ir a principal |
Ir a lateral
How it was meant to be,
in my web of mind,
I've traveled searching
for the way to make it,
into something of value,
the fourth place being,
the fifteen selves really
there, standing side by side,
living lies holiness-wide.
Not all temples have doors.
Not all people rest on ships
and not all saviors dream
about their sentences.
People kill, people die.
Worship ends,
mornings lie,
mornings cry,
spirits bounce
and elves pronounce
incorrectly
the beginning of winter.
My name is
unimportant
because in your ear,
you cannot hear
but what you're
saying,
and you aren't reciting
the truth.
There's no reason for this,
but everyman's punishable
for the hell he opened
when he stopped talking
to himself, turned away
towards the bars of other prisons,
self-made men, self-saved men,
bitten man, hidden man.
Woe, man, woah.
I wanted to know if you were going to look for me
if I'd asked, I kept wondering.
And amidst this wondering, the light suddenly turned inwards.
I wondered whether I'd really wanted you to care.
Because I couldn't see whether you did, so
it left me but with wanting
and with questioning what I'd asked for.
And with enough wanting, I chose the other door.
Why do I want you to care? What would it add to my life?
Everyman wonders and wants to be taken care of, nurtured, paid attention to.
I grant you this, but why does it matter to me? I am either everyman or one.
Who cares? I'd wanted you to.
But what will it mean ultimately, because my wanting is what would've called it firstly,
so it'd be me that cares, through you, about me.
It just feels strange. Dependency calls for reassurance. It is futile, I realise now, to depend on you for the satisfaction and fulfillment of love. Grave expectation. Yet, unreceiving of this, I feel the capacity to move on, to not depend, to be joyful with what I receive from whomsoever but to continue to grow spiritually without clinging to another. You. I still want you in my life, but only because you want to be in it. Only because your spiritual growth matters to me and if I can help with your evolution as an individual then I am willing to be there for you, to love you. If you don't, then, I will not hold on. So I don't hold on to something I made up. So the puzzle pieces can fit together without being forced together.
Release.
I found out about a month ago that, personality-wise, I am an INFJ. Apparently it's the rarest of all 16 personality types. This is psychology, and it's not entirely accurate or as intensely applicable for everyone, and I suspect there are blurs between personalities, but the description for INFJ sums up my behavior and mental patters quite well. INFJ stands for Introverted/Introspective Intuitive Feeling Judging.
One trait found in INFJs and me alike, is caring for others. I have said, several times to friends, that I find it difficult not to care about people. I care too much. Whether it manifests in a positive way, such as trying to help someone with a problem, or whether it is more negative, such as caring about what someone somewhere says about me that may be negative. It's a twisted, paradoxical approach to the world and what we call 'life'. Delve, I go.
I care about people. Very much. Even those who tended not to be very nice to me in high school. I fantasised about standing up to them and bringing justice with my witty vocabulary and words of literary steel, but none of that came out really, because I never saw the need for vengeance past the illusion of a thought. I thought the bullies off my bus during my high school years weren't being nice to me when they called me 'gay' or 'big-nose', but I did not think they were bad people, just choosing conflict or preying upon the weak because they felt they had to, somehow, in their minds. I didn't know about egos at the time, but that's effectively what was operating in their minds, I reckon now, retrospectively. They were, still are, human beings, who I felt ought to have been punished, so they would learn from their mistakes. But at the same time, I also felt they needed to be treated with compassion, somewhere behind my peek-a-booing veil of revenge-thoughts. I cared about them even when they hurt me. I couldn't bring myself to harm them, to retaliate. I just went back into my shell, accepting the damage they were dealing me as pain, overthinking about it the next day. Funny times, those were. But I grew past that.
I care about people, even before I meet them. I recognise that you are a human being, and if I meet you, I assume you have a need to be cared for. This care manifests if I can get out from behind the introverted wall that is placed up like a panel against the wind, when we first meet. It comes down the more trust I can build in you. And it isn't very hard to build trust, it just requires you to pay me attention, even just being interested in what I have to say, or asking me questions. But even with that windbreaker, I care about you. I want to hear about your problems and perhaps I could offer you some help with them. Even if they are minor, I enjoy listening and then solving. I am not always right, I do not promise I am. But I feel I can be of service by simply listening, being there. I cherish that position of someone that is 'always there'. If not in body, in spirit. I truly value that because I feel it's a way of interacting and connecting with people, by jumping on their ship and showing them perhaps, if I know, how to steer out of the muddy waters they may find themselves in. I feel useful when I do that, when I help. And afterwards, when they are in calmer seas, I feel good, and still care about them.
