Monday, September 14, 2009
Nothing
No Pictures, No Evidence, No Nothing of the life I have lived for the past months or so. This is, in a way, the story of this summer in a nutshell. I loved the summer months, but no one will understand just how amazing it was to me. I lost many and gained few, and hell I learned so much. I, however, realized one factual detail about myself in the past few months. I have this concocted notion of how I like things, and how things should be and for some reason I never drift away from this notion. This has caused me to never truly enjoy something until its gone, or never to love while love is current. I never appreciate something enough until I have totally annihilated it. This is my problem, my drug, as if its a rush to get rid of something and then attempt to get it back although its been utterly mistreated. My punishment is working myself to death, maybe I will learn to enjoy the things I always take for granted when I have little or no time to preoccupy myself with them. No worries, next time I will throw myself into a situation without completely figuring out its beginning middle and end ... for now its gone.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I have had to fight a real bitterness; the one way i have been able to do so is to keep silent, not to speak back in anger or revenge; just take a deep sigh, and go on another day, trying to preserve at least a morsel of inner strength and integrity. I seem to be losing so much; yet this doesn't bother me as I have lost so much already, and my one comfort is within. Many have hurt me, even when they tried to help; many so dear to me, in their advice and friendship, heaped so much hurt, until there isn't anything left to hurt. Each person in his lifetime sees unpleasant faces and hears unpleasant voices. Perhaps one can only continue to be, continue to search for peace and harmony, while at the same time recognizing that life is unpredictable and uncertain. Fortune, sickness and death, failure and defeat, strange inner revolutions and upheavals come unexpectedly, unsolicited, unmotivated, unwarranted. When resources for self- discovery are exhausted, when a person realizes there is no consistent affirmation in his life with others, he sometimes searches the world around him for solace. At such moments,I have watched the movement of clouds on dark, foreboding days until blackness and the heavy rains engulfed me. I have walked in freezing weather until I felt the unrelenting cold everywhere in my body. On a hot summer day, lying quietly on my rooftop I have waited for the blazing sun to burn through me. I have felt a relatedness to the harsh rain the bitter cold and the searing heat. I have felt completeness in the clouds, in the sun, and in the snow. But soon the rain ceases; the sun departs; and the freezing cold is gone. And once again I am alone searching for the person within myself, the person I can continue to know and continue to be. At night I have watched the moon until its light radiates through me and, momentarily, I feel I have the answer to my universe, but the moon fades away and the light of our communion disappears. I have walked in the early winter mornings searching for growing life. In this silence I find tranquility and beauty. I find peacefulness in being quiet and being alone, but then the blizzard comes and snow covers the ground and the hours of communion in the ungodly hours come to an end. A year ago I moved to a damaged neighborhood--Bed-Stuy. Broken glass and paper littered the streets. Everywhere windows were covered and the sounds of decay ground in my ears. Yet in this ugliness I stopped to listen to the peaceful singing of the people, of the hood, of the animals. I found an industrial vacant lot located a few blocks away from my place. I entered the lot and remained silent for a long, long time, just sitting, sitting and waiting, attempting to experience tranquility within the lot, feeling completely comfortable and related to the dilapidated space. I felt a strange stirring, an inner warning that something dreadful and very important in my life was imminent. Then I remembered one dark afternoon when I was looking at old photos from Boston I saw images of a life at the call of others, serving, always serving. A life lived by habit, by routine, a life being lived without the full awareness of the meaning and significance of existence. Then suddenly the inner voice was quelled; the mood was darkened; the moment was gone. Who speaks? who enters the shadow? what does it all mean? So little real knowing! Only in brief times is the fully reality, the full human potential lived, only then is the being within its own soaring spirit, encountering life in all its fleeting, changing patterns. In times of tragedy I've experienced doubt and despair. I have known the awful feeling of hopelessness and numbness. I've realized that uncertainty the tentativeness, the provisional nature of human experience. Again and again the indelible aspects of the universe slip away. I engage in self-conscious thought and self-inquiry as a way of identifying myself, of maintaining my individuality in the face of shocking experience.
ReplyDelete