Mettle Mystique

The uniqueness of character is rather misconstrued. What is acquired cannot be ascribed to what is congenitally inherent. And yet, we shun, into an omnipresent void, the mental faculty that empowers calculated judgment. 

The ameliorable position we self-assign is much too comfortable to leave. But should it be? Why the fear?

It takes a harsher beating and becomes inexplicably labyrinthine when it comes face to face through you against the people you love. Your unchangeable stoicism versus effusive enthusiasm. Every considerate appeal to welcome refining transformation is hastily palmed off. 

 It is ironic how negative influences, ideally to be disavowed, are not sieved and easily allowed to permeate, while anything remotely positive requires boardroom discussion between the angel and the demon in our heads. And even that in more cases than not proves to be of no avail as we pathetically succumb. The many mind games we play with ourselves seem to never tire out. But our tolerance to see another player in the arena quickly dwindles. While our action affects that other, sometimes irreparably, it cannot, to the stubborn mind, bear any responsibility on him to bring that forth or play the quarterback. Convoluted and chaotic a state of mind we call collected. What may not be so obviously evident at this point that on one unpredictable and fine-weathered day, it is all going to cannonade into something frantically fractious.

While each instance may effervescently fizz out, that same loved one holds your hand and puts you back up on a pedestal. Unconditional love but only allows vision through coloured glass. And our flaw, conveniently forgotten. Is it a repetitive sequence with no solution? The positive that is to be culled out is consigned to oblivion without a hitch until the next glitch takes you to a new rock bottom. Staying on an erratic edge in perpetuity will one day push you over. 

Darkness cannot but be overcome with the absence of it; and that we call light. And attempting to run afar from it is futile for you yield no different result. When each situation amplifies the hostility you hold against yourself, living itself will become deadweight. Every consummate concoction of the perfection potion bears one key ingredient: the ability to welcome change. That day when humility holds a higher place and you can unassumingly accept to consider that which another holds in capital position, is the day you'll learn why you were previously cut and bruised. Also, it isn't enough if we designate blame to the cause but have the reasoning to see reason. 

"I stand amid the roar

Of a surf tormented shore,

And I hold within my hand

Grains of the golden sand-

How few yet how they creep

Through my fingers to the deep,

While I weep, while I weep!

O God! can I not grasp

Them with a tighter clasp?

O God! can I not save

One from the pitiless wave?

Is all that we see or seem

But a dream within a dream?"

~ Edgar Allan Poe. 

Chimeric Consciousness

On many an occasion, we beseech reasoning for the rationality of a certain something without seeing it in the light that it is to be seen. We assume as always that the grass on the other side is greener and to see a patch of brown is as unacceptable as a snake in the arctic wilderness. There hardly ever comes a time when we choose to acknowledge how erratically counterfactual our reasoning is. Wearing our hearts on our sleeves, we tend to believe in every action we pursue, not for once realizing how it would affect or concern another. 

As each day passes on wearily, we don’t comprehend the change, but we slowly begin to seem less like ourselves, turning into our own stranger versions, ones we’d never have expected. Incident upon incident leads us to change the direction of our course and the complete structure of our meander. It is but human.

As one night, a ghastly face roused her up in waking dream, crying out damnations in heinous tones, she broke in to a sweat and awoke in a cold shiver. She was losing what was closest to her heart – her love. It was inscrutable why such dark imagery should play out even in her semi-conscious state, for the palpability of such an occurrence in reality was less than zero.

The promenade of love that life sent them through was more than what arduous can describe.  There was more than one instance when external interventions led them to nearly want to leave the broken pieces and walk away – a decision that was not easy to take, and not easy to survive through either. As time moved on, the reasons that could have been to leave diminished and it saw their love grow manifold – there wasn’t anything that could so much as try to draw them apart.

Then why, oh why would her dreams haunt her?

Although she knew in all humanly perceivable sensibility that no matter what, his hand will always be there when she reached out, the inhumane imagery still gripped her with an inexplicable fear. She couldn’t comprehend why she would even remotely allow her subconscious mind to process such thought. He, her guardian angel, tried calming her down, but in vain. She was unnerved and agitated beyond a point where logical reasoning was nowhere in the vicinity. Why won't she accept a dream to be nothing but a dream?

If ever there is a situation of hurt, emotionally agonizing or otherwise, caused to us by what is close to our hearts, the pain can never die. Even time may not be able to help us get a grip. A fleeting thought can make us want to turn recluses who don't want to tread an unsteady path not knowing if and when the fall might come.

Love doesn't come easy, yes and we may have to face many of such a hitch along the way, but it's all well worth the while. Life is still all a dream with it's share of nightmares just the same. 

Fingers crossed

There are a number of variables that play a role in the shaping of what is your character, your ideology and what is your belief system. Many of which we unconsciously imbibe even through our mundane and usually not-so-fruitful interactions, but people forming the most integral part. And through this course of time, we also make some strong bonds, some acquaintances, we acknowledge the ones we admire and then the inevitable human tendency also attributes 'dislike' to a certain section. The basis for such a distinction and apparent classification is rather inexplicable. It is just, lets say, the way we feel around them. There are deep rooted elements in society, however, with a bearing on rigid principles on the basis of which these relationships are governed and groomed. The artless veracity of these that are sunk deep in the so-called archaic morality that is rather obsolete and holds no water in the scenario of today. Well, they don't choose to acknowledge this fact and hence a vicious circle of rather baffling and unpardonable exclusions and narrow outlook is being passed on to a generation that is growing up in an environment that is echoing and resonating a voice quite clearly to the contrary. There is scope for debate amongst young and old, yes - they do honour us by lending an ear, but the hope for change is, as according to them, a closed door that they are quite unwilling to open.

Apprehension to change is fair but such mustn't lead to a complete negation of any positivity that will be of benefit. Having inculcated staunch values in a certain regard, that today doesn't seem reasonable more than acceptable, being set in a radically strange surrounding and succumbing to irrational forces of some invisible iron hand that is refusing to state a valid purpose is distastefully repugnant. Having acclimatized to the filth of their fenced-in environ, they'd rather prefer to stay in than step out to experience a fresh breath of air that could but only do good to one polluted and ridden by custom.

Maybe it is our turn to stand up for what we believe in, show them what we see and enable them to look at it from an absolutely different angle, that although contradictory to their set of norms, does have reason in its being. Every conflict has a solution - whether big or small - judgment of nature is relative and open to interpretation. It is just a matter of time and perseverance. A comprehensible vision of the 'light at the end of the tunnel' may not be in sight, but it is the light of hope within our hearts that will shine out and show us our way through. And at the end of it all, it will be worth this spasmodic malady. This is no fool's paradise. This is life and we'll live it by our standards. Trust me.