The windbreaker I put up is more for my own protection, as a way of preventing hurt from you by not sharing so much with you until I feel it is safe to share that. The way to make me feel safe is by showing me you care enough to listen to what I say without judging me. Judgment is terrifying for me. Well, I have learned to not dwell upon it, but in the moment that it is given, I still am affected by judgments. I haven't yet found the strength to just discard them and move on. But I reckon that will come.
I care. I would like others to care as much as I do, about others, about me. Alas, that does not happen, nor I believe is it meant to. I want to be cared for, yes, while still offering care to others. I believe people who do care for me could communicate that to me. It feels good. It validates my existence, to know that I am not alienated. I don't have to be made to feel special, because that is an illusion and I accept that. But the more selfless I am, without having some of that care returned, the more drained I feel. But expecting... I am expecting... I need to stop that. Because expectations aren't going to be fulfilled.
"A Course In Miracles" says that one should not have any cares, and just trust. So, I trust. I think it refers to cares more of the material type, but, what if it also means the emotional type. Like emotional validation. No 'what ifs'. I remember now. A close friend told me not to do those 'what ifs'. Just go with it. So I leave this question open, and trust in the Answer.
I wonder also whether it is a question of others not being able to express that they care. Or perhaps they don't feel the care at all, and it's just in my head because I want them to care for me as much as I care for them. I realise that people don't do that - they don't show it. And I accept that, I don't need to be overwhelmed by it, as I imagine I would be if the same level of care that I project into the world would be returned on to me. Yet, I want more. And I have been told that I ought to be more selfish. I do want to be cared for. A good friend says to me that that's just being human. Before, I thought thinking something like that was terribly arrogant and demanding. Now, perhaps it isn't quite as horrific, but it still doesn't sit well with me. It feels like I'm asking something of the world that it cannot give. Love, say. Maybe I'm just not seeing it. Maybe I choose not to see it because I want to feel like a victim? That's no winning formula.
But people can give love. I cannot expect it, or I will be disappointed. But I hope, somehow, someday, I will receive love, unhinged, unencumbered, unconditional. And I give because I am given.
I have this feeling right now, as I'm talking to my friend who is suffering and away in another city, of being distant and alien. I'm trying to tell her not to worry about her exam, and trying to make her aware of the psychology of what she's doing, as I see it. Basically, trying to make her more conscious of her actions and what consequences they are having on her mentality as she's relaying to me and I'm interpreting. I've done this many times before, with her, with others, so much so that perhaps it's become my schtick, part of my identity. Yet, having done it up until now, I'd felt like I'd had something to give, like I could help. And now, in doubting myself, I also doubt what I can say to her, since it's the same problem that's cropped up just in a different format each time. I suddenly feel distant, like the language I'm using to speak to her is different to hers. And a different dialect means communication is broken, at least on the surface. At least to me. She replies laconically with a 'LOL' and a 'k'. I don't know how to interpret that. She says she knows what I mean and that she'll try take my advice. I say 'good'. This is where I leave it to faith.
Maybe it's my own insecurity that I'm projecting onto her own mental imbalance that is making me feel that I've lost my 'touch'. I'm not as much in contact with who I thought I was, and so, confidence aside, I don't really believe in what I'm saying as much anymore. I talk about love as if I know what it means. I talk about fears and their non-existence but as illusions in our minds as if I abide by those rules, yet I don't. I haven't yet learned enough of these lessons that I try teach others. And it's making me feel inadequate, like I ought not to talk to them lest I teach them something 'wrong', even though I don't believe I can do that.
I just feel confused really. Uncertain about who I am, at the core of it all - and so, everything, everything that rests upon this foundation, now is blurred. "A Course In Miracles" did say that in order to follow it, I would eventually end up questioning everything I believed in. And I accepted that, perhaps not wholeheartedly. But now it seems real. Doubt has entered. Ok, I understand most things are not as I thought they are. And yet, it has to go deeper than that. And I feel that the deeper I go, the more distant I become from the world, from the people in it, from what they do and what they think about. That's... unsettling. But perhaps it's only unsettling because I am still trying to think my way through it all. Thinking's a defense mechanism for me. It reduces all change down to an interpretation that maintains my mental schematics and plans as intact as it can. But now, everything I'd been working for, built in that schema, is under doubt. Does it really matter? Well... if I think about it, I try answer yes and say why and postpone and delay. And if I just leave it? I come to an uncomfortable feeling of... 'no, it doesn't matter.'
So it doesn't matter that I don't know what my life is about. It doesn't matter that I have tried to build an image of myself as always being there for other people, sacrificing myself along the way. It doesn't matter, because it's not true, and it's too hard to maintain anyway. It doesn't matter who I've tried to impersonate. It doesn't matter that I've questioned my sexuality and haven't concluded anything concrete. It doesn't matter that I tried to attract the attention of some of my friends over and over and over again, seeking validation for what I was doing and thinking. It doesn't matter that I was trying to make things that didn't matter, matter. It still doesn't matter. Because at the end of the day, I'm not the one that decides what matters and what does not. I am not God. And so, all that I've 'striven' to maintain, a "Cris" that is nice as can be, intelligent, altruistic, caring, loving, emotional, determined, proactive, sociable, approachable, going-that-extra-mile-for-someone, not asking for much in return, all that, doesn't matter. It doesn't.
