Only yesterday,
I was in the loving embrace of joy.
Sometimes even
in the tremors of sorrow.
Oft
In the throes of
a living, writhing anger.
And then some,
a rather desolate remorse.
Today,
Nothing that I feel
feels felt.
And everything that I feel
feels oddly compelled.
Emotions have but receded
overwrought,
overused,
spent.
Now I know.
And in this knowing,
I cannot feel
that which I long to
if only for a fleeting moment.
It's the knowing
that corrupts
what otherwise were simple
outbursts of ordinary humanity.
Any happiness I feel
seems vile,
defiled by the knowledge
of it being a mere
transient fulfillment.
Any sadness I feel
seems coerced;
shoved up to my face
as an excuse ripe for
the shame picking.
No one but me bears witness
to my own emotions,
no one but me creates them,
no one but me
can absolve myself of them
no one but me can control them.
Then why must I feel them
for my own benefit.
Is feeling an act
orchestrated by my own self
for me,
the audience?
Is the play,
the dialogue, the expression,
futile,
for the script
and the actor
are too well-known
to add anything
to the audience's discernment?
Is my emotion
then an ignorant
outburst
for my own sake,
in hopes that what I seek
outside
would turn inward
and seek me?
The mystery shrouded bride
has been unveiled
and her face etched
in the memory
of all who came
to the wedding.
Now whenever I feel,
I know why I feel.
And in this knowing,
I have taken down
the smokescreen of virgin white
that permitted me
to wonder if the
shadow on the screen was real.
Is this what absolute freedom tastes like?
Is knowledge the jinx that
burns my emotions at the stake?
Is emotion the anchor
that held me grounded
in a reality of the mortal?
Today,
I mourn
the loss of my emotions.
Tomorrow,
I shall celebrate the
freedom of my absolution.
And all this,
I shall do in candid philosophy.
Image Courtesy: Francesco Ungaro
"All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players;" - William Shakespeare
" I was ashamed of myself when I realized life was a costume party, and I attended with my real face". ~ Franz Kafka.
As several writers have eloquently put, our lives could be viewed as mere dramas enacted for another's benefit. We live our parts given the cards we're dealt or the script we're handed and play our way through it, in an almost dog-like reverence to the role. (If one is most loyal to anything in this world, it is one's own identity.)
However, the inherent assumption in this analogy is that we are unaware at any given moment of being an actor - thus, acting out our part is seemingly natural to us. What if this security of a veil between our self and our own identity were to come undone - would that be for the better or for the worse? If it were undone, would we then continue acting - would we continue to read the dialogues, feel the emotions and express ourselves if we knew that it were all an act?
A 100% of our lives take place inside our own heads. Of course, there maybe an input from the outer world, but even our perception of that input is determined by our minds. Which then means that any act we were to perform, emotion we were to feel, expression we were to create would be more for our benefit - caught in an infinite redirect loop - than for anyone else. In this case, would we even be able to act untainted?
And if we cannot continue to act, but are to continue to live in the same environment that perpetuates the need for a well-rehearsed drama, would we miss the acting or would we feel free of the very construct?
There's a release that comes with knowledge - the kinds that comes from within about your own self, rendering a lot of the basics necessities of play acting useless: namely emotions. But that too, is always accompanied by a myriad of questions and hopefully, answers.
This Sunday, I share a prose on this very dilemma with you, in hopes that you revisit yours.
Happy Sunday!