When we are rich in opportunity, it is easier to pay no regard to those lives (i.e. friends aside) near to ours through circumstance. But when one problem is replaced by another, the tension remains, and the music of a life, the music of necessity, is forthcoming, if tear-jerking.
Don't rest on your laurels, I often think and push on. But then, I go to the other extreme, and want to be paid what I consider my due for the work I have done. After all, I now try so hard not to be one of those firecrackers that goes off just because all the others have caught fire.
But when I look back and inspect the times I was treated unfairly, I realise that I profited from the injustice. For example, it may have prompted me to read a couple dozen more books and given me far more beautiful things to think about than petty gossip.
In fact, it could be a kind of craziness to expect in life some kind of refill on all we pour forth into our work, our relations, our dainty steps - already amusing to ourselves. What a psychic burden to worry that we be paid our due. But this is not a story for everyone, especially those who are embarrassed by people bearing their navels, their underbelly, where they are weakest. Some consider that poor taste, and I respect that. Not all stories are for everyone.
Often, I ask myself: Do you dare ask for your due? I realise that if everyone I owed asked me for theirs, I would be bankrupt - if for no other reason than I am already sorry for some of the ways I acted myself: such is the underbelly of my existence. Don't look to be famous here, and don't expect payment.
The tension of uncertainty is when Theseus is still bound to Ariadne, before he breaks her heart. It is when that love makes miracles: the Minotaur is slain, the young Athenians are saved. Deception is overcome through the tautness taught by the string unwound between those who care.
Traveller, don't decide where to stop. Whatever you are attracted to, you weary of.
Sometimes I feel like I am far better off with problems, with being in need of what some people consider the basics in life, because I'd so rather prefer that than to break a king's or a divine heart, or possibly worse, having it all, then damning it by becoming bored or smug with victory.