I'm not saying I am a waste of space because I'm not. I'm not a victim here, despite what my ego would like me to believe. But it doesn't matter that I tried to be this way, and not, say, a bully, or a heartless asshole, whatever that means. Because, I feel I've cheated myself in trying to use this 'good' image as a ladder to get love from people, attention and validation particularly. I think part of my image used to be that I didn't require these, and when I was given them perhaps I took them for granted. And now, now that I've gone into my thought patterns, I've unmasked that there is a desire, suppressed, for attention and validation. I thought I was above those, but apparently wanting them just makes me human. And I ought not to be ashamed to ask for them. The 'how to ask' part I'm a bit hazy on, however. Maybe I thought I wasn't human, I was better than human. Imagine that; a human thinking he is better than a human. False superiority complex. Yeah. This isn't unconditional love at all. Yet, maybe the attention and validation that I'd gotten is the closest thing I've come to, so far, from what I can remember. Yet the past is gone so what am I left with if I'm not to dig up memories. How can I even tell if something is unconditional if I don't trust it, anyway?
The love I get, I have to trust. I think that's the lesson. Trust that it won't go away, the truth in it is ever unconditional and will remain that way. The question my mind comes up with then is how can I tell when someone gives me love? And that requires trust, too. The desire to see it, too. I remember something: If I believe someone is hurting me, then I will believe I am hurt. And if I believe someone loves me, then I will believe I am loved. I prefer the latter. I would prefer it be the truth. I can't translate from anything to truth though. That's where You come in then. Be my translator, please.
Words,
and in the spaces in between,
mines:
to be careful where you step is to
step where lines are dreamt
but soon forgotten.
Words,
and the eyes that read them,
signs:
to understand means to stand
under the post and point in
the right direction.
Words,
and where the letters meet,
bridges:
to speak is to move across
incorporeally into another's
set of teeth.
Words,
and behind the physicality,
thought:
to be or not to be and electricity
surges through neurons and
passes by me.
Words,
and what it all really means,
nothing:
to be left imbued by what is true
is to never have left love and it be
forever with you.
This didn't seem to be
In need of counselling,
But wait, it's the call of hesitation
That I find me waiting on.
Maybe it's naive to think,
To think I know to think,
Keep the emotion buttoned down -
Why let it slip away?
It's like waiting on authority
For answer. For the sign.
Did I miss it, hands in pockets,
Watching the world be round?
I can't help but run out
For the answers to be read
And when I'm to ever get there,
Silence reads instead.
Spot me sitting a seat away,
Waiting for the words to say,
Holding me captive in mentality,
Bested burden, waiting prey.
Answer me. Answer me.
You said you would when I'd call.
So did I miss your ring
Out of the context I was in?
I tried not to think,
As I now avoid to dwell,
And the prayer that I sink,
Addresses this species of hell.
God, I don't know it any all.
"Don't be fooled", I tried the same,
But why did I not talk?
Is that the question?
Hesitation translates to regret,
And what is, is.
And if we never would have met,
The moment, would I seize?
I'm breathing. Just tell me, man,
What do I do? I implore you,
The pieces I've pieced together
Don't fit to me. Yet,
Where do we go from here?
How do we carry on?
To the answer that you'll give,
What is the question?
What do I ask, to know the truth?
Find me.
Find me.
Find me.
The blemishes that I have never left
do not deny me my rejection,
For to no end, of love am I bereft
and no choice I make is but reflection.
The tailspin through the augur peace
I've traveled seeking rest.
None have given me the least
translation, no such kind gest.
Yet it must be for a reason that I lay
my hands upon the slate as clean -
I cannot fathom a further price to pay
but for my fears to merely seem.
Can you imagine, how it feels, the day you decide to walk on by, past excuses, past the little cowards of encouragement, through the wispy veil of fear, and out into the light? There, where the rain reminds you of rebirth and not the gloom of past days kept sickeningly frozen, you'd finally see me. Not with your eyes, but with your breath. Not with your ears, but with the thousandths of inches of spaces in between your freckles. You'll realise that death parted us not, but that we forgot to laugh our puerile confusion away. I'm smiling as I write this. I remember what it was like, before we lost ourselves to who we weren't. Funny moment. Funny timelessness. Inoubliable, yet it passed and the skies felt grey when drops dropped from it. What happened?
What happened to us?
