The Recoiling Whip

 

Poetry and art, they say, are not to be explained.

They are to be understood and interpreted as the viewer pleases.

If explained, they cease to be poetry or art as they turn into a prose that is as much a narrative.

Life too swings on this balance - on one hand when logic strikes and makes us see everything as right and wrong, left or right, black or white; while on the other, we see life as an emotional essence that needs to be felt - unexplainable and uninterpretable. 

Then there is also the grey line between that black and the white... the crossroads at which we often st(r)and. Where pieces of the puzzle we try to solve, the riddle that we must resolve, the maze through which we fix our gaze - all seems to fall right in place. This is a God forsaken land where only truth triumphs, where one is true to their own self, where the exchanges that happened did so in the quiet darkness of our souls - the mutely comfortable point where remotely isolated truth gets segregated from the bashful lies - even if it cannot be proclaimed loud. The fantasies - implored and explored - every thought that could possibly bring an unstoppable mischievous smile. The facade.

Companion is a partner with whom your secrets are safer than it would be if it were with you; a person who judges not yet is excited and looks forward to hear and share about what one experiences; a soulmate with whom one can share thoughts and thoughtlessness as if one were speaking through a mirror. Mirrors are fragile and tend to break... still, reflections are as needed as a companion. When the journey into the next wilderness continues, away from explored and more accustomed paths, the vulnerability of being broken (yet again) does creep up like a recoiling whip. Yet, it moves...  

Who Said So

Cicero's (106 - 43 BC) philosophy: 

1. The poor: work and work, 

2. The rich:  exploit the poor, 

3. The soldier: protects both, 

4. The taxpayer: pays for all three, 

5. The wanderer: rests for all four, 

6. The drunk: drinks for all five, 

7. The banker: robs all six, 

8. The lawyer: misleads all seven, 

9. The doctor: kills all eight, 

10. The undertaker: buries all nine, 

11. The Politician: lives happily on the account of all ten. 

"Can we quantify 'God'?" seems to be the thought I am troubled with as I wonder deep within... "Should I be quantifying God?" However, everyone wants to build definitions; rigorously working towards containing everything into a small box of their understanding as I stand in vain knowing that the unlimited need not be/cannot be brought into our spectrum of limitations and limited undersatnding... yet the crowd moves. They push and push like a woman in labour and somehow I am pushed too and commit the sin of indulging to do the same as well; knowing well that what I attempt cannot be done having done it more than once in the past too and having the lesson well. Yet, I move along...

I wonder from where comes this desire to try one more time and feel like a fool later on? For uttering words that cannot be taken back; yet I vomit! To regret like a complete idiot for not holding on to silence and bearing with others who are taking the same course that I had taken once. Why does regret come in first and why is patience delayed? 

Someone said that not quantifying God and resting with "Thathuvam' asi" was a sign of laziness. I got irritated. "Why?" I asked myself. If I was at peace then from where arrived this sudden discomfort to rob me of my sanity? I was digging in deeper not wanting to be disturbed one more time, the next time. Complacency disturbed, disrupted, destroyed... I was wondering how well closed I had become in the attempt to open up; jumping from one box right into another. Am I thinking different or is my thinking different? Why are people who think different so alone... (so lonely)?! So am I deliberating mediocre thoughts to belong? Is that where I really want to belong? 

Am I in a place where everything has to be something as I see nothing in it? Are we trying to be smarter or are we trying to show that we are smarter? Why do I talk like a crack pot and realize it too? Having learnt that action speaks louder than words and knowing that silence is golden, why can't I simply shut up and why am I trying to articulate better to survive? So, is the need to survive blocking my vision of existence? 

Does thoughtlessness expose emptiness or does it expose the epitome of nirvana? Why am I disturbed if I knew what peace was once? Why did I slip? Why do I fall? Am I losing myself in the middle of nowhere yet again and searching my soul yet again... knowing well that unless you lose yourself you can't find yourself... Am I lost yet again?! Duh!... As I watch the world pass by from my glass window, I wonder why does it shatter me within (that I try not to let anyone else see) when someone shatters the window pane? Do I fear getting out into the crowd 'I think' I have analysed for long or disturbed that someone shattered the thin line that separated the "me" from "them"? Why am I not me? If I really believed in nothing, then why do I believe in me? Why do I want to be me? Do I really have to be me...? and for that matter anyone I want to be or not to be?

"Lord, thee I dare not contain with my critical thinking-unquantified, unshaped and unconditionally loved thus-in your unlimited vastness I submit me, shape me as you desire (I need not even ask thee)... it is thine I want to be and with faith as blind as can be I move, let each step be a step towards thee."

p.c: http://noorimages.com/feature/the-lost-years/afghanistan-mazar-sharif-women-begging-by-road/