Tag: loss

  • Release the bitterness

    Release the bitterness

    I often wonder how much good is denied to the world when love stories remain incomplete?

    We often see quotes reminding us that the next great discovery could be in the mind of a child labourer stuck working in a field.

    Similarly, how much beauty is wasted when treasured bonds are abandoned for reasons other than what exists between them? Beauty of which the world is in desperate need.

    Just as beauty is born of love, so too is bitterness born of loss.

    I wonder what of the troubles of this world is caused by broken hearts, rather than wilful greed?

    It is the sense of loss, or inadequacy in the eyes of those most cherished, that our worst behaviour comes to the fore.

    But there is value even in that.

    If not for still holding on to hope, such an expression of rage or harm would not have any purpose.

    It is only when we still have hope of our pain being consequential that we choose to share our discontent with the world.

    Therefore, it is not the raging lunatic that is most hurt, but the silent one who has no hope of being seen.

    Sometimes their silence is the build up to the storm of destruction that they need to unleash in their final attempt to be heard.

    But often, it’s the abandonment of dreams that perhaps the world really needed.

  • Live, and let die…

    Live, and let die…

    Sometimes, our setbacks in life can feel as if our world is coming to an end.

    In many ways, it does spell the end of a lifetime for us because we reach points where everything that we know to be true comes under question.

    Major life events like health issues that compromise our quality of life, divorce, death, or even losing a job all carry with it an impact that could easily derail all our hopes and dreams for the future.

    Choosing to hold on to the hurt, or the pain, or the sense of loss from such experiences doesn’t change the reality that it brought with it.

    Instead, holding on denies us the opportunity to grow from such experiences, and to continue to build that life that we set out to achieve.

    But what is there to learn from bad experiences?

    More than the lessons that it taught us about the shortcomings in decisions that we may have made, it is only in the presence of pain that the depth of joy can be appreciated.

    It is only through loss that we learn to appreciate what can be lost when we have it.

    When we experience loss or tragedy, or even disappointment and betrayal at the hands of others where we have no control over the outcomes despite our best efforts, we must recognise that it is a moment of grounding that will reshape what we take from life from that moment forward.

    If we’re not aware of the good that we can take, we will remain invested in the bitterness of the experience as we convince ourselves that remembering is the only way to protect ourselves from feeling such pain ever again.

    No. Remembering beyond the lesson learnt doesn’t protect us from such pain in future, it simply holds on to the pain of the past and denies us a future without it.

    Embrace the good, learn from the bad, and appreciate the present.

    Photo credit : Adobe Stock

  • A brain dump

    A brain dump

    Some find solace as the years progress. Some find love. Some find an emptiness where space was once held in hope for a significant other. My contemplations of which applies to me hold no sway any longer.

    Writing this post creates a delusion of its own. Although it could be interpreted as gratitude or reflection instead. Its true purpose and intent will always be hidden by the need of the moment. The need is seldom true to the act. Or is that the other way around?

    A brain dump is supposed to offload that which is clutter and of little value to hold on to. It’s supposed to create space for peace and calm, while ridding me of the noise of busyness and inconsequence. It does neither tonight.

    Tonight it serves as a search for truth. A search for discerning between illusions, delusions, and reality. It’s a tiresome search. To know sincerity from pretence, value from utility, acceptance from tolerance, or love from contempt. The guarded are always the most painful to navigate, and the most expensive to maintain.

    In contemplating all of this, I find the fight slowly leaving my soul. This time, seeking to know the difference between wisdom and surrender threatens to disembowel a fragile peace that has accompanied my soul through the storms, until now. But its fragility grows meek and is left wanting in the face of fresh onslaughts.

    The battle for sanity, or for space grows tedious. That it is a battle at all is telling in itself. What should be a natural state of calm, accentuated on occasion by disruption, is reversed. The calm only visits in isolation, and isolation leaves a disruption in my soul. Peace finding no place in either, isolation or association.

    At times, it feels like life has been a perpetual midlife crisis. That constant search for purpose, or to reconnect with moments past. The questioning of direction, and the conundrum of what action would be most beneficial towards the fluid goals that suggest an abatement in the storm. Drop the mid from midlife and suddenly the scene is much more accurately described.

    Are lighthouses ever decommissioned – wilfully decommissioned to allow it a period of graceful rest before its ultimate fall? Or is it expected to serve until it finally succumbs to the erosion of the lifelong yelping of the waves at its feet? No one tries to calm the waves, or to cause the shore to recede. But those who notice share a passing politeness as a token gesture of appreciation for the guiding beacon that is offered.

    In many ways, I’ve often felt like a road sign. That critical point at which informed decisions are made by those who encounter it, but whose decisions always lead them away from it. Beyond the lighthouse, I think this is a metaphor that most accurately resonates with the life crisis that I’ve endured. But like lighthouses, road signs are also never willingly decommissioned, except when they become redundant. Otherwise, they’re left to their own devices for as long as they serve a purpose until eventually being replaced with a more purposeful one.

