“The saddest thing in life is wasted talent, and the choices that you make will shape your life forever.”

Just a random quote which comes from an old film called "A Bronx Tale" that I ruminate on sometimes. For me personally, the sheer extent/severity to which I've fucked up my own life goes beyond proper description. There's regret, there's shame, there's despair, and all manner of other equally dislocating agonies to grapple with, but it's the waste that often gets to me the most.

As much as I loathe my entire existence, and rue the fact that it ever even happened to begin with, I still genuinely feel like I could've done so much more with what I had. The fact that I didn't is a betrayal against myself that I simply can't forgive, nor forget. I had the potential to make life an amazing and wonderful journey, but instead all I got was decades of learned helplessness and dehumanizing isolation. Physically speaking, I had/have all that I needed to see success out there. By that same token, I had more than enough intelligence/creativity to build a decent career for myself. In other words, I could've had a social life. I could've had relationships. I could've enjoyed enriching/edifying times throughout all these many years that have instead been left to rot like a pile of decaying oranges on the ground, putrefying ever further into a noxious puddle of slimy muck.

With all this surrounding my mind from all sides, it's inconceivable to imagine ever being free from it. Even if somehow, by multiple sequential miracles lining themselves up one after the other, I could turn things around for myself, it won't take away the grief of the person I never had the strength to be, nor the worthwhile life I never got to experience. Decades ago, I opted to run away and hide from the world, and surprise surprise, here I am sitting with the dismal results. I sowed nothing, and I received nothing. A whirlwind of dust and empty air.

Obvious differences aside, but I feel like I have a greater understanding/appreciation as to why Roman generals would be expected to fall on their own swords after losing a major battle, or why disgraced samurai would slice their own guts open in an attempt to save face. Sometimes you fuck up so spectacularly badly, that there simply isn't any other option.