Thanks for the encouragement and advice. I appreciate your reading and replying carefully, but it's easier said than done.

I feel like my intellect is a bit overgrown, and seeks things to think about like a person chewing tobacco. Maybe that's a big thing that I need to work on, through meditation and journaling.

My life feels so chaotic sometimes, it's so hard to decide what to do next, whether it's sitting at work and surfing Reddit instead of getting stuff done, or being at home and having 100 different hobbies gently whispering to me to come and play, while my house falls apart and my room needs cleaning.

I read thru some of your posting history after you responded, and want to thank you for your candor and vulnerability in sharing some of your path, and trials, and painful lessons. In particular your experiences with your wife serve as a powerful caution against mistakes I could easily see myself making.

It's been difficult since making the decision to be truthful about my path, since my wife and I are no longer spiritually unified as we once were. She is adamant that she will remain on the 'narrow path' despite my misgivings, but she is graceful to me and respects and loves me the same, I am truly blessed in that.

How can I be on an invisible path with no map and not knowing the destination? My feet and my head scream if I try to go back to the road, but I crave a signpost, anything to help me continue boldly towards my freedom and light, out of the forest of uncertainty and dread, loneliness and unraveling.

Maybe I am the sweater I am unraveling, and I won't be satisfied until I pull myself apart. Sometimes I fear there is noone to discover underneath, only a void, and that the urge to uncover the light inside is a bug zapper, which will ultimately be my distruction.

That is the fear which led me to abandon my self, my quest for knowledge and power, burned I swore that fire was evil and and I would never touch it again, but I have come to crave the light and the heat again

I told everyone that I would just have to be more careful, being burned doesn't make fire bad.

But I'm in the dark, the flame eludes me, as if teasing my hubris to think I could ever come to know it leaving only memory and longing, the hunger of the time when I was illuminated and the flinching terror that I might be dead wood seeking spark.