Tag: soul mates

  • A sacred trust

    A sacred trust

    Mark Twain once said something about there being two days that are important in your life. The day you’re born, and the day you find out why. I think there’s a third day that matters as much as the other two. The day you realise that your why only matters to you, and no one else.

    There’s a sacred trust that is unspoken but governs the hearts of everyone. That trust is created in moments when we honour our why in servitude of others. Everyone has this inclination. To serve as best as they can, to honour that trust that no one speaks of.

    A rare few, or perhaps more than that, invest that servitude in those who are true to their why. In return, the trust is fulfilled, but still unspoken. The only evidence of its fulfilment is the fulfilment they feel when their sincere servitude is honoured in kind.

    But what of those who invested it in ones who dishonour their why? Worse still, what if your why is to give hope to those who have given up hope in themselves?

    The ones in need of hope grab at the hints of its arrival without any concern for its origin. It is not the being attached to the outstretched hand that matters. Only what that hand contains.

    In that moment of giving, when something is gained by the hopeless, something is lost by the hopeful. Until eventually, the scale tips beyond its balance, and the hopeful become the hopeless. That’s when that sacred trust is broken, often beyond repair.

    Without trust, all that’s left is faith. Faith denies us the right to give up. Caught between the absence of trust, fading hope, and a fragile faith, the struggle of being human is born. And in that desecrated space, angels and demons are formed.

    If there is enough hope left in the cup, it fuels the endeavour to remain true to our why. But if the cup of hope is empty, faith settles in quietly, hope exits gracefully, and trust is abandoned, finally. Leaving the one caught in that conflict feeling conflicted, painfully aware of the emptiness that the tainted sanctity of that trust left, while knowing that faith always demands more.

    Perhaps faith is not our saving grace from the trials of life. Perhaps faith itself is the trial.

  • Bitter Sweet

    Bitter Sweet

    One thing I could never relate to was the experience of shedding tears of joy. Not the tears that are spontaneously released at the end of a harrowing experience, but the tears that fall out of joy at the sound of good news or because of an unexpected blessing unrelated to a difficulty. The release of tears as an expression of emotion has always fascinated me. Despite my general disposition of feeling things very deeply, and having a keen sense of the emotional space that others may be in, that volume of reference material, so to speak, does not appear to have informed my emotional frame of reference to allow me the ability to spontaneously shed tears of joy.

    Is it a deficiency or is it simply my nature? That has never been an easy question to answer because answering requires a definition of what normal is. For the most part, I don’t think that there is an emotional normal. Perhaps a relatable frame of reference is all that we have to work with, but we don’t engage with others around frames of reference. We engage on emotion.

    Perhaps I am jaded. Who am I kidding? Perhaps has nothing to do with it. Jaded I am, but pessimistic I am not. So I still expect good outcomes, but I’m also painfully aware of the bad outcomes just waiting to occur.

    I’m suddenly reminded of the scene from Hancock with Will Smith and Charlize Theron where they grow closer to each other and lose their immortality. Finding such comfort in each other weakened them while remaining apart strengthened them. That same threat appears to haunt the fearful romantics. The ones that cherish the thought of a perfect companionship but find every reason to believe that they are not worthy of it. The threat of being disemboweled should such perfection be ripped away causes many to recede and play it safe instead.

    I can relate to such bitter sweet moments. Moments when you look into someone’s eyes and see the comforting joy that they feel, only to see it brushed away by their fears of losing such joy if it were to be embraced. Moments when the expectations that society places on us to be perceived a certain way conflicts with what we want for ourselves. Be true to ourselves and risk isolation, or deny ourselves and enjoy an uneasy inclusion? The bitterness of such choices often snuff out the sweetness of what it offered, but we are inclined to believe in probabilities before we believe in hope.

    The bitter sweet moments are many. They’re reflected in moments when you connect with another soul but realise that you’re only a decade or more too late. Or the time that you suddenly grasped the charm of a given act, but the one who charmed you in that way left a long time ago out of frustration or rejection because you may have been distracted. Or the moment when two damaged souls connect, but pull away because neither sees the damage of the other, but only the damage within themselves and think the other to be deserving of better.