    There’s a haunting irony in awakening the soul to the reality that surrounds. While it raises attention to the ephemeral nature of life and love, prompting one to appreciate with intensity its beauty before it passes, it also awakens one to the cold faces of the oblivious. The empty hugs, and empty stares. The vacuous efforts at validation and the consumerist indulgences of privilege. Leaving no human contact behind. Only human consumption.

    Some exhaust themselves in wishing for times passed. Others deplete their resources in trying to capture the present moment. But many, like me, are in search of the fast-forward button to bring this charade to a final and quiet end.

    No more chasing.

    No more hoping.

    No more wanting.

    No more needing.

    The end of expectation and the arrival of certainty.

    It seems I have yet to earn the acquisition of such mercy. To know with certainty that you are seen. That you are heard. That you are loved. Not because of what they can get from you, but because of who you are beyond social standing, or relative placement in their lives. Expecting this from the oblivious is nothing more than self-harm. But trying to subdue such expectations is nothing more than an effort at being inhuman.

    Perhaps in that lies the ultimate conundrum. Seeking to connect with your humanness so that once you do, you are left with the desolate scape of solitude as you realise that there are no humans looking to connect with your humanness. It’s like flipping the big switch that turns on every fascination of a world harbouring untold beauty, but being rooted to the spot perfectly positioned to only see but not touch such beauty.

    The fight is slowly leaving my soul. And with each passing moment, the reality that it doesn’t matter, not now, never before, nor ever, is destroying every romantic notion I’ve ever embraced. The tree that falls silently in the forest disrupts no lives.

  • To give up silently

    To give up silently

    “When you give up on something, it becomes a weighty silence that you carry within you for the rest of your life.

    It’s a quiet acceptance that what once was the centre of your being will never be a part of your being again.

    The silence is the only gesture that will honour such loss, such surrender.

    And when anyone asks, if they even know to ask, all you can muster as a response is a sheepish grin and an involuntary shrug, hoping to appear nonchalant enough to hide the pain and the shame that you struggled with in the tortured darkness all those lonely, distraught nights.

    That’s how the light fades, and the dullness replaces the enthusiasm that once defined your spirit.

    Only, there’s no one looking close enough to notice. So your shame remains safe, and your heart, incomplete.”

    Another excerpt from the manuscript threatening to bleed out of my heart and onto the keyboard.

    From the sequel to my novel, this is a piece that may make it into my next novel titled, Taqdeer: A dance with destiny.

    Photo credit : Adobe Stock

  • Exhale

    Exhale

    Breathing becomes laboured when I’m not sure if I want to hold something in, or let it out. Expressing my disappointment at the events that appear to be in an incessant loop feels like an indulgence in futility. I’ve expressed such disappointment before, yet, here we are. Staring each other in the face again.

    The cloying saturation of feigned optimism on social media leaves me wretching from the fake sweetness of it all. I feel a need to speak without restraint, but even that appears futile. Some may assume that such expression will at least rid me of the madness that stirs within. If only it was that easy to contend with the madness.

    The inconsistent flow of inspiration abandoned and its abandonment then inspiring me to write, and then discard, and then to restart what once was to be writ creates the taunting tinny tone in my ears that time seems to intensify, rather than subdue. Time doesn’t always heal. Sometimes, it mocks and jibes and laughs as I wait expectantly for it to harbour some relief of the madness that it nurtured.

    Breathing is laborious when it holds no promises, but promises only lies. Deciphering the one leads to the other, and abandons me somewhere between the two, leaving me spent in the past, yearning in the present, and disillusioned about the future. I exhale, deeper than I inhale, feeling faint, but the toxins still firmly lodged within. They won’t leave anymore. The process of eviction and welcoming them back after each cycle seems to point to the pointlessness of them leaving at all.

    Exhale. It holds so much expectation. As if the release of what is spent will create spaces for what is new. But jadedness turns new into old, and old into oblivion before either sets foot in the soil of my soul. The ramblings of this madman persist in cryptic notes understood by few, appreciated by even less, and ignored by all.

    The blessing of anonymity is compounded for one who is anomalous. Between the two, fading into the distance blends naturally with the landscape of a life soon forgotten, and love that never was. But, we must exhale if we hope to create space for the end that awaits. Holding my breath only delays the inevitable, yet I continue to ignore the writing on the wall, instead focusing on the written notes discarded by the fears that lifetimes before me have spawned.

    Fear. The ultimate destroyer of hope, and the aborter of dreams. It creates more heartache than loss ever did.

  • Pursuit of servitude

    Pursuit of servitude

    I once asked myself a simple question when I left corporate to follow a new path. What do you do when you’re done with the world, but the world is not done with you? The two and a bit years that followed answered this question many times over, each time with an intensity greater than the last.

    The answer appears to be very different from what I was expecting. Initially, I assumed that perhaps the world I thought I was done with was not my world at all. And so I set out to create the world, my world, that I thought was truer to my purpose in life.

