Certainty is such a mirage. Predictability convinces me that I have stability, but when the disruption comes, I realise that I was simply taking comfort from probabilities. But that’s what life is about, isn’t it? The probability of everything. The probability of good fortune keeps us chasing and the probability of death stops us in our tracks. The present moment is invested in whatever we believe those probabilities to be.
Sometimes life is so curiously challenging that death looks like a welcome break from the norm. The consistency of struggles and the ease that follows. After each cycle, the struggle that follows the ease is what I preempt, and I lose sight of the ease when I have it. That’s how my tolerance and my tenacity wears down. What doesn’t kill you certainly makes you more brittle. I often feel the brittleness creeping in.
Clarity of thought has been elusive. Moments of inspiration and conviction form and then flee and then form and then flee. Is this what menopause must feel like for a woman? The tease of comfort followed by the taunt of its ugly sister?
I need to revisit my timeline from before seven years ago. That was the last time I wrote anything that continues to resonate with me now. There were a few isolated thoughts that I scribed in between, but nothing worth revisiting in the awkward silence before bedtime. The silence that flirts with the failures of the day and caresses the hopes of tomorrow.
There was a time when I thought in prose. The vivid nature of the imagery my words conjured in my mind before leaving my body used to offer me some respite from the madness of me. Now it simply echoes it. My echo chamber is empty. It doesn’t even taunt me with my own whispers any more.
I’m always on the brink of something amazing. Then I watch an enthralling movie and contemplate the genius of the mind behind the story while questioning the value of my ramblings in its shadow. I need to abandon the legend in my mind before my story will find its own path. I pause at intersections for too long these days. I used to choose a path the moment those intersections came into view, yet now that contemplation continues for much longer after my arrival at that point. Something is amiss and I suspect the answer lies in what is amiss. How do you find an answer that is hidden in the question?
Late night ramblings or early morning hopes carry the same burden of promise and anticipation. Its fulfilment lies in the fading tenacity and resilience of the rambler and thus appear like an iridescent mirage flirting with the horizon but never reaching out. Opportunity rarely reaches out. It most often sits in the shadows waiting expectantly while not revealing any clues of its willingness to be courted or wedded. It’s an obstinate grunt that shuns the smiles of my hope while grabbing my ankles as soon as I turn to walk away towards the next intersection.
This grid of madness grows more uncomfortable each day. Am I the village idiot? The one who has a place and a purpose, but never a captive audience, only a fleeting joy passed on to others while my own cup remains unfilled. Or is that the ingratitude that stifles my progress? The pretense of generosity of spirit that cloaks the need for celebration. I’m not alone in such pretences. I see you, clearer than you see me. But I see me reflected in you and I find it distasteful, that my recognition of your weakness is a reminder that I must know such weakness first to recognise it in you.
This city of solitude is quiet in all the wrong spaces, and rowdy where it matters least.