I am here, in the sentiment of the day, experiencing fullness to the rim yet patiently waiting to overflow; for you, to come beyond the doors. To smile. A genuine regard never looks at something, but beyond it. When you look him in the eyes, you but gaze into me. You hate him. And you fight for him because you want him close to you, you want to prolong the pain. Just days ago, you willed peace, and it was given you, the feeling that you are. And you still are. What happened that made you look away from the mirror? Did you see a glint in his eyes, a fabled attraction, the hallucinatory guise of attack, about to pounce? Were you scared? Were you doubtful of his trust in you, or yours in him?
This is a crisis of faith. You and the magical window. I talk about reflections, them being everywhere. Sometimes you look and see them, then a shiny surface again scares you. Because you don't see yourself in it.
But you're in them, I know this, yet it makes you want to run aground, push back the ocean so you can hide away from it. Fear isn't real. What you are afraid of, this enemy that you perceive you are, is not there. But you hate him. That's what it sounds like. But if you looked not into his eyes but beyond them, you'd find yourself there, but without the timorous visage.
You don't trust him because you don't see you're him. You lose faith in God because you forget He's there. You choose not to listen. You choose not to see. You choose not to be who you are, because, love scares you. You are so petrified of being hurt by what cannot hurt. You stone man, you can walk because your feet are not frozen. You can sing because your tongue is not still. You can speak because your breath has motion.
It's not any of these things that makes you alive, though. You know.
Faith. And Love. And Joy. And Harmony. And Peace. Sweet Peace. It is all here, where we are.
Let me show you.
To be truthful in this:
I accept myself, as I am, not as I should be.
I accept that I am loved by God/Life/The Universe/Love itself.
I accept that I am whole.
I accept that I but need be myself.
I accept those parts of me that I felt were incompatible with the way of life around me.
I accept you as you are, not as what my thoughts may be saying you should be like.
I accept you are my brother, as one with me.
I accept that you are equally as loved as I am by God/Life/The Universe/Love itself.
I accept that we but need be ourselves.
I forgive myself for not accepting this before.
Faith. Courage.
Dear,
We may have met, or maybe yet to have. But know from the get-go, that I am not going to be your everything. That's an expectation that, while my ego would love to fulfill, is not one that I can. I am who I am, and I've walked where I have walked, and I will try not to point to my footprints when we meet, but if you see them behind me, and you ask me about them, I will tell you where I have trodden. I will be honest. I will be. There is no other way for love to discover us unless we are open about where we have been, what doors we have closed, but most importantly which ones we have left open so that the breeze and the sunlight can have passed through.
Do not hold on to me. I won't to you. If there is pull, and there would be if it would be love, we will come together and celebrate our oneness. And why not go for long walks on the beach, or talk 'til dawn, or cuddle and kiss and look into each other's eyes as if we were looking into sincerity? I can play with your hair, you can play with my lashes. You can dream, and I can dream, but let's not hold on to what we've done or what we make up. Let footprints be, but let's celebrate now, what we are, together as one, beyond what we may look like to each other.
Love will find us. This, I know.
Be ready.
I have responsibility
to let go of sensitivity
lest it break the trust
that pours through me
and waters down
all it cannot see;
and sensitivity
hurts my honesty
blindly keeping at bay
the falling ashtray
supposing mistakes
rookie mistakes, it takes
heaven from its own
and mine, and home
it brings me back
and all it asks today,
all it asks right now,
is that I let it free,
sensitivity,
to cure me.
My responsibility,
all it asks of me,
is not to hold my scream in
nor boil my anger,
but to let the river flow
and wash the horror
from my eyes, and tongue,
and brain cells.
It will be the same day
that I wait in patience,
no longer waiting for love.
That same day, this day,
I christen with my soul
as it moves into redemption.
Pulled the earth's weight away,
now I've had enough.
It gave way beneath
and I'm back in God's hands,
disillusioned,
yet crying for what could have been
yearning for what I have seen,
but in pain for it was not to be
and never will have; insanity.
God, this. This has ended.
And my insides crave for otherwise,
for what I could see with sightless eyes,
yet you promised none of it.
Why did I think I could attain
what is not attainable?
How can I achieve the impossible?
And what now? There's nothing left.
He's gone, just as you have asked, loved together.
I budged a place, I lied to my own face
about everything, about possibility,
about my lack of expectations.
Yet I could not rid myself of them,
so I hid, glossed, ignored them,
and they blew up to make notice
of the mess I was making.
This, this comes out of despair.
I cannot believe my jealousy, my hate,
yet it surges and is so misunderstood
that the path's become a crossroad
with a million and two pathways:
one for me, and one for him.
I go to kill, he goes to life.
And I so desperately want to go with him.
