The Fulfillment of a Journey

A Poem by Bobby Madden

Just some insight on life.

Suppose you had been able to acquire every single thing you could ever ask for in life, all of your goals have been accomplished, and all of your dreams have come true, and you had nothing more you could possibly hope for or desire. I suppose you suppose that you would be happy, but how truly happy would you be, knowing that there was absolutely no journey left for you in life, and nothing more you could want that you could strive to obtain or achieve? What kind of purpose could you conceive for yourself in life? It is true, we spend our entire lives striving to obtain what we desire, with our dreams being kept in our hearts at all times, yearning to come true, and our goals, yearning to be accomplished, as we walk through life reaching for a destination. However, simply because the majority of your life is devoted to a journey with your goals yet to be accomplished, must that necessarily present your life with nothing but a dominion of despair at the thought of your unmet desires? Must that necessarily induce you to be incapable of not only joy and happiness, but the furthest extent of such? Not just bliss, but sheer beatitude? Must you only find any certain degree of happiness at the accomplishment of your goals and no other time? Could the only fulfillment of the purpose you conceive truly exist within the meeting of the destination? If you begin to consider the fulfillment of your purpose residing solely with the destination, might you begin to consider otherwise, suppose if every individual had the power to accomplish all of their goals, obtain everything they desired, and make all of their dreams come true with nothing but a touch of a button and the meeting of a destination could be instantaneous with no effort, persistence, or dedication involved? Might you possibly believe there is yet a purpose in life? Where would the definition of value lie within any imaginable aspect of life? Where would the definition of fulfillment lie in such a supposed circumstance? Surely, one does not embark upon a journey of a non-existence cause. The destination acts as the very cause of the journey and grants you the omnipresent perception of meaning throughout the journey. The destination withholds the inspiration, motivation, and the cause for you to achieve your fulfillment, but without the journey, there is no fulfillment to be achieved. What is the meaning in desire without the will to strive for it? What is the meaning in ambition without the will to pursue it? Only should there be a journey to adventure would your purpose be capable of being fulfilled and fulfillment truly be existent.

What of when your journey comes to an end, all you had hoped for comes to pass, and your goal is finally accomplished? Your destination finally reached? There can be variable degrees in the concept of a destination. For the Punisher, his goal, his primal destination was the death and punishment of the entire Saint family and the obliteration of their legacy, and it gave him purpose to remain alive to strive for that destination in his journey. Once he had finally succeeded and all he had hoped for had come to pass, all the Saints punished and killed according to his plans, he conceived no further journey left in his life, no other purpose to live for and fulfill, believed his life to be utterly meaningless, and the only thing remained for him was to bring his supposed meaninglessness to a cease by committing suicide, but as he searched the depths of his mind before he pulled the trigger of his father’s colt that was pointed into his head below his chin, the memory of his murdered wife prevented him from ending his life, for he had found yet another purpose to be alive. One of which was simply to be alive to cherish the good memories of his wife and his family, the memories that outweighed the bad. This was a journey that possessed no destination, a path of fulfillment he would take through a forest not to search for the exit, but to pass through in order to admire the beautiful, invaluable environment around him, with no intention of forsaking it. Of course, the inevitable death of his mortality would eventually cast his memories into oblivion, but that is precisely what granted the memories their value in the Punisher’s heart; the finity of the memories, breeding the devotion to their infinite value and the dominant will to cherish it. That was a purpose in its own, a journey that withheld no goal, no destination but the death of his life, a purpose that he did not conceive at first with the meeting of his primal destination of the death and punishment of the Saint family and the eradication of their legacy, but eventually acknowledged at the continuation of his life. Quite simply, a purpose is always there to be found, but whether or not you can apprehend it and whether or not you can employ the will to fulfill it with a journey is entirely up to you.

Out of the conception of one purpose brought forth the procreation of another, one consistent with a journey of no real absolute destination unlike the journey of the Saints’ punishment. This newfound journey of the Punisher was simply to dedicate his life to purging the world of those who would do evil to others and punishing them for their iniquities when everybody else was too incompetent do so. This is a journey similar to that of Blade’s. His journey was to dedicate his life to purging the world of its vampires. In Blade Trinity, Hannibal King once asked Blade to consider the following journey if he was supposedly successful in annihilating all of the vampires of the world, telling him that he did not exactly envision him teaching karate at the local Y. King asked him to consider, and Blade did not provide him with an answer, for it was not a question that could be answered. The very last words of the movie were of Hannibal King. He spoke the words: “(Blade’s) His life was a war, and everybody knows the war never ends.” Obviously, it is not meant to be interpreted literally, in a perception of Blade’s life never coming to an end, but King’s words were, in fact, pertaining to Blade’s dedication of his life, his purpose, and his journey. It was no probable consideration for the following journey of a supposed successful extinction of the vampire species, for Blade knew that as long as he drew breath, he would be fighting in this war, that was his journey, and he would go to his death without bringing the entire vampire species to ultimate extermination. There would always be a war to fight as long as he drew breath, but simply because the absolute destination was unreachable, that did not stop him from fighting in his journey every day of his life, for it was the journey that brought fulfillment to his purpose. His purpose was to fight in his war, not to bring the war to an end. The same applies to the Punisher. He was perfectly aware that he had not the power to eradicate crime, injustice, and evil altogether from the world, but that did not deprive him of his volition to fight for it. The world could not exist without a bad to oppose the good, but the least and the most he could do was choose a side. Of course, the concepts of bad and good are obviously matters of perspective, and that is an entirely new story in its own, but the Punisher’s perspective was that by dedicating his life to opposing the world of crime, injustice, and evil, exemplified by killers, rapists, psychos, and sadists, he was bringing fulfillment to his purpose. It was a journey with a destination that seemed nonexistent, but as I said before, there are different degrees to the concept of a destination, all of which are entirely relative to subjective consciousness. Simply because he had not the power to abolish crime, injustice, and evil from their very roots, he established a destination with every individual person or entity on his hit list, and in that aspect, a destination only signified a new beginning once it was met, another individual path to follow through the one journey in its entirety. Once the Punisher succeeded in punishing one person, demolishing one operation, obliterating one legacy, etc. etc., the ambition would only progress to a new individual target, and exceed from the next point on to the next point, forevermore. That was the journey. It was consistent with limitless perceivable destinations, but the purpose remained unchanged. The journey remained unaltered, for there was no destination that could signify an absolute ending, unlike the punishment of the Saints, one that would induce the Punisher to consider a resolution for an utter lack of purpose, a supposed inevitable meaningless, such as committing suicide. The Punisher had no more intentions of committing suicide after any destination, for he understood that his newfound journey he conceived would continue until his death, and just as he had no intention of relinquishing his good memories to oblivion by a willful death, he had no intention of bringing his volition, his dedication, his devotion, nor his fulfillment to a cease. His fulfillment carried on, because his journey carried on, forevermore, with an everlasting purpose.

