[obituary for Ryan]

"If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid with regard to external things. Don't wish to be thought to know anything; and even if you appear to be somebody important to others, distrust yourself. For, it is difficult to both keep your faculty of choice in a state conformable to nature, and at the same time acquire external things. But while you are careful about the one, you must of necessity neglect the other."

       - Epictetus

Ryan Buynak, prolific poet, died this year (2021) 

from complications of losing his soul. 

He was 39 years old. 

Creative and obsessive, 

Buynak never looked the part 

of a hopeless romantic. 

But, in the final days of his first life, 

he revealed an unknown side of his psyche. 

This hidden quasi-Jungian persona 

surfaced during the Agatha Christie-like pursuit 

of his long-reputed soul, 

with whom he only spent a few precious hours. 

Sadly, the protracted search 

ended late Friday night 

in complete and utter failure. 

Yet even in certain defeat, 

the courageous Buynak secretly clung to the belief 

that life is not merely a series of meaningless accidents 

or coincidences. 

Uh-uh. 

But rather, it's a tapestry of events 

that culminate in an exquisite, sublime plan. 

Asked about the loss of their dear friend, 

Ryan's enemies described him as a changed man 

in the last days of his first life. 

"Things were clearer for him," 

they said.

Ultimately Ryan concluded 

that if we are to live life in harmony 

with the universe, 

we must all possess a powerful faith 

in what the ancients used to call "fatum", 

what we currently refer to as kismet.