Journal Entry: Thursday, 29th August

The weight felt heavier than usual yesterday morning. It’s a profound and exhausting kind of low, one that seemed to run deeper than the usual rhythm of two mornings could clear. I kept thinking about how "gravity feels heavier" and the maddening feeling of slowly "going back to sleep." I felt like I was being led back into the cave, and I truly believe that sleep is a form of death—a blindness to what is real.

​I know I’m different. I’ve always been different. I’m a wanderer in a world that stays put. I was reminded of this again in the Mind shop, watching people shuffle through clothes hangers looking for being, while I stood there in silence. It felt like I was in a "confederacy of dunces." The conversations I had, like the one about Cambridge, felt so trivial, so pointless. I felt my energy being drained by meaningless chatter and distractions, especially from a gentleman who knew the train times but said "zero" of any real importance.

​It’s all so maddening, and I had the painful realization that I need to leave this world—not the planet, but the world of the meaningless and the phony. My pilgrimage can’t be a temporary break. It needs to be perpetual. Forever.

​And then, this morning, I had a perfect piece of everything. I found a book, A Confederacy of Dunces, that was recommended to me just yesterday. It felt like a perfect piece of synchronicity, a quiet sign that my consciousness isn't alone. It made me wonder if anything really exists outside myself, or if it is all just my "One Self" expressing itself. The book is "insanely funny," and in a strange way, it is a comforting companion to a soul that feels so lonely.

​I found other things, too. I found solace in the simple, quiet sufficiency of my morning routine, of making a meal with soaked oats and live yogurt. And on my way to Costa, I found a powerful and unpleasant truth in a poo bag. But I also found a way to act. I picked them both up, a small and sufficient act that proved to me that "shit isn't shinola."

​Forgiveness is a difficult task, and in my heart, I know that my pilgrimage is not just about leaving, but about releasing the weight of what I am owed. But even with all the heaviness, I am still a pilgrim. The bread was croustillant, and my mind is already there. I am here, but I am already on the path to France.