But I can't, this isn't right,
I say I loved him, and he didn't back
and we left ourselves unchained
and I watched his back and then his shadow
as it crept away.
Me? I don't know.
Where do we go from here?
How do we carry on?
I can't get beyond the questions.
But, God.
Please do.
Please, help me realise what is not real
ain't.
Out of my personalised sopor I awaken;
out of a shell's worth of pieces unbroken
I hear these words being spoken,
reminders of happiness' little tree-like
veins reaching within from the extremities
to that bulging center of importance beating,
serenely, supremely succinctly,
undisturbing any appetite I may have had
for teeming, killing, suffocating, dreaming.
Repercussions, I accept
before any all secrets are unkept
and naked, I stand unkempt,
but am I free, I am free, free to feel
how it feels to feel free without feeling
a freak fleeing fear, me, upset by what has been set up,
ere stolid now solid,
but such gauze, such a window,
such a veil blowing in the wind,
such a flag, glad to be waving and saluting
to the laconic riposte of the sails on the road.
I travel, through blueprints voyage do I,
chalking a trail of words and compliments
and a backlog of unused breath mints
still on the counter, still,
like silence,
still weeping
across the bow of the horizon,
for the telling of love.
An ethereal head on an ephemeral pillow, I am,
I do, unthink
unblink
return to sender my post
a bird's nest I host
as I wake up to the scent of dust in the dehumidifier;
on
I turn myself, too;
I do keep a tumor of nerve endings
on a spot of space just beneath my skin,
just so that the day can pass through.
I couldn't compare this year to a kiss from a rose because I've never been kissed, particularly not so sensually or invigoratingly. A year ago nearly, I started this blog, this space of expression, ushered by an idea from a friend, one who walks by me. I wanted to write, so this, finally, was that opportunity to put something out there and have it reflected back and not disappear into the nether of the rubbish bin. About anything, about something, about nothingness itself, I wrote, experimentally, experientially, discovering that writing was a means of communication and connection, of courage and unity and the exploration of emotion, thought. It's a canvas, on which I can either paint an infantile abstract piece, or be blessed with something closer to art that's a window into my soul. So I can see it. So you can see it. And from the statistics that Blogger collects regarding my blog, it's not been a very widely-accessed experience, which I accept. Thus I can say that this space resembles more a spring in solitude than a photographed fountain in the centre of Rome, with statues in dynamic positions and coins carpeting the bottom. Looking for love, looking for the eternal, looking for happiness, that is what I had in mind, and each post, then, was my coin, my wish, my prayer, this being the 125th.
I began the year without much knowledge of where I was going, except to university, which was to be dreaded and revered, and therefore not very helpful as a goal seeing as it could be anything I made it out to be. Life was in my hands after high school, though I was to realise later that it was not perched warmly in my palms but coursing through the veins in my fingers, and like the blood there, it wasn't in my control. I wanted to know more about myself, so I went on and began a journey of self-discovery. Fears, shame, guilt, stress, all emotions that I had felt before, would come at my door and I was supposed to open it for them. I had some new unwelcome guests too, such as jealousy, desperation, insanity, heartbreak. I'd seen them in movies before and in the lives of those around me, but oh, I did not expect them to come caroling at my doorstep, and yet life did guide them there. Hesitantly, I let them in, then at various times kicked them out, then after pacing back and forth in the hallway, I opened the door again, and they walked back in, temptation hand in hand with itself, so pleased to see me, and later to lure me with its sex. Beyond being host to this cauldron of negativity, I had been blessed with signposts everywhere I looked, telling me what I needed to do to entertain the guests or to be a better host. Friendships formed, friendships strengthened, friendships stilled and weathered the teacup storm that started when clouds gathered.
I started university in March. Stressed, I experienced a sense of loneliness that I had thought had been buried back in Year 9. It was a bitter, alcoholic aloneness: addictive because it placed upon me thoughts I did not want to think but which I ultimately scooped up again from the sands of time and built a crumbling mound I'd pretend was a castle. Suddenly, the world had opened up for me, and I did not see myself in it. The tempest had begun, trying to find my shelter before it was too late. But I wasn't quite getting to that place of safety anytime soon. I don't think I was meant to get to that ideal place at all, and every pocket of sunshine I could find, I basked in half-heartedly, aware the rain would come back in again and I'd get wet. I changed my clothes, my approach, several times, but that wasn't going to stop the weather. So, instead of racing away from the eye, I was instead guided towards it. The centre. Where the demons lay together and fornicated. I received "A Course In Miracles" in the mail. I thought to do the course, it wouldn't hurt to find some answers that the introduction promised. It specifically said I didn't need to believe each day's lesson, just follow it. With that guarantee, I went for it. Spiritual awakening beckoned.
