I am both made and developed. Made by the universal forces driving life, and developed by the created environment around me. The harder shells of our ancestors carry my weight but the soft loom beckons ahead, and I walk.
There is constant noise around me, but because of it’s persistence I no longer notice. It is the silence that shakes my bones and jolts me to consciousness.
So I follow the warning, or call. I follow that quiet softness that carries the weight of a guillotine.
Our kind is fading from this place, and it makes the travel lonely. To be aware is to be dangerous to the ideology penetrating the current society, and the distractions are plenty- so,
Here we are, carving a path through stone, the lines left by the past discontented. Either dead or resigned to the comforts offered as an alternative route.
Our minds are the single frontier that can not be enslaved. Not the worst imaginable horror, desperation or isolation can take our minds if the will maintains composure. The problem arises from the will, and the willingness of so many to offer our sound thoughts and valuable nature to those desiring to suppress it. We’ve collectively allowed the process to occur far to easily, to the point that a few mind numbing actions make a lifestyle, to the point where groups determine individual opinions and values.
Of course, We as human groups have always operated like this to some extent. The social cohesion was bound by common beliefs and thus cemented beneficial relationships. The problem occurs in modernity. Our DNA is etched with the practices of small bands surviving communally in agreement with our surroundings. It worked well, and we remained so for a very long time.
I am not preaching the condemnation of change. Of course a species changes, but hopefully it takes a path to betterment and enrichment. I can’t predict which humanity will take, but there are serious afflictions to the spirit that’ve become accepted realities and this is where attention shall be directed.
Society has ignored the instinctual howl and morphed it into a strange melody that was difficult to un-hear.
We kept an idea of community without the action of community. The popularity of a bar is a perfect example of this. We could all drink at home, even with a few friends. But the drive for togetherness is so pulling that unconsciously we pay to be in the close vicinity of strangers. The same could be said of church.
There are more ills of the modern’s mind. Boredom seeps into our veins and infects with a dangerous restlessness with few outlets. Without the need to actually be needed, man is driven insane with a gentle stir of anticipation. My mind goes to the preppers, the mass shooters, the plethora of mental illness, the suicides… We have lost a bit of our relevance and have become too comfortable.
Perhaps we’ve forgotten that truth is shrouded in impermanence and fluctuates as we gain insight and wisdom. There is no ultimate truth, but multitudes of truths that can change or fade away. It is all relative and thus, acts like water that pours into channels and divots an individual decides to dig, only for a rainstorm to wash it all away and what is left but a smooth beach waiting for fresh footprints.
Walk upon the sand and make your own indentation, all the while with the knowledge a stray wave can rightfully tumble over it and bring a new slate of perspective.
But sand can be manipulated into hard concrete. It can be handled unnaturally and forced into a state that proves resistant to water’s caress. It is thus the state of our time that many believe truth ought to be, a hard rock of our creation.
Water is nature’s most powerful force. It conjunction with time, the devastating ideologies will eventually be washed away and forgotten. In the meantime, we can carve the stones with the hope of compassion and love, thus encouraging a gentler course for mankind.
Yet, it is difficult work. We all know that to walk upon the stone is far easier then chiseling through it. A hard reassuring surface to glide through life upon and forgot the composition of it’s material.
Most of us choose the simpler path, and I can’t blame them. It is enviable to live a life without regard for the voice tinkling our insides, to not live by questioning everything, to accept things as true and therefore have a base in which to run your day to day. Once you begin to wonder, to introspectively cast a gaze of suspicion on all declared truths, how can you return to the bright surface? The more you ask, the deeper into dark you wander, and at some point, it becomes the environment in which you learn to navigate.
And here lies doubt. Not only is the stone mason lonely, it is tinged with the ever present whisperings of doubt. It is hard on the soul to reject a solid truth, and even this conviction is questioned. What if there ARE real truths that I choose to ignore and thus create my own ideologies that are not necessarily bringing great joy to myself but instead a toiling of hardship? I can only go by my gut, and the unseeable drive that things are not quite right, and that as long as the suffering of my fellows ensues, I must be something.
No truth is fact as long as our realities remain fickle.
We are left with a choice, and life thrives on the mundane choices we spin. Do you live on the placid waters of illusion or, may we dive under, and in doing so, long for the air but found we’ve gone too deep, and now, swimming to the surface vigorously, realize with horror it isn’t there. And in the dark world beneath, resign to our fate and open our eyes, for the first time still and awakened to the beautiful intricacies the chaotic universe provides.
Hiraeth Examined 