Unveiled

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!