    It is safer to recede and take the path of mediocrity, even in love, because mediocrity offers a real chance of tasting happiness or comfort, or even success. It’s the acceptance of half a loaf of bread in case you end up with none. But it also limits the experience of life to half measures and half truths. The other half that is left unfulfilled demands distractions and superficial indulgences to complete you, but such indulgences only distract you from the void but never fills it.

    It’s a sure way to fade away while waiting for that perfect moment to arrive. Equally so, embracing the hope of fulfilment could kill you a thousand times before the kindred one comes along, if ever. Living with such hope is foolhardy to some, but non-negotiable for others. Bitter sweet. No guarantees. That’s life.

  • Soul Mates

    That dreamy look you get when someone walks into the room can mean only one thing. Your soul mate has arrived. The way they smile, the way they shift their gaze down and left with that reflective look before they answer, or the way they throw their head back when they let out a hearty laugh leaves you weak at the knees. Carefully caressing every movement of theirs with your gaze, their sigh becomes your sigh and their embrace becomes your completion.

    Such deep surrender can only be possible with a soul mate. It cannot be explained any other way, right? Of course it can, but in that moment of desire, logic escapes us and the loins take over where love pretends to play. But it’s not a singular desire that drives us to lose sight of reality and suddenly abandon our faculties in favour of love, sweet love. That would be far too simple a neanderthal response to explain why such sophisticated beings as ourselves suddenly drool with desire when the brain fog sets it.

    We go through life savouring successes, even tiny ones, bravely rising from each setback that befalls us. With each rising we muster a portion of renewed hope, a smattering of new wisdom, and a lowly regret that we tuck away neatly because it doesn’t quite complete the picture that we now present to the world. That’s the image of composed resilience that won’t be stifled. It would be fantastic if that cycle came around only once, but it doesn’t. It comes around more often than we’d care to remember, or even less than we’d care to admit. And so with each cycle we grow weary, but continue to exude hope and optimism, because all the fairy tales in the world cannot be wrong. My soul mate cometh, and I shall be ready and waiting to meet her at the door before the threshold, so that we can trundle in together, or not.

    The reality is closer to the truth of us spending our lives seeking avenues of expression so that we may be able to reveal ourselves to the world without feeling vulnerable in the process. Striking that balance leads to a tiresome combination of restraint and expression, until one of the two become more dominant. That dominant disposition shapes our character to the world around us, eventually convincing even us that it is who we are, until that fateful moment when that soul mate enters. That soul mate comes in the form of one who expresses what we restrain, and restrains what we express, thereby striking a cord with a desire buried so deep that just teasing it leaves us giggling like lovesick teens who just witnessed the de-flowering of the world.

    That completeness awakens us to the optimism and passion we once held dear, and with seeming abandon, we expose ourselves willingly in preparation for the embrace we yearned for since forever. Suddenly we wish to express to the world on their behalf what they restrain, trusting foolishly that they will express to the world what we restrain, and from between our loins shall spawn the perfectly balanced beauty of the sum of us.

    Whether they are soul mates or not is almost entirely irrelevant, or at best, subject to interpretation. We selectively interpret life, and love, and then follow it with deliberate action that either proves our views to be true, or abandons the world for being untrue. It is what we choose it to be, but such choices have to be mutual if the outcome is to be idyllic. Sometimes we meet one whose choices are inversely mutual, thereby syncing perfectly with our own, but sometimes what appears to be an initial sync turns out to be a novelty phase of fascination and not much more. When that phase passes, some will convince us that soul mates are not always intended to stay forever, while others will suggest that they weren’t ours to begin with. Either way, the outcome remains true, and the lessons we take will either build us up, or break us down.

    The amazing thing is, whether we’re right or wrong is not really what matters. That’s just bonus points. How we appreciate and grow from whatever or whoever comes our way is what peppers life beautifully, or taints it horribly. Much of life is wasted waiting for opportune moments or validation. Soul mates will be drawn towards us as kindred spirits when we live authentically and pause only for air to fill our lungs before we push on again. But authenticity is not easy to express, because we’re raised to find affection and validation as markers that determine our success. No wonder, in a world of emotionally stinted half formed adults, we wait for our soul mates to join us before we immerse ourselves fully in what is always only ever a one time offer.

    Life doesn’t wait for soul mates, nor should you.