While I took four years of French, you would never know because the language always eluded me. The beauty of some of its phrases has stuck with me; however, I don’t think I learned them in school. 

Raison d’être, my reason for being, is maybe the one that stands out the most. It raises questions, inescapable questions. Specifically, what is my reason for being? While pondering this question this morning, because it’s been that kind of day so far, I started wondering what the opposite of this phrase would be and if there is even one in any language. 

French does not appear to have a single idiom that directly mirrors raison d’être as a polar opposite. However, you can construct natural French equivalents. 

Raison de ne pas être might be my favorite. A reason not to be, a literal opposite of raison d’être. It sounds philosophical, akin to an existential inquiry into non-being or negation, the equivalent of Hamlet’s to be or not to be. And maybe that’s what my heart ponders from time to time: is there a reason to not be here? 

French is not the only language that captures this specific flavor of “reason to leave” or the active impulse toward non-being:

Weltschmerz is German and translates to “world-weariness.” The feeling that reality can never satisfy the demands of the mind or soul, often described as an existential justification for withdrawal. And maybe this is closer to why I’m here today. I’m fighting the need to withdraw, to hide from the world I’ve tried to step into.

Or maybe it’s the Russian word Toska. Vladimir Nabokov famously noted that no single English word renders all its shades. At its deepest level, it denotes an existential anguish, a yearning with nothing to yearn for, which often drives an irrepressible desire to pull away or abandon one’s current existence.

Yet it’s an English phrase that cuts the deepest today: swan song. That is where my mind sits this morning, reflecting on a last gesture before departure, and realizing that’s what Fragmented was. My swan song. 

Except I’m not ready to go.

And this inevitably leads me back to French. 

À tout le monde, à tous mes amis

Je vous aime, je dois partir

First translated for me by my French Canadian friend in 1994 as: To all the world, to all my friends, I love you all. I must go.

Dave was worried about me when I showed him this, and it took me a long time to convince him I was not thinking about harming myself. But for 32 years now, I’ve sung that refrain over and over, wondering if today would be the day.

I’m not suicidal, not today at least. 

But something needs to change, and that change always starts with me. The work is always internal, and the validation is too. External validation will never be enough. The world will always fall short of filling that void, because I’m the one who has to live with myself. Being okay is an inside job.

So I started last night, deleting things, and I started with my book. It served its purpose and set me free from something that had held me for 22 years, and its work is done. Next I deleted most of the social media surrounding my book.

It turns out I’m not looking for an audience. This is not a performance for numbers on a screen. That being said, I value the genuine connections made along the way. I’ll keep these pages open, and I’ll keep writing as I always have: for myself. If you want to stick around for the ride, I would enjoy your company. 

Someone told me in 2018 that the thought of suicide was not a desire to die but rather the mind’s way of screaming “something needs to change.” 

That idea saved me.

It still does today.

~ Ryan