’re finally free. You can do what you want, on your own account. You can waste your time, you can spend your time wisely – what matters is you’ve finally escaped. You’re living under clear skies.

That is until you realize that the clouds hold a freedom over you.

You have to stay inside. You can’t do anything you want. Your life is contingent on your method of escaping the clouds. That doesn’t sound ideal.

Ideal isn’t the game we’re playing here, clearly. We don’t always act in alignment with our wisdom. Sometimes we are naive. The scenario is flawed in many ways.

What’s terribly fascinating about the mind, however, is its ability to exist in a flawed state.

There’s no internal constraint of the mind that enforces its integrity. The mind doesn’t self-heal. Intellect is of no use in this journey, perhaps even a catalyst in this messing of the mind.

A mind can devolve into madness, a world where there is a seemingly inescapable cloud. The cloud of a clouded judgement, perhaps.

You’re screaming at this person, with the obvious solution – just to face the cloud.

But when a person has so deeply internalized the magnitude of this cloud, so far as to let it ruin them, it’s hard to grasp facing it. To come to terms with something that feels infinite is perhaps one of the most difficult things.

The screamer sees a finite cloud. They see the rays of sun, and the drops of blue at the edges of the storm.

It takes brevity, clarity, and strength, to deal with something that feels immovable. The key is always the realization that everything is incepted in the mind. Everything is also destroyed in the mind. Just as the mind was able to internalize the unstoppable force that is this cloud, so will it be able to internalize that this unstoppable force is stoppable. That’s the paradox of certainty.

Writing is how I introspect, and while at its core this post may seem dark, realizing the naivety and those same flaws and holes in the story is my way of freeing myself of these feelings.