In the UNderworld

Maybe this is true. Maybe this is just a metaphor.  Maybe metaphors are truer than anything else.

Who knows?

Here is how it seems.

I see myself in earlier times. In some of those times, I’m a child frustrated by things I can’t control. In others, I’m a teenager, living through the agony of my teenaged years. In others, I’m struggling to keep my business afloat. In others, I’ve failed as a husband, a friend, or a father.

The details of those times are not important. What is common to all those times are the feelings that overwhelmed me. Existence became agony. I longed for it to end. Most of those times I did not want to kill myself, but I believe I would have been grateful if my wishes at the time had been granted, and I had painlessly ceased to be.

Maybe it’s a metaphor. Maybe it’s true. But here is how it seems.

When the pain became too great for some Past Self, that wish was granted. Its existence ended in a final spasm. Something that could not bear the pain died and something that could barely manage to bear it was born in its place.

That newly born self picked up the burden that was in front of it and moved forward.

It happened again and again. Pain. Death. Rebirth. And then pain.

Now, today, I am here, conscious, and joyful.

Deep in the UNconscious are earlier, suffering, agonized, failed versions of what has managed to become what I am today.

They’re long dead. Yet they live on.

Each is locked in its final spasm of bitterness, regret, and defeat.

Each remains frozen in the moment when each willed itself out of existence.

I can see it, and it’s a perfect description of hell.

It’s a place filled with souls in timeless and endless suffering.

But now--in my metaphor, and perhaps a kind of reality--I can descend to the UNderworld.

I can thank those who died that I might live.

I can sit with them so that they do not suffer alone.

I can let them know that time continues above and that they can rise above.

I can forgive those who could not and still can not forgive themselves.

I can tell them that there are other possibilities, that there is more to life than the dark UNexistence to which they have resigned themselves.

I can tell them they can share in the joy of being.

I  can tell them that they can live again.

Maybe this is true. Maybe this is just a metaphor.  Maybe metaphors are truer than anything else.

Who knows?