The Resurrection of the Paragon
“Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee”
Augustine of Hippo (Confessions)
It is hard to just exist. Getting up from bed and not feeling like a freshly mowed lawn in the morning after the first few drops of rain hits is absolutely normal. We flourish on connections. We long for people’s attention. We are just a mere fleeting moment in someone’s life. That someone may not even remember us but we know, there was a time when happiness prevailed and darkness was not my best friend. The light can be dark sometimes and we know about this certitude but we have to believe in ourselves and exclaim ‘Carpe Diem’ every step of the way. Poetry in motion is when a person breaks, feels nada, knows that his essence of life is slowly ebbing away like the tides of time each passing day but just has to act upon his joie de vivre and shout out to the outer world, “I am human. I exist. I am among the incessant sand in a desert. I might not move but the wind will help me. I might not feel thirsty but the rain will assist me. I might not feel hungry but the sun will comfort me. I am a creature who likes the taste of life and its obstacles, and apropos to that, the trivial moments of life away from the lens of a camera.
A crowd of people, mostly strangers, part ways with each other. A car travelling through a cornfield will entrust elephantine elation to the viewer but who knows what is going through our proponent’s mind. Driving through a river of emotions out in the open where they want to feel something. The proponent wants to raise his hand and shout,”I am who I am” without having to look constantly over the shoulder. Can this be done in a room full of people? Well, I say,” Why not?” As long as that familiar connection exists, there is only love between them and whatever silly thing they do, they will not be judged. They will not be gossiped on. We thrive on feeling. We look for intimate faces in a crowd because we are on the lookout of that one person who would help The Proponent cross the road, hold his hand when the bombs are flying above, plant a soft kiss on the cheek when the air is poisonous. This is why we look for relation among a group of outlanders. Ars longa, vita brevis. Skillfulness takes times but life is short. The Proponent extracts his soul to achieve something in life. They work their twit off to have a name, get recognized by that man selling balloons on the corner of the street, acknowledged by the old lady taking a walk in the park with her pacemaker, known by the blind man playing guitar that once was in a band but not anymore. Life is indeed short and a mundane one is hoped to be ugly. The Proponent will find happiness in it.
“Life is like a house of cards. One flap in the butterfly’s wings causes it to tumble down. Is it all right? The life you had finished, extracted every last bit of that juice just so you could accomplish in life and it terms to nothing? It can never be real. We are members of the human race. We lived for more than two millenniums on hunting and gathering and a small pre-requisite called recognition will break your heart? It cannot and should not happen for the father loves his daughter in the way the lady loves his heart and the man his eyes. I wasn’t lonely. I experienced no self-pity. I was just caught up in a life in which I could find no meaning. Loss is something which changes the psyche. It is a Horcrux and in some way or the other you lose it. Hubris should never blinden you for Death-Eaters in a valley of life. Hamartia may beat me someday but then I would have met my nemesis. I would have been transported in the room where Brooke used to live. I would look up to the wall and see his engravings and the rope tied to the fan. I will be in the same place as he is. Eternal happiness. For I would have lived a full life and I would be with my concubine, with my immemorial love and my counterpart. The people who look at me with words and I, with feelings. I will have lived a full life. I would not require the familiarity in a crowd of people for I will be recognized. I will rise among the ranks and be etched in the pages of history of the world as a person who existed, who had a home, who had a fruitful life, who found joy in it and who got recognized.”
— THE PROPONENT
We socialize because we, just as poetry want to be fluid with our emotions and have a life outside of our brain where they can meet with people and share ideas and explore uncharted territories. It takes real courage in talking to a person, asking them how their day has been and what is bugging their mind, without the expectation of them reiterating it back. Keep your mind up and know for sure, you are who you are and you can change who you are but never be disturbed at people who know who you are. Assumptions will be the death of them as their will be a ridge between intimacy and knowledge which would be a hard one to cross. We tend to look for familiar faces in a crowd because we have an eternal longing for connection and recognition. For ……..
We think too much and feel too little.