I don't remember what I thought it would be, but this was not it. The course emphasised completion, devotion, courage, presence, gratitude, all which have taken turns to teach me this year about life, about what I had missed, about what I have held in my past like an idol to commit suicide over. But it was not just about learning, it was also about experience. Suffering was tearing me apart below the surface, and habitually, I would try to understand the shit out of it and then it would make some fleeting sense and I'd be happy, until it stopped making sense. What I learned was that I could not, could not, could not, understand it all. And if I couldn't solve my problems, then, woah, there would be pain, content to suck on my life like it came out of my teat to nourish this cute, pudgy, infested, destructive baby. My mentality took a serious beating, and I had to question everything, what people meant to me, what I meant to myself, what I was doing, whether I was hurting people, whether I was who I thought I was. The perfect list of ingredients for overthinking, and that's exactly where it lead me. Thought. So much of it. So much of it unnecessary, because it was unable to answer those questions with certainty.
Certainty, then, came from elsewhere. The course lead me to God, or the universe, or Life, or whatever else you want to call what you cannot call anything. I was to have faith in Him, as I had consciously never had faith in anyone or anything before. Here was my life, on a platter that I'd chewed the silver from in my overthinking. Here it was, for God's taking. I have to surrender it completely, for the decision to have a transformative effect. I have let go of many things, but there still are some that I yet hold on to, still fears, lies, things I am ashamed of, things that burden my heaven and make me confuse it with hell. I am confident that I will let go of all of those, simply because I am willing. When and how, I don't know, but I do still have until sometime in early April 2011, when I am scheduled to complete the course. Past that, je ne sais pas encore. There are still lessons to be learned. Yet this is an appropriate time to reflect, as I have learned enough to witness a change. I don't know how old I am, mentally. I don't know whether I am gay, or straight, or bi, or a, or b, or c. I feel a sense of resentment towards being packed into a labelled cardboard box to be looked upon and segregated into some portion of interpretation. I feel it's detrimental to discovering reality. I don't know what specifically I am supposed to do. But I know that all the answers I need to know, will be given when they are needed, and it is in that promise that I trust. I can't rush everything, nor can I slow it down or numb myself from feeling pain so I can feel just joy. They are mutually exclusive by definition, but underlying them, there can either be unconsciousness, or the peace of consciousness, not both, always one. It comes down to the decision, whether I want the truth, or whether I want deception. Where I feel safe and secure is the criteria on which I base that choice.
The thought philosophy has dominated this period of time since the birth of this blog. I am trying to figure life out. While I watched others go on with their lives, content, taking part in joys and games and at times, their own soul-seeking, I removed myself from the stream of mindlessness that had driven me before so that I could prepare well for an adult life of doing what I was supposed to do. Quite frankly, it comes down to what I want in life, and I knew there had to be more than just chasing pleasure in a game, or a girl, or porn, though I do recognise they have their roles to play. With this realisation, I wanted the truth, I wanted what lay underneath the forms and things that we as people would involve ourselves in as if we were dolls in a house full of props. From situations, I wanted to go beyond to reason, to the mechanics of depth and creativity. I expected an intricate but clear machine; I found nothingness exemplified. Because, really, soul-searching had lead me to a skeleton of myself - dead in form, or at least, dying, ephemeral, but in essence, well, untouched by anything, invulnerable. Perhaps there is a better metaphor for that. I have touched that depth and its beauty is like a well of openness and disregard for difference. And it's really when I let go of thinking that that place is reached. The moment of experience is over and then I open my eyes from meditation and look on the world differently, as if it were all okay, even if there was fighting and politics and advertising and gore and poverty and apathy. For a brief glimpse, I do not even register the suffering, as if it was gone, and it mattered not. Then I slowly scooped it back in, because I thought I had to, as if it were my responsibility as a human being to take on the pain of others when I had some respite. I copy-pasted instead of select-deleted. Then I released back the tide, and that was the back-and-forth experience of finding peace, because it went to and fro. I want to say peace is winning, but the truth is peace isn't fighting, so that would be a moot statement.