Just as Blade and the Punisher, you cannot consider the circumstances of succeeding in acquiring all that you desire until you can desire no more, accomplishing all of your goals until you can establish goals no more, bringing all of your dreams to life until you can dream no more, and venturing to a destination until you can journey no more, for unless you willfully take the life that has been bestowed upon you away, there will always be a journey here for you to embark upon. That is the value of life, an endlessness of a journey, a limitlessness of goals, things to be, things to do, and infinity of a subjective purpose. All that you would remain if such supposed circumstances came to reality is the perpetual anticipation of death and an absence of happiness at the realization of having nothing more to desire, or dream, and no devoted journey to pursue said desires or bring truth to said dreams. There will always be a purpose for you to find for yourself, but as I said before, whether or not you can employ the will to fulfill it with a journey is entirely up to you. However, simply because there may always be a purpose for you to conceive, take not the meeting of a destination and the accomplishment of a goal for granted to weaken the determination, perseverance, and volition of your journey, in a belief that the goal will simply accomplish itself simply in a matter time. Detect no guarantee that you will be even alive to witness the manifestation of the meeting of the destination and gain the rewards that follow. The power of such exists only within you, not with the inevitable passing of time, and in the current of time, take the time that has been given to you, give the maximum extent of your effort, cross one bridge at a time, cross every bridge when you come to it, seek fulfillment as you go, and have no intention of diminishing your will or giving up your journey entirely, both before and after the meeting of a destination. There must always be a journey, or there will be no fulfillment, and therefore, no honest dignified happiness. The thought of your goal being unaccomplished may not be the most optimistic thought in the world to bring you happiness, but during the travels of your journey, once you should you have the sincerity to look upon yourself and feel you are making the absolute most of the present time that has been bestowed upon you in order to make the most significant single step of utmost efficiency towards your subjective destination, with a accepted understanding at the fact that there is no button for you to push to bring instantaneous accomplishment to your goal (the activation of your volition being the only button capable of being pushed), and discover your own subjective, perceivable, progressive truth of the existence and reality of your power with solemn faith in its capability to bring you to your destination with a gradual process of dedicated time and effort, regardless of how far you are away from your destination, you shall be endowed with an infinite state of fulfillment in your life through the devotion to your purpose, and with anticipation for the immediate step in front of you as the vessel of your faith, a non-existence of impatience, dissatisfaction, suffering and despair shall give birth to the omnipresence of infinite beatitude throughout every single aspect of your life as you reach an enlightenment of infinite peace. As you seek your own personal subjective fulfillment through your journey, you shall be granted infinite gratitude for all that you come to receive, achieve, acquire, obtain, and accomplish through the recognition of the progressive extent of your discovered and unleashed power, and all that you come to enjoy therein shall be experienced with the infinite joy of an infinite integrity that would have been unachievable and by all means non-existent had you possessed the capability to instantaneously receive, achieve, acquire, obtain, accomplish, and enjoy all that which you have with a single touch of a button. Establish your own subjective destination if you will within your journey, but never come to believe that the journey shall come to an end thereafter. If you wish to live, and not simply exist, look down at your feet and see that this endless journey will initiate and progress with merely a single step. So take the life that has been given to you without request and create more out of it than anybody could have ever imagined existing if you were never born. There is no button in front of you other than the activation of your volition. Amidst this journey, seek a fulfillment from the power of your own will that contradicts all the aspects of the universe around you. Define the existence of extraordinary amidst ordinary, supernatural amidst natural, infinity amidst finity, immortality amidst mortality, and divinity amidst humanity.

Savvy?

© 2013 Bobby Madden

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Reviews

JoJo Hallows

This is why I am so honored ot be able to call you a friend. To be able to express and communicate with someone on your level of genius is truly humbling. You're amazing and insightful, Bobby. Don't ever stop. I know you know you won't as this paragraph implies. Sorry I'm late reviewing!!