Mʏ Pᴀᴛʜ Tᴏ Dɪᴠɪɴɪᴛʏ & Eɴʟɪɢʜᴛᴇɴᴍᴇɴᴛ

When young we enjoy wasting our time doing nothing.
As we get older we start to see that time is the only commodity you can not buy.

Money allows you to extend your time, but those too busy extending their time through money have no time to make the most of every minute.

There are days that it´s hard to find the strength to get out of bed.

I had such a day today, I have this nasty virus that made me wake up with a headache, I just completed my first week of work in 2025 after having a very nice and long Christmas Holiday.

So maybe you can imagine the feeling of, "Ugh, why am I even getting up?"

It´s normal to feel tired after years of living, breathing comes naturally but living does not come easy. Having a body, and a life is a daily struggle.

Mandatory maintenance, and being alert to all the risks that can somehow damage this soft vulnerable shell is a huge responsibility.

On top of that there are things like children, (elderly) elders, peer pressure, jobs & bosses, all kinds of politics, and recently being politically correct was added to the list of things that we daily need to keep in mind.

Reading the above does not give me any incentive to keep going, so I applaud whoever programmed us. I mean just look at that list and explain to me why we humans do not do the Lemming thing:

Don´t worry I am not depressed, neither do I think I ever have been. And as you know I have been through the darkest of days. But I do often feel tired, I do long for death sometimes, but the voices in my head keep telling me:

Death, but not for you Roland

The phrase "Death, but not for you, Roland" comes from Stephen King's The Dark Tower series. I am not a fan of the King man but this series is epic.

Unfortunately, that is not why I bring it up, I too am Roland and this sentence reflects on the tragic and cyclical journey of Roland Deschain, the series' protagonist and myself, as I am the protagonist in my books and even in my life.

A tragic cyclical journey, well maybe tragic is a little exaggerated even though I did go through some weird cut scenes that might be called tragical.

Just look at Roland;
Roland Deschain is tragic in that his life is a tapestry of heroism intertwined with sorrow, driven by a destiny he cannot escape.

Duelling with Destiny

His story embodies the essence of tragedy: the noble pursuit of a higher calling, tempered by loss, failure, and the inescapable weight of his choices.

I truly have to replace one word to make that tragedy mine, and that word is Roland.

Even if my life is this inescapable journey, filled with loss, deceit, and trickery.... failure it is not. For what is failure?

In Roland Deschain’s case, his failures are not simply about missing his objectives but are deeply tied to the emotional and moral sacrifices he makes along his journey to the Dark Tower.

What Does Roland's Failure Teach Me?

As so very often I and driven to write a story I hardly grasp at the start. It starts with some obscure prompts and a un nondistinguishable direction.

Then like with Roland, the story finds us.
We become part of the journey, both in search of our Dark Tower, although mine is less tragically named The Refugio.

Now I cling strongly to Roland The Gunslinger and his personality, but I do need to admit that I see Stephen King's personal lack of understanding being part of most of Roland's failures. Although like me, Stephen King, over time, learned some of life's lessons and therefore so did Roland.

Having said that, I will still go ahead and see where one of my favorite book series, or rather its protagonist can show me the way on my quest.

Obsessive Nature of His Quest
Roland’s obsession with the Dark Tower drives him to prioritize it above all else. His single-minded focus blinds him to the cost of his journey:

He repeatedly sacrifices his ka-tet (his group of close companions) for the Tower.

His mission causes Moral Blindness, He manipulates and sacrifices if needed all of his ka-tet for his goal, often with tragic consequences

My goal has never been as clear to me as it is today, and I too had to abandon family and let go of loved ones to enable my journey.

Roland shows me how much one can sacrifice to reach one's goal, creating the question if a mission in life is more important than the collateral damage the completion of the mission requires.

The Cyclical Nature of His Journey

Roland’s failure is encoded into his destiny. The Tower traps him in an endless cycle of repetition, resetting his journey each time he reaches its peak. This suggests that his true failure lies in not learning the lessons needed to break the cycle.

Not learning your lessons Rolan, my Gunslinger friend, is what will always put our goals just out of reach.
They will be visible as I said in a previous post in this series, but always on the horizon and you will be unable to grasp them.

Like Roland, I have had a long life of failures when it comes to learning lessons, and only recently I opened one eye behind the veil

I have been running in circles repeating my mistakes many times until I turned that different corner. Until my free will allowed me to step up and do the unexpected as somewhere deep inside I knew it was the change I needed to make to be allowed to enter the next level.

Ka and Fate
-The Dark Tower, talks about "Ka" (fate) while my goal this year is to truly find my fate.

One´s true fate is never straightforward

The question remains;

Is me encountering my fate part of Ka’s plan?
Is my free will sharp and cunning enough to outwit the trickery woven into the threads of destiny?

The Tower’s Lessons

The Tower ends up not being the goal but a test of his character. Roland the Gunsllinger´s failure lies in misunderstanding the purpose.

The mission is a journey of growth and redemption. Each reset of his quest offers an opportunity to overcome his flaws, but he often repeats the same mistakes.

Now how do I see the Roland in myself?

Is my goal an obsession?
My goal definitely drives me.

It might not directly be what gets me out of bed on mornings like these, but it does fuel my engine.

It gives me purpose, a reason to go and do my job.
As my job, and all my investments are attributed to reaching the next level, bringing me closer to my goal.

My moral compromises are not as deadly as Rolands, but I could have made other choices.

Choises that would have benefitted the happiness of others at the cost of my own, because as said the mission fuels me.

Could I let go of the mission if the cost would be to great?

Reaching Your Tower At What Cost?

Like Roland I feel that my mission is part of a bigger plan, hence when is the bigger plan subordinate to the coleteral damage?

Or worse, what if all of us are Roland.
What if we all strive to complete our mission as we all believe that we are the most importang cogwheel in the bigger cosmic plan?

That my Dear Reader is not the case, many among us are clueless, just going about their business. Igonarance can be such a bliss.

But for those that feel they have a goal beyond staying alive, would they sacrefice their ka-tet in order to come one step closer to their Dark Tower?

With certainty I know we all sacrefice other lives in order to improve our own, and come closer to our goals.

It maybe unknowingly, or we might try to reduce the damage we cause by our actions. But all that have a goal accept coletral damage.

Would that divine goal, like reaching one´s Dark Tower be compromised if it would mean the loss of a loved one, while those on this journey all should know that the cycle of life is endless?

I am not answering that question for you Dear Reader, although I think I know the answer, you might not be ready to hear it.

But you are ready to read this last bit, which is a little less Dark and not at all Tower.

Carpe Diem

If I wake up on days like these.
Days where I know my life is not nearly over.
Days I know my long hard road towards divinity just started.
Days on which I long for the leisure of living without a human body.

I look for the signs, the smallest of signals that tell me Carpe Diem.

Seize My Day, find meaning, warmth, energy, and the strenght to continue living as a human in the little things. Because unlike our spiritual journey this life in carnage is not endless.

Even in its darkest and most violent states it has boundaries. Relief, change will come, and an ending is inevitable.

The true journey is about growth, and finding the energy to keep growing in little gems scattered along the way. They are there every single day, but this morning they were a little more visible.

View From My Balcony This Morning

This morning I looked and thought Carpe Diem MoFo!

Bikini Bottom Line

I know last week I promissed:

In case you are curious let me lift the veil a little and tell you what I foresee....
I want to dive deeper into openminded foresight and how I think I am able to see the foreseeable future.

And you might not see the connection but I promise. it´s there and you might understand why if you read next week´s post. I do hope you enjoyed this very special edition, guided by voices one never is truly sure where the road takes him.