Gather round, ye Invisible Crowd, as I pontificate on the mind, desire, and the gap between being and becoming.

I have been thinking a great deal lately, on these long and lonely nights, as winter cloaks the land in snow and wind, about what I want and where I am. I want a companion, a family, a home, and publication. Sometimes—but not always—in that order.

I feel the lack keenly. I’ve been writing, flinging myself into short stories that are flung in turn into the uncaring abyss of publication. I’ve come close, but I have yet to land anywhere. Still, my stories are better now. My voice is more mature. My characters are more interesting.

Writing has become my way to heal and to cope with this strange world of 2025. Even as disturbance abounds, I’ve tried to live deliberately and to find meaning where I can. I discovered yoga, and towns that feel like they could be home. I’ve found meaning in work, in Lupo, in the merry-go-round of dating. I’ve joined book clubs and learned to appreciate poetry.

And yet the gap between what I want and where I am still gnaws. On my best days, I believe it is closing. Even so, the process is painful, slow, and a test of endurance. I am learning what I value, and where my time is worth spending.

Some of those values I would record in the Roman way: constantia, fides, pietas, and gravitas. Old words, perhaps, but solid as the forum to my old soul. They live in a story I wrote for this uncertain time, about a tired man in a tired republic.

That story begins with an inscription: dum memoria vivit, res publica permanet.

It ends with a warning: vae tyrannis.

Like its protagonist, Cincinnatus, I long to find better days doing honest work.

Rest well, ye Invisible Crowd.