On one of the Discord servers I'm a member of, we have a "Question of the Day" bot. Usually, the questions it asks are silly or not important. A couple of days ago, though, it gave me a solid reason to think. A LOT. I've been having a tough time lately. It's been two years and a bit since my father died. In that time, I've had more and more trouble sleeping and concentrating on daily life. One of the things that has been weighing on me the most is being constantly conscious of mortality and the flow of time.

What was the question? It was "What do you consider to be your personal calling?". It caught me off guard. I hadn't thought about it lately, and I couldn't think of anything for some time. Then it hit me. I've been listening to the album "Sonic Excess in Its Purest Form" by Crowbar. It deserves a separate text of its own. A short description I heard somewhere on YT was "peak male sadness". There's a lot about addiction, growing up, and becoming your own person. All of it is heavy and saturated with emotion. I recommend it very much.

"To Build a Mountain" is the second track of a total of eleven. The lyrics are short and powerful (at least I find them to be).

This clicked with me. I want to build a mountain. I want to be a better man. A better human. But that wasn't the final answer that I could accept for myself or give to others. The song made me think of a sentence I learned about long ago in high school. I needed to refresh my memory a bit, since all I remembered was "non omnis moriar" - "I won't entirely die". It comes from Horace's "Exegi monumentum" ("I have built a monument"). I was getting closer. Horace's poem is a comparison of the author's poetry to a physical monument, like a bronze statue, arguing that art can survive longer.

I want to build a monument of my own. It doesn't have to be big or even as long-living as Horace's. Creating something has always been important to me. I never got to create anything significant. I always lacked the skill or resolve to finish what I started. I'm still searching for the right medium and for a stroke of inspiration, but I'm getting more and more afraid it's never gonna happen for me. It's exactly the same with self-improvement for me. It doesn't matter if it's a new skill, working out, or perfecting skills I already have — it doesn't go anywhere. Or at least not at the tempo I would like it to go.

I know "time to take the step" is coming close, and I'm afraid I'm gonna miss it. Still, I build a mountain. Daily, stone by stone. One day, I hope it will become the monument I dream of.