I have been blessed this year, despite the war of worlds and words in my mind. Perhaps when one agrees to find themselves and agrees to confront their past with no weapons, just forgiveness, one is greeted with help from previously thought-of-as-unlikely places. Each situation has been and is a lesson. Each person is a brother. And underneath my strict mold of the world, that mental construct I foolishly wore as a protective helmet, I am a brother, too. In that spirit of oneness in which everything real is, I am. This lesson, I found difficult to digest, especially when there were those around me who were very different outwardly, who had different goals, approaches, behaviors. More often than I would like to admit, but I do here anyway, my ego has played the part of a victim, ever the attacked, ever the one who is hurt. Other times, my ego was the conqueror, dealing blows to other egos. Yet behind these masks, I am to learn that we are all the same. This is a glorious truth, but one I know not if I can impart but merely point to, one I yet bring to the world because I still believe there are exceptions to, even though there are not. I have talked with friends, at times nearing a point of desperation, and in those moments of vulnerability was revealed the river of love I had been searching for elsewhere, in the wrong places. In case you wonder, I talked about behavior, personalities, hopes, fears, pain, suffering, guilt. Identity too. Things I would normally stray away from but was needing answers to. And friends were happy to steer my vessel in the right direction, whether they were aware of it or not. That's another interesting thing that's happened this year, I've gone under the radar and achieved so much personal growth, without many people noticing. Help, signposts, have come from close friends to strangers to strange situations to music and literature. I figure if I am willing to give myself to life so that it can use me for whatever it wills, then it would point and guide me in the right direction, and if I deviate from the path, it would come and show me the way back after a pep talk and a realisation or two. But I don't want to create a tornado or some other dramatic turn of events. I want to quietly find peace and then radiate it through my impersona so that those surround me may find their own lives more pleasant and enlightening, wherever they are on their own journeys.
Ultimately, I want to be loved, but I also want to give love, as I have before. Giving and receiving is the same thing. In the spirit of unconditional love, I would learn that love knows no boundaries, no definitions, no traffic lights nor walls. I expected at the beginning, foolishly, for someone to tell me that they loved me unconditionally, and then I would impart all my pachyderm belongings onto their ass and I would be a free mule alongside them. Bull. Yes, others can love you if you don't love yourself, but you cannot know it unless you love yourself in some way, at least a tiny bit, somehow, tucked away beneath layers of difficulty. This year has taught me that I can tell you nothing about love as you may want to hear it. I have never been with anyone intimately, so I cannot give any stories of romance or consuming bodily passion. Yet what I know of love, is that if it really is love, that is, if it is without reserve, then all it is is a recognition of yourself. You are love. And so am I. I am writing these words but language cannot encompass such completion, wholeness. From memory, I don't think I've felt it wholeheartedly. But I want to. And it will come when it will come, but I know it will come now.
Love is everything, and there's nothing else. Love is the word that I use, but I use it loosely. I like love. It sort of symbolises peace and contentment and fulfillment and joy all in one. Perhaps it's not very focused in my mind, but I don't hold on to it. I find myself saying 'true love' now instead of love because of all the changes to the term, not that adding 'true' makes it more true, it's just easier for me to know what I mean. Like I said though, I can't tell you anything about it, though I've written quite a bit on it. Perhaps it's me pointing to it, for me, for you. Perhaps it's my romantic mind, or my secretive desire to express emotion in a world that doesn't value it to the extent that I see it, especially coming from someone of my gender.
I am grateful for so many things, so many people, some that know themselves, some that may not yet. I appreciate you, for sharing your life with me by reading this. Everything really, even the 'bad' stuff, for it came up and showed me where I needed to change. The puzzle pieces fit perfectly, even if it all looked like a mess on the floor when I began. Now it's beginning to look like what it was meant to look like, life. I feel like I am right where I need to be, and I have faith in the gentle light of guidance that I am going where I need to go, home.
Attraversiamo.
The light has faded, the peace has burned,
The room is cold and I can't reach out
To grab the hand slipping out of my sight,
Too bright, too far to see into the night,
Too long to bear the pain
Of standing alone in the rain.
While life is pouring out its veins
It's still my beating heart that strains
For love, to come be my savior,
For love stares blind into my fear
Like it wasn't even there, my fate to cripple,
Like somebody quietly knows it's all so simple.
I have half a mind to see responsibility
And the other part to want the seas to part,
It's outside where windows look alive
But spirit drowns and after it I dive
To give it breath, divinity I can revive
With the hope that I somehow will survive.
Is considering how he can live - he.
He wants the joy of life without the pain of death.
Yet he's already taken the latter and not received the first. He's confused. But it's rather simple.
He has chosen to die.
He has chosen to suffer on the road to death.
He has chosen pain.
And yet his choice, is not one he made wholeheartedly, because he could never choose pain, suffering, death. There is something there, left, a glimpse of love, of truth - enough - to awaken him. And he will rise.
I am he. I want to be the person I was born to be. I want to know love. I do not want to take love from anyone, ever. I do not want to hurt. I do not want to distress, nor distract, nor be the eye of envy. I do not want to instill hate. I simple want happiness.
I can't do this alone. I simply - can't.
Will you help me?
Change happens, and even when change happens... the question that remains for us to answer each and every time, can we still love even when things change? In other words, can love be unconditional and therefore transcendent of change? Such, such a powerful question and yet the answer is a destiny-guide. Each choice foretells the next choice until behind you, a path is formed. And you can trace back where love was so easily, because it never would have left.
