Slowly.
So slow it didn't seem like such a big deal at first - I cut one rope, then the next.
Never really knowing how many I had left. Just a desire to remove.
I'll take an aside here to say, I know I'm talking about a lot of abstracts and metaphors here. Stay with me.
>>> cut/cut/cut
I thought the only way I could learn to be a better person was to remove the excess.
Slice and hack away at outdated beliefs. Superstitions.
Anything that didn't serve me to be better. Anything that held me back from progressing as a thinker. As a writer. As a person. Anything that clouded my judgment had to go.
The more I cut, the more I kept finding.
Always, layered underneath, these old undesired parts of my character hiding away. What did I believe that wasn't inherited from some past belief or circumstance of history? What did Rene really care about? What do I believe in? What do I want to be? My life seemed to be false understandings masquerading as Truths, until I began to believe there wasn't anything left of me that was real.
But those old ropes were my safety. The links to my family, history, city, state, country, god, dreams, masculinity, and self. Whatever perspective held me down also used to be an old comfort. They gave me answers to questions I couldn't know. They made me feel secure in this infinite mystery of existence. Protected me from the fear of ignorance, even if by giving me a different ignorance instead.
I wish, mostly in my weaker moments, that I could turn back to those old comforts, but I can't.
I know.
I learned how dangerous it is to put a knife to an old belief.
There is no way back. Imagine trying to re-believe in Santa.
When you sever yourself from a tie like family or religion, or masculinity, there is no way to re-thread it. They become cut forever. Having been proven to be brittle. Frayed. Devoid of old power.
And the magic of those bindings are equal parts safety and danger. Some of us protected by it. Some strangled. Because their power is in fear. Without them I became alone to face my fears of the unknown, my fears of humanity and existence alone.
And the more we have to fear, the more we need and the more necessary those bindings become. Clinging tighter to something that felt real but is daily slipping.
...
So to my nights (if you are following from the last post) when my mind is buzzing in thoughts and sleep won't come and the dark room seems filled with my memories. And I want to reach for past comforts, but dead prayers don't get answered.
There is an out. Understanding is the knife. The knife is freedom. Yes, there is fear in my freedom. What do I cling to when drift is stormy and the path is dark? When I have nothing but my own voice to answer to? But fear doesn't have to be bad.
You can drift. If you want.
I know. I learned.
So I try to imagine a quiet.
I imagine floating above myself. Free of sound. Free of smell. Free of taste. Only seeing the bed below and the body I've come through the world with and float higher into the night air looking down on the smallness of that bed and the shadow of person left lying.
For a long time it might seem that I am floating in the empty dark, but further still in this meditation, are all the stars and planets. All moving alone like me in to the infinite dark.
Somewhere in that strange dark imagining. There is music. There are words. There is mystery and answers. Cold, sterile, beautiful answers.
Answers that come from no-where.
Thoughts that bubble and fade.
Everything is
alone
together
in this natural, terrifying beauty.
-rene
ps. as always like, share, subscribe and if you want to talk you can reach me on this blog, youtube, facebook and twitter. Also my new website ReneTheWriter.
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