A colleague read what I had posted yesterday and innocently asked in her email to me, "Am I included in that list of friends you were going to reduce to ashes with your fury...?" I couldn't help feeling bad for a split second there, though I laughed it off as I replied her mail. I assured her that the poem was merely reflective of the burst of energy I had felt during the few minutes that I wrote it. It had to be released - and the poem was an outlet. And no - I had no intention of opening my "invisible third eye" to scorch anyone - not even those who infuriated me, let alone friends :).
I suppose, after all these years, I am finally learning to live in the now. It just so happened that the now during which I wrote that poem was the now that most people would never ever relate to, or view as remotely rational :).
But that's me - a woman of manifold emotions. Hardly the rational sort...
It's not been an easy journey thus far, I must admit. A journey of celebrating oneself - of the person within - hardly ever is. Not if you co-exist with people who always expect something more than what you could ever give.
This is a world filled mostly with people who do not know how to separate the real and the unreal. People who insist on you being the same at all times - without having the depth to see that we all don roles in lives in order to merely subsist. And that one role may not even show the smallest sign of being related to another - because that's how a role should be. It's like you step into a costume, act your role, slip out of it, and move on to the next costume. The costume may vary, but the "you" within that costume remains as you - the one who is true to the soul within you...that you live to celebrate.
How else can one continue living without losing one's originality, and eventually sanity? The option would of course be to immerse yourself in the role that when you slip out and move on, you cannot but carry with you traces of that role (even unknown to you) onto to your next one. A trace of this accumulates to that, and the one thereafter...until you one day become a little of each - but never really who you are within.
In my attempt to not lose the real me, I have lost the many unreal elements that surround my life. I don't view them as being unreal because they are any less important than I am. They are unreal to me simply because they rob me of the reality that I am. So, yeah...in the process of celebrating myself, I may be seen as snubbing the world. But that's really a view that's beyond me to offer an explanation to. All said and done, I know I don my roles well - to the best way that I know how - ensuring that the various groups dependent on my many roles are not deprived in any way of receiving what's rightfully theirs.
What I cannot offer is - more.
Yeah - that may sound as selfish as selfishness can ever be. But to me it just reads as being real. Being who I am within. Being one who is not less her self.
Selflessness is an overstated sentiment, as all extremities are. It's sad how people lose a part of who they are in the name of selflessness. I am not a saint to deny that the "I" in me isn't important to me. I am not concerned about how selflessness can offer me a better life in my next birth. I care not for what I cannot see as real. I shall live my next life when it comes - in the next life.
Spare me the spiritual rigmarole of "putting others above you". It's not for the creative soul that I am. I was never a fan of the once (upon a time) famous Ally McBeal, but I distinctly remember what the character Ally would say to her ex-lover when he asks why is it that only her (Ally's) problems matter - "Because they are mine"
What the society has made us to believe as selfless is hardly ever so. A true selfless person is he who lets go without even having to let it all go. To flow with life and to be in tune with the universe is what selflessness is all about - for you then live life as it takes you - without any concern for where the self goes and where it ends up in.
That's selflessness for you.
The above views are purely my own - they are not posted here to impose them on anyone. This blog is an outlet for the madwoman in me to ramble on without thinking - for I believe in the absence of thoughts comes answers.
I am merely seeking those answers - not consciously offering them to anyone. :)
I suppose, after all these years, I am finally learning to live in the now. It just so happened that the now during which I wrote that poem was the now that most people would never ever relate to, or view as remotely rational :).
But that's me - a woman of manifold emotions. Hardly the rational sort...
It's not been an easy journey thus far, I must admit. A journey of celebrating oneself - of the person within - hardly ever is. Not if you co-exist with people who always expect something more than what you could ever give.
This is a world filled mostly with people who do not know how to separate the real and the unreal. People who insist on you being the same at all times - without having the depth to see that we all don roles in lives in order to merely subsist. And that one role may not even show the smallest sign of being related to another - because that's how a role should be. It's like you step into a costume, act your role, slip out of it, and move on to the next costume. The costume may vary, but the "you" within that costume remains as you - the one who is true to the soul within you...that you live to celebrate.
How else can one continue living without losing one's originality, and eventually sanity? The option would of course be to immerse yourself in the role that when you slip out and move on, you cannot but carry with you traces of that role (even unknown to you) onto to your next one. A trace of this accumulates to that, and the one thereafter...until you one day become a little of each - but never really who you are within.
In my attempt to not lose the real me, I have lost the many unreal elements that surround my life. I don't view them as being unreal because they are any less important than I am. They are unreal to me simply because they rob me of the reality that I am. So, yeah...in the process of celebrating myself, I may be seen as snubbing the world. But that's really a view that's beyond me to offer an explanation to. All said and done, I know I don my roles well - to the best way that I know how - ensuring that the various groups dependent on my many roles are not deprived in any way of receiving what's rightfully theirs.
What I cannot offer is - more.
Yeah - that may sound as selfish as selfishness can ever be. But to me it just reads as being real. Being who I am within. Being one who is not less her self.
Selflessness is an overstated sentiment, as all extremities are. It's sad how people lose a part of who they are in the name of selflessness. I am not a saint to deny that the "I" in me isn't important to me. I am not concerned about how selflessness can offer me a better life in my next birth. I care not for what I cannot see as real. I shall live my next life when it comes - in the next life.
Spare me the spiritual rigmarole of "putting others above you". It's not for the creative soul that I am. I was never a fan of the once (upon a time) famous Ally McBeal, but I distinctly remember what the character Ally would say to her ex-lover when he asks why is it that only her (Ally's) problems matter - "Because they are mine"
What the society has made us to believe as selfless is hardly ever so. A true selfless person is he who lets go without even having to let it all go. To flow with life and to be in tune with the universe is what selflessness is all about - for you then live life as it takes you - without any concern for where the self goes and where it ends up in.
That's selflessness for you.
The above views are purely my own - they are not posted here to impose them on anyone. This blog is an outlet for the madwoman in me to ramble on without thinking - for I believe in the absence of thoughts comes answers.
I am merely seeking those answers - not consciously offering them to anyone. :)
Now, that's another "Ally McBeal" for you...LOL.
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