I wear masks, and create elaborate façades hoping that no one will see through them, but keep praying that someone will.
Cynically Jaded (via cynicallyjade)
Tag: love
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Looking for Inspiration
I once walked into a yard that sold raw materials like natural stone and treated timber that I was looking at for a DIY project I had feeble intentions of building. When the owner approached me, I simply smiled and said, “I’m just looking for inspiration.” He laughed and walked away. I often set out wanting to do something, having an idea, or sometimes just a concept in my head, and then letting it dwell in the back of my mind waiting for inspiration to strike. Sometimes, it comes from nowhere, but recently, it hardly comes at all.
I’ve enjoyed only bursts of energy and enthusiasm recently, with the days in between being real challenges. This afternoon I set back and wondered how many others become complacent about their misery by convincing themselves that if anyone else had been contending with what they have to deal with, they’d fall to pieces or kill themselves. I’m guilty of the same self-destructive smugness. I look at the problems of a teenager reeling from the betrayal of lustful love threatening never to love again, and wanting to destroy herself and everyone in the process, and I smile. That same smug smile that leads to me forgetting how relative everything is. Just because I’ve endured more in quantity doesn’t imply that the intensity of my agony was any greater than hers.
But I need this insensitive comparison to make myself feel better about my own self-loathing. I sway from being convinced that I deserve nothing better to knowing that I’m just too amazing to be discovered by mediocre meddlers. But that’s really what many people are. Meddlers. They meddle in various aspects of their lives, looking for inspiration, but never committing to anything because they’re waiting for someone to appreciate them first. The excess we commit in our natural disposition as social beings is in our penchant for wanting to feel loved before we love, being appreciated before we express gratitude, or receiving before we consider giving.
I heard someone say today that a veil exists between this world and heaven. I think that our struggles, our principled endeavours and our consistent striving towards our noble ambitions is what tears away at that veil. If you don’t believe in heaven, then consider that veil to be all that prevents you from achieving your utopian ideals, whatever they may be. My search for inspiration will never abate. But it will be more joyous if accompanied by one that cools my eyes, but warms my spirit. So I wait patiently, living with conviction, but no expectations, only hope that some day soon my garment will arrive in all her splendour to finally caress the dreams I so painstakingly nurture to keep the jaded me at bay.
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Still
Still…Is how my heart no longer beats for you
These demons, they thrive because of you
Still…Ravaged by the betrayal of you
Yearning for that which was never to be with you
Still…Can’t believe what I saw was not you
The silence of the night is noisy without you
Still…A stranger in this world just like you
I continue to ache at the thought of you
Still…I think of you…wistfully
Although you’ve earned not much more than scorn from me
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Because She Would Ask Me Why I Loved Her
If questioning would make us wise
No eyes would ever gaze in eyes;
If all our tale were told in speech
No mouths would wander each to each.Were spirits free from mortal mesh
And love not bound in hearts of flesh
No aching breasts would yearn to meet
And find their ecstasy complete.For who is there that lives and knows
The secret powers by which he grows?
Were knowledge all, what were our need
To thrill and faint and sweetly bleed?Then seek not, sweet, the “If” and “Why”
I love you now until I die.
For I must love because I live
And life in me is what you give.~ Christopher Brennan (1870-1932)
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Untethered
For me, loving another is loving the essence of their flaws and seeing the defective beauty in it as the most attractive of their charms. Finding their deepest imperfections to be perfectly imperfect. Seeing their weaknesses counter-balanced with my strengths, and their strengths complementary to my own, for I have no weaknesses when embraced by one I love. Only strength. An untethered horse is an unloved horse. It’s in being needed that I flourish. Not a neediness of responsibility, but one of desire. The greatest act to ravage the soul of a man is the denial of closure. Nothing destroys more than not knowing why.
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Me
I’m at odds with life. I’m the most responsible person you’ll probably ever meet, but also the most child-like at heart, but I’m not a child. I’ve resisted every effort by others to force me into a box so that I would be easier for them to deal with, but I’m not a rebel. Especially not one without a cause. But I am rebellious.
I resist meeting the expectations of others for the sake of conformance or maintaining some balance in the predictability of society. But I also play my role to ensure a social balance. I don’t see rules and limits, only principles and reason. And despite the amount of life in my years, I’m still grappling with how little I know of myself.
And then I look without, after focusing within for too long, and I notice how most others are oblivious to these truths about themselves. So I wonder if it’s reasonable to expect them to notice these truths about me? I want to be known, intimately, but most never look close enough to notice enough to know enough to appreciate me the way I would them. But that is the trigger for the vicious cycle that spares me any meaningful connection with others, because in realising this, I withdraw, withhold, and wither.
It’s not that I haven’t tried. No. In fact, I have tried often enough to have rightfully earned the label of being naively daft! But my child-like naivety prompts my obstinacy to resist any efforts to make me behave boringly. Predictably. So in my resistance, I’ve nurtured my passion that waits patiently to love ferociously a worthy subject, but instead I’ve only secured my isolation.
P.S. Just noticed that this was my 500th post. 🙂
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The Fruit of Betrayal
Betrayal seems to be at the heart of 95% of all cases of mental ‘illness’. When I reflect on my life, especially the low points in my life, betrayal in some form or another was the driving force behind me not wanting to go on. But this betrayal was not always blatant, nor was it always a result of a romantic relationship.
Being betrayed by someone you love as a soul mate or companion in life just simply makes you want to kill, or die, or kill first and then die! But so often we seek affirmation from our partners to make up for the insecurities established in ourselves through interactions with a much broader audience of significant others, that I believe betrayal by a lover or partner is so much more hurtful and destructive, because we expose our fragility that much more.
But more often than not, the betrayal that is likely to set the wheels in motion for a healthy dose of mental ‘illness’ is experienced much earlier in life. Sometimes, I believe, it’s as early as when we’re still toddlers just growing into our conscious states. I often test my rationale around this by observing babies because that is the most innocent and sincere state any person can ever be in. They act purely out of instinct and respond entirely based on their inherent nature without having been tainted by life yet. While they may be selective about who they allow to cuddle them and comfort them, they nonetheless respond to those affections without restraint. But when they are shunned in deliberate ways by the care givers that they naturally expect such affection from, it starts building the sub-conscious processes required to protect themselves from such harshness which eventually manifests as defence mechanisms or survival instincts. The more the pattern is maintained throughout childhood and into adolescence, the more deeply ingrained this sense of emotional starvation becomes.
I think that the earlier in life that these experiences occur, the greater the chances are for teenagers and adults to be diagnosed with mental illnesses that seemingly have no direct correlation to their life’s experiences. For this reason, I believe that reflection and honest, sincere introspection is the greatest weapon we can employ in avoiding such a pitfall. But society seems to enforce the idea that unless you’re affirmed by others, you’re wrong or worthless. So in this process of reflection, we judge ourselves based on our perception of what is or is not appreciated by others and use that as a benchmark against which to determine our self-worth.
(Just some random thoughts I needed to write down)