Dusk

Can one be content with merely doing or is it that we seek fulfillment, hollow though it might be, by doing so that others might praise us?

Constantly these days I struggle with the feeling that I will accomplish little before I die and I feel as though I am rushing toward it, toward death, and I a feel like I still need to hang on so that I can accomplish something, something wonderful for all to see so that my name will be placed among the rest of those few whose names any child can recall. How foolish a thought is this? And how common a thought in the mind of any man reaching a certain point in life?

Do I continue working for someone else, working among my piers so that (as a mentor) I can help them become better engineers so that perhaps they might also help me to improve... as a designer, and engineer, a human being?

I used to loath contact with people, but not so much anymore. Sometimes when I listen to those with whom I work speak to one another about such happiness in their youth, the conversations inevitably centers around their friends or family. When I, in turn, speak of youth I can recall only the silence of my bedroom. I almost always recall in my mind my ugly shag carpet and how the light in morning would cross the far wall as it coursed its way from morning through evening. Evening was my favorite time, just before the sun had set, because the sun would eventually become an emblazoned burning orange as it was being swallowed by the western horizon, and my room and I would be cast in its deep orange-umber glow as we sat alone together, waiting.