And today I tried to immerse myself in Tolstoy in hope that I could find some respite from this mercenary world. Unfortunately, the literary dimension was no harbor from the ravaging realities of life. Perhaps Tolstoy was too much of a pacifist, too much of an idealist for my liking, seeking a non violent end to the social contradictions, the iniquity that afflicts...no that defines the current order. The utopia he paints, the eventual revolution he prophesied and the regeneration of the inner man he proclaims, serves only to perpetuate the myth of the unreal world, the crux of my disillusionment and my senses continue to be inundated by grief, despair, anger...revenge as I struggle to abandon remnants of the old me, now proliferating like a gangrenous sore. Some say why wallow in despair when tomorrow or perhaps someday will be a better day. No, tomorrow will never be a better day, not by hoping that is. To hope means to forget and to forget means to deceive, oneself that is. Betterment is a corollary of work and not hope, this I should have known by now. And to work means to remember all that has happen and all that is to come since at this juncture, my work derives solely from the negation of all that is seemingly good.