There’s a point in Monstress: Talk Stories where Maika calls Kippa a coward, because Kippa thinks she should die for having made a poor choice that led to a lot of death.

Maika calls her a coward, because that’s the easy way out. The more valiant way is to remain alive and find ways to make up for what you’ve done and leave the world a better place despite your mistakes.

I am trying to remember this. I am trying to remember this, even as everything seems hellbent on poking all the hurt places, where every decision, every action is criticized or mocked, where every moment of peace is merely a new opportunity for someone to dump more upon you, to pile it on. If I seem idle, I must have time for more, right?

What if idle is all I need? What if idle is the ideal?

Decisions I’ve made have led to this. The course of my life is one long arc bending with increasing tension toward an inevitable snap. A mental breakdown is coming. Maybe it will be as simple as deciding to let go of feeling responsible for everyone and everything, of my expectations of a better world, and simply focusing on some enjoyable, quiet moments. Let the chips fall where they may. Let the Rube Goldberg machine fail; let all the spinning plates fall. Let someone else clean it up. Or let it lay.

Whatever happens, happens, no matter how life-altering. Radical acceptance of the whole.

That would be ideal. Would that I were Jimmy Buffett or The Dude. My taste for weed isn’t strong enough. It makes me more paranoid and anxious than I already am. Would that I could be rich and idle, or poor and irresponsible.

Sadly, we must live. Deal with the consequences of our karma. Of the decisions we’ve made and the words we’ve spoken. The attitude with which we face the people around us and the world at large. Our own behaviour, for better or worse.

I strive for better, but it’s hard to do crushed under a mountain. The first job is to get out from under.

Target: 500 words
Written: 323 words, novella: The Mungk