from 
echoes in 
my head
to
words

There are days when I want to touch and love everything. But then there are times when I want to call it a day as soon as I wake up.

And one day you wake up, and a dream feels so distant that you doubt whether you ever went to sleep.

I hide it. I do. My truth. For if I open up, it will be used, to point me out, to pull me down, to make me realise I am the one who shouldn’t be out. So I hide it. After all, I am just a man. A man trying to follow his heart. But I can’t. From the inside, I am miserable. A heap of shattered glass, scattered, like chaos inside the heart. Of no use? Of no use! Yet, I shine while mending my rough edges, keeping their red rivers leashed inside. A voice inside me calls: Let them bleed. Let them touch you raw. And let them bury you, very far. Far from the gates, a seed opens up to touch the sky, far from the imagination of light falling from the high, far from the sunset hues, far from the possibilities of being touched by the morning dew. But let them bleed too, because the taste of darkness wouldn’t surprise you.

I think the answer to the question, “Why is it difficult to love yourself?” is that because you know yourself the most. You know your history, what has happened to you, and more importantly, what you have done with others and yourself. Your flaws are locked inside, but their darkness haunts you even if you wear the shiniest cloak. Your thoughts never reach your tongue, but they scream inside you, revealing what you are capable of if you were out of bounds. Your eyes turn blind to the blood on your hands for killing the dreams you once saw as a kid. And you not choosing to pick up the pieces of all the promises you broke, meanwhile hiding all the sins you committed to fill the depths someone else couldn’t fill for you. So I guess that’s why I was always capable of loving someone more than I could ever love myself, because I was aware of my realities, and I could not forgive myself.

You have to wait before you leave; otherwise, leaving means nothing. Otherwise, it shows you never truly arrived. And the longer the wait, the grander the departure.

Almost all my life, whenever I found myself in a crowd, I noticed how people carried desperation to show who they were, which led to conflicts of identity imposition among them. And amid all this chaos, I wished people could just leave some space for others to express themselves and remain curious. Because as we let someone exist authentically, it is fascinating to see how they change into this exciting soul, wanting to be proud of who they are.

Those rare evenings. When the light from your window keeps getting darker and you let it, refraining from switching the lights on, just looking out of the window at the greyness the world possesses in that moment. And suddenly, you breathe, as if this very amount of air is all you have got, and your mind goes numb in a way that feels calmer. And then all you remember is how far you have come.

You see people sharing how things should be and stuff that is supposed to motivate you and turn you into something else. And all that stuff about self-love. Yes, we dream of a perfect world. But is all of this a reality? Why can’t we show who we are rather than showing who we want to be? Rather than promising a future, which is uncertain, why can’t we be honest about our past and show people why we are who we are right now?

I empathise with all the beauty in this world. Either people want to love you in the disguise of idealism, expectation, and self-glorification, or they want to acquire you. In any situation, they put you in a cage, glorified with safety, justice, platform, diligence, and promise.

Yes, how a person looks does play a role. But wait until you find someone fluent in your language. First, you think that if you found one, there could be many more. Then reality hits you, and most of the time, it’s too late.

I think the biggest problem with getting advice from a platform that doesn’t have the capacity to paint a bigger picture is that we end up applying it to people, for the validation of change, who, in the first place, had no business being involved or were not the ones who motivated us for the change. We are so desperate and scared of what happened in the past that we would do anything to prove to ourselves that we no longer are the same

Our brain, to a higher degree, evolved to protect us from the unknowns of reality, traumas from the past, and from the question of the purpose of our existence in this universe. This safety net is one of the major reasons behind the ability of forgetfulness and distraction that our mind possesses. Our consciousness is clouded so that existence becomes bearable and we can save ourselves from having to put extra work into what is not essential for our survival. And yet, the brain has to keep a backup in case the traumatic experiences were to repeat, or exponentially repetitive tasks were to be performed. Then every piece of information at disposal would be very useful. So, to find a balance, the brain stores the information in the subconscious, away from our voluntary access, and our reaction to particular situations reveals the subconscious from time to time. So that puts light on the existence of subconsciousness. It is hidden somewhere, but it exists, and there was no reason for our brain to enquire into the subconscious if it was not for the part of the brain which leads to curiosity. Curiosity is the most essential factor for human intelligence. But it is all fun and games until the seed of “Who am I?” is planted in our mind. It might sound like a very simple question, yet most would find themselves answering with surface-level identifying ingredients, like name, where they come from, their possessions, and future goals. “Who am I?” is a lot more personal, deep, and revealing than “Who are you?”. It forces us to answer: “What made us who we are today?” Why do we like certain people, colors, sounds, careers, or to a very micro level the way we name our pets? These whys are endless, and answering them merely with: “Because it is of my liking,” is more like dodging the question. So when a curious mind dwells on “Who am I?”, a sea of unexplored territory opens up. This is where the dangerous affairs begin. One thing our mind is most scared of is what it doesn’t understand or doesn’t want to understand, because it might lead to questions we might not have answers for. Lets put it like this, Imagine a weird noise coming from your closet. You have two options, to enquire, or to label it as merely coincidence and nothing important. The latter is our mind refusing to investigate because it might find something out of its bounds or even worse, it might not find anything. Enquiring into the subconscious is like hearing a sound without knowing its source, and it’s a constant tick. Diving into it is like standing at the event horizon of a black hole, and wanting to reach singularity, where the line between past, present, and future is untraceable. It would be completely understandable if one chooses to live at the event horizon, or with naturally acquired consciousness, because stepping into the quest to understand the subconscious would make us question every choice we make, and enquire into the motivation behind decisions. It would lead us to revisit our past to make sense of present behaviours, and it would demand that we become so aware that thoughts would start to feel like topics of investigation. By the looks of it, the investigation of subconsciousness has the possibility of pushing one into a state of confusion, and getting out of it would be very difficult. Because how would someone, who is curious enough to take the path and ask the questions, suddenly not be interested or motivated to go further? There was something that led them to this point. The itch won’t go, and one is left in the unknown without answers, forever. Speaking of the possibility of being lost in the chaos, we should also imagine ourselves in the situation, or the sublime state of knowing it all. Knowing the deepest parts of the self and reaching the centre of our existence. Having clarity of thought. And this path, though looking very discouraging, could lead to exponential growth of behaviour (though the choice of right and wrong would be an individual choice) and a calm state of mind.