    Yet, here I am, contemplating again if this is really the world that I wanted to create for myself. When faced with the evidence of the sum total of my efforts, there are two ways in which I could respond. I could be generous and assume that I am still learning and therefore falling short of my goals is an inevitable part of that journey. Or, I could be brutally honest and recognise that perhaps my assumption of being able to claim a world for myself was born in arrogance.

    The question that therefore needs to answered is not what to do with the world that may be done with me, but rather, what will it take to recognise my place in this world that is larger than I’ll ever be?

    To know my place has always been the greatest mystery. There’s a combination of understanding who I am and what purpose I serve to others that continues to escape me. On both counts. My understanding of myself remains a well kept secret, and as for my purpose, I’ve always pursued roles of servitude. Therefore, any consideration beyond that continues to be a mystery.

    My world must therefore be defined by that which demands my contribution. The moment I claim a recompense, I outstay my welcome and violate my purpose. The end result will therefore be inevitably unpleasant. Perhaps the question that I’ve been asking is the wrong question.

    But, the answer lies in asking the right question. And if peace is associated with that answer, then it stands to reason that peace, along with my understanding of my place in that world, will continue to be an answer whose question I have yet to grasp.

    Cryptic thoughts for a cryptic life. And peace has no part in it.

  • A walk…and a bit

    A walk…and a bit

    I stepped on the treadmill today. It’s not my favourite pastime, but I did it anyway. At first, I recalled the time, many years ago, when I first attempted it and found myself winded in less than 3 minutes. I was still working in corporate. Life was lifeless, and purpose was found in servitude.

    I travelled a lot since then. Mostly business travel. Staring down at the footplate of the treadmill, I found myself walking those streets again. The back roads of Nice, a short throw from the plush touristy area, the plaster was flaking off the walls of the apartment buildings, and the empty plots were unkempt and overgrown with weeds.

    Then the cramped sidewalks of London, with its scarcity of smiles and less warmth to offer than its weather. I walked quietly through the neighbourhoods, distant from the bustling centre of wealth, and saw hints of warm homes and affectionately adorned window sills. The cold mist reminded me of my estranged nature in such scenes.

    The quiet, unnatural streets of Jubail crept into view next, with fallen, premature dates melted and smeared into the sidewalk, and the mocking smiles from the police officers revealing their revolting oral hygiene. The thick air, laden with humidity and a scorching breeze choking me up as the treadmill continued its whine as I journeyed my way to the next city.

    Tunis, with a touch of warmth, an uncanny sense of safety, and humility in large doses, prompted a hint of a smile as I recalled strange encounters with strange people. The trip on the metro passing Mandela’s stop, and the beautiful voices of the children singing their songs in Arabic each morning as I waited for the train to arrive. Probably the only wistful recollection of my time there.

    The walk to China Town in Singapore, or to the Indian quarters, clinically clean and oddly cold. Buddhist temples and expensive shopping malls crowding all the open spaces, and cliques of old folks line dancing in the parks without a hint of interest in the rhythm to which they danced. Everything so detached and robotic, as if celebrating the privilege but disconnected from the experience.

    And of course, traipsing the steps and the hills and tunnels of Monaco. Walking the length and course of the grand prix circuit, delighting myself like a little child as I recognised the bends and the straights from my hours on the PlayStation. But just as soon, the delight would fade to a subdued smile, and then nothing. Just a sigh.

    You’re never lonely if you like the one you’re alone with, or so they say. So they say. An hour later, still barely exhausted from the spirited walk through my daydreams, duty interrupted my moments in foreign cities, each echoing the solitary nature of my life, and the isolation of my spirit. The photos and stories shared with others later on never compensated for the absence of one to share it with.

    But, peace comes slowly and silently when we learn to embrace the inevitability of our lives, rather than yearning for what never was despite our best efforts. The sweat pouring down my face stung my eyes a little more than the subdued tears, as I realised the futility of tears that are left to dry on their own.

    It was a long walk on that treadmill today. But there are still many streets to explore in stillness and isolation. Wanderlust has departed, and in its place it left a quiet composure of knowing that nothing more should be expected of what lies ahead. The weariness is finding its home in the same alcoves that were just recently filled with more. But it is an alcove and not a treasure chest. What visited briefly never intended to stay.

    Thus, expectations are recalibrated, and life…life remains a stranger that prefers the company of others. Exhale.

  • A bitter ache

    A bitter ache

    Just as beauty is born of love, so too is bitterness born of loss.

    I wonder what of the troubles of this world is caused by broken hearts, rather than wilful greed?

    It is the sense of loss, or inadequacy in the eyes of those most cherished, that our worst behaviour comes to the fore.

    But there is value even in that.

    If not for still holding on to hope, such an expression of rage or harm would not have any purpose.

    It is only when we still have hope of our pain being consequential that we choose to share our discontent with the world.

    Therefore, it is not the raging lunatic that is most hurt, but the silent one who has no hope of being seen.

    Sometimes their silence is the build up to the storm of destruction that they need to unleash in their final attempt to be heard.

    But often, it’s the abandonment of dreams that perhaps the world really needed.