That was the point. Family, friendship, being together, promises of always being there for each other, the symbolism of the Big Dango Family, the father-son musings... the same point, repeated, over and over and over and over again in a variety of forms. All pointing to the same theme, the importance of love, and not only that, but the prevalence and permanence of love, true love. Love that comes as an orb of light and rises up into the sky. Love that sees through illusions and recognises itself in the spirit of others. Love that saw Nagisa rise through her sickness. Love that gave birth to Ushio. Love that remained even after Tomoya thought Nagisa and Ushio died because of him. Love that transcended the screen on which the Animé played itself out on and called my own love to respond. Love that makes me grateful to have watched Clannad. Love that lives on even after I have finished the series.
Love that reminds me to not let myself sleep and forget, but to rise and remember to spread it and give it all away and watch as the lights multiply. That was the principal lesson from Nagisa. To love. Simple, yet more powerful than these words can convey.
I, we, you, choose
To contradict the blessing
With what cannot be.
I, we, you, choose
To compromise heavenly
Things with harsh nothings.
I, we, you, choose
To replace peace and love with
Anticipation.
I, we, you, choose
To suffer indecision
To be left suppressed.
Love.
Seventeen minutes and twelve seconds later and the parasol is in full bloom and the sand is still bottle-necked in the hourglass. Time, has replaced the message with its clock face and its arrow hands, cupped full of the matter of shattered glass. There's beaches of it, and you and I are swimming ceaselessly in it. All the time. I may ask myself what is going to happen within the next fifteen seconds, but will realise by then that by the time I would have thought about it, I would have lost my time thinking about it, and with that, my mind. And you would leave me behind, to drown in my contradiction. I'm not impressed.
But you come back for me, anyway.
He had tangled himself up in reasons he did not know.
For the things he had done hath marred the flow
Of life and love and everything that used to be so sweet
To him, to all living things around him.
He let his beauty be blocked by hurt
A costly price to pay for nothing in return
But suffering, a wound that shatters faith
To the end of his occluded divine breath.
How does one begin to describe when his love is lost. When it all starts at the beginning, he never expects it to end, but it all must according to the law of the universe. What goes up, must come down. But he never wanted to crash, to crater the earth and send shockwaves that would sine and cosine those he held near him, and as a result they would flee to safer ground. This is a set of circumstances. They make up the situation.
At thirteen or fourteen, he meets her, she meets him. They date. He dreams, he invests in romance and begins his wooing as exemplified by his brothers. He falls for her, and so begins the descent into the realm of love. Except that it blinds and misleads and suddenly there is a point where emotions become unequal and this imbalance between him and her and her and him disintegrates into an example of failure. He says she said his love was too strong, his emotions too much. The investment, that so looked to have paid off, shatters the piggy-bank and coins are fanned in every direction. Such is how the flood starts, and blood spills. And the rollercoaster of puberty sentences the next years to thoughts of suicide and being upset. A dastardly plan is hatched and is foiled by contact with truth. This paragraph is expressively vague.
Later, they reconcile their emotions and join again in union, to end again for another reason. Drama occurs. Up and down again. Then a separation that lasts 'til today. Strange, is this a story about love? They are no longer together. Yet they are always together, linked in some ways by sentiments that words cannot carry but merely point to in an attempt at understanding. Are these these words? No. The words in question are not written by me, whose heart is not amidst the conflict, but still within the perimeter. I know him. He doesn't know himself. Yet.
Napalm is irrelevant, but inspirational.
Seventeen things that could make the day better are really just one.
Nobody claims to know what they are talking about.
Shadows do not dance on the wall.
I don't know what love songs are about, but they make me wonder.
Diamonds aren't forever, neither is marriage.
Solo, in silence, amidst the crowd of a thousand and four spies with no eyes, who I am is. This sounds less impressive, yet more degenerate and puzzling because it is not saturated with meaning as something else might be. The blurriness dispels your ability to judge. Yet you cannot see the truth when it is blurred, so you must come to know it for what it is, without any edge.
All good things come to an end. All sad things come to an end as well. The same end. Perforated by an emotion, dulling can set in. You might feel numb. Unwilling to respond, and confused because you drift. Floating, this is inemotion, a sentiment where you feel you are falling and also know you are not, that you are safe. You wander and wonder about everything. Questioning nothing, leaving everything in its place, you begin to see a distraction in all there isn't, and life in all there is. But the imbalance remains acute and persistent. You know you are love. You know it. Yet your beliefs are torn apart by truth, and you feel you are adrift in a land of unknowns. In reality, you are safely grounded. But you don't always feel that way, and it becomes a process of going back and forth between what is and what isn't to realise what is is and what isn't isn't.
Love is here, it is about opening the eyes and heart so that it can be seen and felt. This means crossing an inexistent gap, making a leap over no distance. Jump with me.
