Moments

A teleopic extension of and dedication to John Locke's work, 'Essay On Human Understanding' that I wrote for a local competition.

It took longer than I thought and it was a hard fought journey, fraught with hazards and adversity, but I got here in the end.

Harsh beginnings hampered my intellectual, spiritual and emotional growth and hindered my progress as a living, breathing entity. Consequently I developed low aspirations and saw few opportunities, (less still was my inclination to find them), to improve upon my own limited internalised expectations.

So I struggled against authority and rejected institutions, (outraged by the apparent hypocrisy and nepotism inherent in perceived insular thinking and indifference toward those like me), only to discover that feelings of inadequacy had usurped my rationale and that my mind had closed in accordance with those I so reviled.

 It seemed that from birth I had kicked and screamed to fend off the suffering, sorrow and discontent that would not relent on my voyage of self-improvement. Unforeseen circumstances had me falter in my progress to glorious perfection. It blighted my then primitive perception and I raged, a caged beast instinctually intent on self-preservation against the whims of enemies and adversaries who would step above my fallen form. Self-interest manifest as self-jeopardising behaviour as I relentlessly sought the intangible touch of evasive, yet pervasive, power promised to those talented chosen few. Yet it was I who toiled obediently, pious through arbitrary pleasure and pain, while eternally waiting for my magical moment.

Over time I saw each coincidence of incidents as interjections divine and so my frustrations, failings and indignities became the will of a power higher than I could ever begin to imagine. I found fearful faith and prayed that light would guide me from the darkened cave once I had, mercifully, died.

 I perceived myself to be at the centre of another world in which I was somehow instrumental to the clandestine plan that my creator had somewhere conceived.

I, the cherished child, had pre-determined purpose and to act pro-actively may jeopardise that unspoken meaning; although without reason no matter how hard or fast I pursued my simple earthly goal of contentment I was left dissatisfied each and every time.

That was how I learned to lay the blame and abdicate responsibility for my own actions; replaced by the follies and ineptitudes of others. And that was how I came to believe that others were worth less than I and so I had no need to pander to their wishes and could use them as I saw fit.

It was then I learned to hate and refused to tolerate anyone that had the capacity to be ‘the chosen one’ before me. I looked, with covetous disdain, toward idolatry until disease of mind, body and spirit struck me down upon the path to enlightenment. I was left weak and defenceless in the face of great fear.

But none of that matters any more, because I am here.

I am here because I learned how to be humble and to define achievement without the influence of those more fortunate than I holding sway in my concept of self.

It is here I discovered the elusive inner peace I so passionately craved those times I had lost my way.

From here I can see the irrelevance of raging against life’s adversity and have found the strength to tolerate those things I cannot ever change.

 Here I found acceptance and the subsequent ability to regard others free of jealousy, resentment or malice.

Here I healed to the touch of love unconditional and understood that much of my sickness was self-inflicted and that which was not must be endured with grace.

It was here that I learned to lay down my arms and embrace the truth of being as my armour.

It is here that I discovered that true happiness exists beyond nepotism and hedonism.

“Where is ‘here’?” you may ask, to which I could only answer,

“‘Here’ is everywhere and inside of everyone.”

‘Here’ is the knowledge that nothing is forever and that existence is a transient, fluid flux of schismatic upheaval. Within this turmoil we must all adhere to the unwritten laws of chaotic inconsequentiality in perfect parity.

Bright stars and scuttling insects alike are all equally insignificant; held fast as they are in the fist of the infinity that is ‘here’. Yet ‘here’ we can only hope to remain for there is nothing more for the entities we are. There is no escape from the collective common fate that all are born to suffer and die, but, suppose, between these destined lines nothing is meant to be. It is here we can choose to be free and shine brightly for a moment or simply exist below the shadows of all we cannot know.

If nothing is set in stone, other than those doctrines we choose to acknowledge or hope to be true so that we might perhaps live again, then we can live at once while here in this moment. Here is where I finally saw that I had grown to understand the world I was born to as something that I could never fully explain and so had to concede that things existed that could never be fully comprehended.

In that acceptance of inevitable powerlessness I had stopped asking questions and become stuck in the ways of the generations among whom I was born and surrendered my dreams and imaginings to. I had allowed others to govern my passions and define virtue and vice as they saw fit- rendering me a servant to sacrifice and a slave to sin. Overwhelmed with foolhardy narcissistic, nihilistic reactionary tenets I no longer sought to effect change and meekly accepted my lot.

“Who are you?” you may ask, to which I can only reply,

‘I am part of you and you are part of me. We are everyone and everything we can see or feel, hear, smell, taste or imagine being real.”

But for this briefest of moments, that which is me is free and therefore happy.

These are the moments worth living and dying for.

Author's Note

I tried to go from individual perception to macro-theory with this one while keeping a poetic undertone to it. Does it work?