*Neurosis is another word for describing a complicated technique for avoiding  misery, but reality is the misery.

...to see reality one must die and be reborn.

...What does it mean "to be born again for humankind?" It means for the first time to be subjected to the terrifying paradox of the human condition, since one must be born not as a god, but as a human, or as a god-worm, or a god who shits.  Only this time without the neurotic shield that hides the full ambiguity of one's life. And so we know that every authentic rebirth is a real ejection from paradise, as the lives of Tolstoy, Peguy, and others attest.  It takes people of granite, people who were automatically powerful, "secure in their drivenness" we might say, and it makes them tremble, makes them cry-as Peguy stood on the platforms of Parisian busses with hot tears rolling down his cheeks while he mumbled his prayers.

-Ernest Becker

water scene

i.

you smile edging toward the ledge

you tease Death laughing into the deep 

tempting Neptune to kidnap you 

to grab you a diver 

at no risk no pain 

an explorer with sleep to gain

ii.

shall i leap into the water 

ask the sea to be my mother 

or should i sit on the rock 

and relish its stability 

till the typhoon flies 

or a branch brings peace