The night is calling
It hits me hard. Waking up at 4am, I feel a sudden surge of loneliness. A familiar kind of loneliness. The old wolf is at the door. It bares it's teeth laughing at me, at my callous hands, at my conflicted psyche, and it asks- What are you doing here?
I see the light just outside the room. I want to run to it before the day reclaims the truths of my night. There are voices that whisper my guilt. My mistress is seductive, if only because
her arms are shallow but always wanting. She smiles, confident I will always return to her, then asks - Isn't this who you are?
People will always be your cage if you let them. It is your curse. The old wolf glares knowingly as it tells me this. It sounds so unfair that it must be true. But I am free, if I want to be. I can roam the open roads and take my life. I don't have to be here. I do not have to wait for their understanding. They cannot change, and neither can I. And we are not the same. So I ask, why do I try?
The night is calling. I cannot deny it for too long. It is who I am. Better to be the wandering homeless than the comforted hopeless.
....
"Not all who wander are lost."
There has always been something in silence that seduced me. The quiet things somehow seem more moving, more potent. So much stays in the realm of the unsaid, and after everything else, still so much would remain when we could say all that we can.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Friday, March 06, 2009
The noise in my head
I used to think that I was the type to be satisfied with the simple things. These days, it's not so simple to determine what exactly is satisfying anymore. Over time, you learn to eye things with a certain feel of distrust . The elusiveness of a dream, the fleeting quality of happy moments, and the fragile nature of everything good in this lifetime all make us weary and suspicious of trying at all.
I have greatly considered that my problem is not with the way things are but with the way people are (myself included). Afterall, "Things don't change, but people do." Maybe things are still as simple as they can be but people have become too complicated for their own good. And oh how stupidly complicated we can become. So tangled are we in a mess of dreams, jeaousy, hate, envy, hope and the oh so overused "love". For all of us, the romancing of the angels and demons in our heads would be enough to complicate our lifetime and more.
There are times when I watch a movie wherein the main conflict involves the risk of losing one's "humanity", inside I hear myself laugh at our reverence for that word, as if it was actually a good thing. If humanity means anything, it is inconsistency. Our capacity for knowledge is only surpassed by our penchant to choose the exact opposite of what wisdom might dictate; our basic desires always keep our noble aspirations in check. We are not merely creatures of survival but creatures of war; with ourselves, with each other and with everything else. We are on the top and bottom of our own food chain.
Thinking about it, I wonder if there really is such a thing as human progress. Sure on a technological aspect that may be, but the essential question is not what tool the hand holds, but what kind of hand holds the tool. And if that point would hold true, then the fact that the tool changes is of no real consequence as to whether the user of the tool changes.
On the rare occasions I step out of my door to try and experience life once again, I realize it is quite a futile attempt if at first I do not step out of the doors within my own head. We hold ourselves prisoners, with almost arguably no chance of freedom without outside intervention. I have to find some way to get my mind right. I have to try. But I confess that these days I don't even think I want to, or even know if I should. But I do have some faith in a part of me, or rather a memory of me. That somehow, not so long ago, there was a person who believed in a few things worthy of some semblance of strength. He was a better man. I know it. And on this note, it may be wiser to live by the things he believed in than to be... whatever it is I am now.
....
"I cannot say whether things will get better if we change; what I can say is they must change if they are to get better." - George Lichtenburg
I used to think that I was the type to be satisfied with the simple things. These days, it's not so simple to determine what exactly is satisfying anymore. Over time, you learn to eye things with a certain feel of distrust . The elusiveness of a dream, the fleeting quality of happy moments, and the fragile nature of everything good in this lifetime all make us weary and suspicious of trying at all.
I have greatly considered that my problem is not with the way things are but with the way people are (myself included). Afterall, "Things don't change, but people do." Maybe things are still as simple as they can be but people have become too complicated for their own good. And oh how stupidly complicated we can become. So tangled are we in a mess of dreams, jeaousy, hate, envy, hope and the oh so overused "love". For all of us, the romancing of the angels and demons in our heads would be enough to complicate our lifetime and more.
There are times when I watch a movie wherein the main conflict involves the risk of losing one's "humanity", inside I hear myself laugh at our reverence for that word, as if it was actually a good thing. If humanity means anything, it is inconsistency. Our capacity for knowledge is only surpassed by our penchant to choose the exact opposite of what wisdom might dictate; our basic desires always keep our noble aspirations in check. We are not merely creatures of survival but creatures of war; with ourselves, with each other and with everything else. We are on the top and bottom of our own food chain.
Thinking about it, I wonder if there really is such a thing as human progress. Sure on a technological aspect that may be, but the essential question is not what tool the hand holds, but what kind of hand holds the tool. And if that point would hold true, then the fact that the tool changes is of no real consequence as to whether the user of the tool changes.
On the rare occasions I step out of my door to try and experience life once again, I realize it is quite a futile attempt if at first I do not step out of the doors within my own head. We hold ourselves prisoners, with almost arguably no chance of freedom without outside intervention. I have to find some way to get my mind right. I have to try. But I confess that these days I don't even think I want to, or even know if I should. But I do have some faith in a part of me, or rather a memory of me. That somehow, not so long ago, there was a person who believed in a few things worthy of some semblance of strength. He was a better man. I know it. And on this note, it may be wiser to live by the things he believed in than to be... whatever it is I am now.
....
"I cannot say whether things will get better if we change; what I can say is they must change if they are to get better." - George Lichtenburg
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Round 2
I kept telling myself that today I was going to put up a fight, and I wasn't going to be beaten. I kept thinking I just have to keep going forward, just keep breathing. I need to know that there is more in me than what my muscles can give me. That there's more in me yet, despite all the quiet dying. I needed something in me to hurt, quite badly. Sometimes, it's the only way to know you're alive.
Too much gone, too easily. But not today. Not today.
Today. I will win.
A small victory, but I will take it nonetheless.
....
"If you have always done it that way, it is probably wrong." -Charles Kettering
I kept telling myself that today I was going to put up a fight, and I wasn't going to be beaten. I kept thinking I just have to keep going forward, just keep breathing. I need to know that there is more in me than what my muscles can give me. That there's more in me yet, despite all the quiet dying. I needed something in me to hurt, quite badly. Sometimes, it's the only way to know you're alive.
Too much gone, too easily. But not today. Not today.
Today. I will win.
A small victory, but I will take it nonetheless.
....
"If you have always done it that way, it is probably wrong." -Charles Kettering