An active pacifist, I am resilient, steadfast, passive, yet passionate about all that inspires me.
Protest.
Upsetting, at times confusing, we take a stand when we can but not always when we should. Do we choose to ignore the significantly unsettling actions of them who believe in something else?
Why?
How can we know the truth untold, but exhibited so many ways?
Are we not blessed with perception? Can we know the ignorance evident in public displays of rejection?
Stand up for what matters. Make it matter. More.
Can you believe in your heart, in your soul? In me?
I’m not sure I can kneel down before you, or give in to your power. Not like before. A situation such that I am unsure whom or what I can trust, let alone myself. Still I look up. Here I stand, pockets full of dust, starry eyes gazing through the ozone. Toxins leech freely into the atmosphere. Degradation of the night sky deprives us of opportunity to see what we once believed. You are there. See me for what I am as I try to listen through misaligned radio frequencies. I cannot know where you have been. You hide. It is your way. My hands are not big enough to grasp the message. I’m not looking for the sky to save me, nor am I waiting for the time to be right. I need to go home now and find what is so far away. I’ve lost my balance. I’m losing my fear of heights.
Equality may never be, the darkness and bright allow us only to see what we want, not what we could have been. A level of light is expected, my immeasurable impatience is being taunted. However you look at it, whether you believe in you, or believe me, this poetic justice is all I have known. Your shadow remains blended with the heavens. A starry night will not dissuade your presence in the lives you alter, or the ones you destroy. Yet, in this moment, I know I would try again. How could I not? The option of a moonless night is more of what I have been living, than how I want to live. Between particles of unknown origin in an ever-increasing pool of light pollution, space junk, and refracted thought of a thousand nameless faceless constellations, you are still there. I’m not looking for the sky to save me.
Is it the sunset you enjoy, or the shadows it casts? Have you stopped for a moment to figure it out? In reality, it is how you choose to see it. Perception changes, and you with it. It is not the reverse. To shift your perspective requires an influence, but despite what you hear, read or see, the viewpoint of the world surrounding you will come from within. Yes, we listen to others: educators, politicians, salesmen or solicitors, and whether we are told that the world is flat, which automobile is the safest, or how a policy will dramatically reduce carbon emissions over the next decade, it is the personal processing of this information that will determine your ultimate answer. We, all too often, rely on the words of others when trying to understand anything around us. Explanation involves thinking outside of yourself and considering the consequences, values and benefits. In trying to listen to the flood of information coming at you, it is assumed knowledge that will form your opinion. What if I told you that when watching a sunset, you are actually paying more attention to the clouds, than you are to the actual Sun? Would you stop for a moment and wonder what you’ve always taken in? The Sun never changes (well, not in immediate terms); it burns, full power, 24 hours a day. We see it more or less, depending on where we are located in relation to the time of the year. It is us that moves and not the sun The Sun, quite boring really, is always there. Always in the same place. It’s always round, always bright, and generates radiation that is constant, and powerful enough to light up this world and any other star, planet and galaxy in the universe. As it appears to dip below the horizon at the end of each day, the Sun setting is not your focus. All those colours and the glorious view you scramble to capture on your camera or mobile device is more the result of the Sun’s light reflecting and refracting through the atmosphere, precipitation or condensation, or the puffy polluted haze of our ever-expanding cities. The view is altered, mostly by your perception. It is still the same Sun it was hours earlier, it is still doing the same bloody thing, but somehow it is more beautiful. Perception. The Sun glows, alters the shade of buildings, the shadows of trees, and even makes common weeds, like dandelions, appear magical. Perspective. It is how we see things. More importantly how we see ourselves, and how we connect with the context. Our greatest strength should be admitting we don’t know everything and being open to learning what we need to know. Change comes with knowledge, and challenging yourself comes with connecting to your soul, investigating your id and ego and, through the process, discovering your own mythos. Seek answers, or self-explanation for who you are, and why you do what you do. Discover solutions, or check your hypothesis for why something didn’t turn out the way it was supposed to, or why success is likely, in whatever area you chose. Context. You can make things happen, but you need to unearth what is happening and why. Those are answers you won’t get from teachers, lawyers or policy wonks. You may not even find the answers within, but you will be stronger for looking. The inner voice is an inner choice.
Frequently designated a dreamer, in perpetuum, among many other things, he does, he admits, allow little space to plan. Rightly or wrongly, this is the path he has ended up on. Difficult, perhaps, at times when cracks in the concrete led him astray. Only recently discovered, by accident more than fault, is balance maintained in a world cluttered with discrepancies and dogma forced upon him by conspiracy theorists, self-serving henchmen, Jesus freaks and hangers on, black hole believers and Masters of the Universe who continue, ad nauseam, to propagate fear.
Erstwhile encounters not forgotten, not soon enough, minutes bypass memory, he has clung to details accounted for nostalgically and passionately, each plank of a moral platform galvanized and scandalized. He continues, white-knuckle grip, adhering to a belief system founded over time; tested, altered, as deemed fit or favourable. Fully aware and seemingly appreciative, he has crossed the line from seeing himself merely as a character in this long drawn-out drama to bearing witness to what happens, as it happens. He, alone, will not wait to understand, but, carpe diem, record the state of a disingenuous planet.
Each event, as it unfolds, to be accepted as what will. No longer a second-hand story in third-person narrative, this first-person view could offer confusion at worst, discomfort at least, though instant, authentic, and liberating in ways only he will determine. Tenet nosce. Each element of freedom comes at a cost. He will taste the summer ahead, open mouthed, open-minded, without concern of those in the past, but with a belief not to get too far ahead of himself in the dreams he conjures. Self and the spirit pacified today with the joy offered, instead of looking for what is no longer there. It is easier that way.
The incandescent fragrance of lilacs hangs in the breeze, enhancing silence, accentuating the freedom of the sleeping city at 3 a.m.
A certain stillness, cars rest in suburban driveways; toxic fumes dampened, leaving little to blatantly disrupt the balance of a slightly-starry night.
Restless romantics lay half-awake, alive and questioning all likely answers slipping through the window. For just a while we breathe and sleep.
