Chocolate

"There is no coming to consciousness without pain. People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own Soul. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious." 

C.G. Jung

~

In what concerns the choice between vanilla and chocolate ice-cream, he codes the first with 'V' and the second with 'C'. V reminds him of the fall from grace and the loss of purity. C reminds him of the glow, the glow of the dark side. He chooses V after convincing himself that the glow is truly that of the hidden light of people living in darkness. This makes him wonder why the shop doesn't offer CV ice-cream in the menu and call it Life. Deep down, on the surface, he knows that he just prefers the taste of vanilla. Or does he? Shortly after, he lights a cigarette and then uses the light behind his eyes, the one he licked off the tip of blazing ash, to observe his tentacles. Again, he wonders. He wonders if he is a squid or an octopus. He already knows that he is a squid because he thought of it first and he is definitely not in a self-deceitful mood. Or is he? Upon pondering the significance of the respective colors of black-blue squid-ink and black octopus-ink, he finds his tentacles metaphorically patting him on his now reassured back of a squid. He whispers to himself, in the sarcastic tone of rudimentary intelligence he despises: "It's okay. it's okay." A second later, after subtly extinguishing the flame of a potential rebellion in Stress Level District, he considers the possibility of coming up with a joke about a squid that likes vanilla. But right then or a fragment of a second later, he notices the salivary metaphor, just sitting there in the wet white glow, waiting to expose the contents of the squid's black and blue feelings on paper-like ice-cream. However, a young and forgotten voice interrupts the trailing train of thought. The train makes its infamous whistle, a lullaby of cryptic words in the supposedly distant cigarette smoke. The indifferent child is just standing there on some random rail in the railway. He looks to his left at everyone he loves as they attempt to survive an overwhelmingly beautiful and ugly Reality. And then he slowly shifts his head to the right: a comfortable, colorless bed, a silent, color-shifting window, and a comforting, infinitely-colored screen - The realm of Fiction greets thee with the infinite hope of lucid daydreams. Look at me. This is where you belong. Otherwise why would this fictitious speech bear your voice? The train's whistle returns, moving upward in curly lines of smoky ink, blue from his quasi-closed lips and black from the sleepless nights, nights glowing like arched lamp posts reaching up his inflamed skin to the purple light suspended in his eyes. The child's mind screams 'jump' but his heart writes it off in lowercase letters. He imagines the swing of an old pendulum hanging onto nothing. Left, right, reality, fiction, love, dreams, death, void, stress, security, people, him, cruelty, metaphors, delusion, illusion, purpose, identity, love, right? Jump? Where? What does a baby squid write on vanilla ice-cream? Reality or Fiction? What a terrible joke...

What if I don't jump? If the train is real and I am fictional, it won't hit me. If the train is fictional and I am real, it won't hit me either. If we're both real, I'll be dead in a few seconds. But what happens if we're both fictional?

Blood. Void. Rewind. Love. Faith. Purpose. Become.

If this is fiction, am I the kid or the train or both - or the distance in between? Am I watching or drawing or both - or neither? Am I the unmentioned elements in the questions or the potential fruit of the tree above their roots - ? Are you listening to the sound of the train or are you some writing writing in the smoke - or are you the sudden void after every question?

~

"What we do not make conscious emerges later as fate." 

C.G. Jung

Becoming

“Power over others is weakness disguised as strength.”
Eckhart Tolle

~

M + 7i = 71

Solving a problem usually starts and ends by finding the value of an unknown variable. In order to find the missing element, ordinary techniques require you to put all the known values on one side, and the single key to the problem on another (It's usually X but in this case, it's M, for multiple reasons). Then, you must calculate how all the things you know are related, and your problem will be solved. If you have two unknown variables, you need two equations. If you have more, good luck with the recurrent headaches and whatever drugs you take to make them go away. In my equation (seen above), I have made enough progress to get the number of unknown variables down to one. I figured out the value of M a while ago and now I am left with the lovely imaginary unit i. The latter allows you to move from the world of rational numbers to the realm of the complex, all the while knowing that it's all a play in your imagination.

So why are you so sad? Do you wake up every day to the buried thought of having failed at resolving your equation? What known constant continues to escape your sight? What unknown variable continues to pain your mind? Are you reading some crazy person's words to escape your worries? Do you fear that you've become a monster or a fraud underneath all these masks? Do you know what part of me is writing this and which part of you is reading it? Did it cross your mind that it is you who is writing in blinks while I am only a voice inside your head? Do you think power makes us stronger and love, weaker? Or is it the other way around?

Why are you so sad?

Identity may be the brightest highway to an empty darkness. It could also be a narrow path that your demons are not allowed to take.
Love may be coagulated blood pretending to be a red rose with two colorblind mockingbirds bathing in its scent. It could also be at the core of every honorable truth in this very dishonorable reality.
Purpose may be ridden with losses that will take with them parts of your heart. It could also be the only way to protect the people you love.

So Identity asks you who you are now and who you want to become.
Love follows up and wonders who you want next to you when all your dreams come true.
And Purpose waits for your answers with either a frown or a smile.

So why are you so sad?

Are you broken beyond repair? Do you feel like you're a stranger that no one truly knows or appreciates? Is your ego part of the constants or the variables? How many lies do you tell yourself before you go to sleep? How many truths can you not say out loud even when there's no one around? Which do you distrust more, your heart or your mind? Do you miss that person that used to be a part of your life? Do you wonder if they miss you? Can any of these questions really make a difference?

To each his own illusion, passion and poison and to hell with all these words I write about their interwoven ramifications and imaginary equations.

Conclusion. Talk is cheap and actions speak far louder than words. So dear reader, stop being sad and make better decisions for a better future. Logic never fails.

~

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 
Love never fails"
1 Corinthians 13

Courage

"I went to sleep a poet, and I woke up a fraud."
Fall Out Boy

~

A downside of living inside your head is that it takes you a while to understand what is really going on. And though being detached from reality isn't the worst state to be in, it sadly does lead to a terrible place, one where it is very hard to look at life - or at the mirror - from a perspective untainted with disappointment.

The upside of the state of disconnection is, however, not to be underestimated. Over time, genuine solitude allows you to become immune to everything. It allows you to observe the fake and ugly world without knowing that you're a part of it. It also allows you to see that what you loved and believed in slowly drowned while you were staring at the sunset, writing poetry about childish dreams. Eventually, you find yourself writing about how people turn from strangers to memories, memories to ghosts, ghosts to ideas, ideas to words, and then, somehow, from meaningful words to meaningless moments of silence. Like this one.

All it takes is a single moment of disconnection, to see things for how they really are, and not for how we want them to be. And there it is, all around you, falling apart in a mind-shattering instant.

Insecure eyes. Subtle imitation. Circular repetition. Delusional ego, there you go. If you don't follow, read that again.

It is perhaps the fear of being undefined that most defines us. Meanwhile, in a world of endless labeling, we hopelessly attempt to define ourselves, over and over and over, pretending to know what's going on, believing our own lies every once in a while. And it works, for a while. It works because we can relatively breathe easy with the mask on, during the day, and at night, we just sleep and forget how much we hate what's under the mask.

The thing is that, as our age increases, we learn to slightly alter the sound of our ideas, unknowingly making them, obviously, unsound ideas, shedding light on certain places and darkness on others. Slowly and steadily, the lies take over you. And in time, you become a lie, a fake. Then, you wake up, hopefully.

Result. Some people spend their lives focused on manipulating everyone and everything around them, as if spilling black paint on a coloring set will change the colors of the pencils. Others waste their lives waiting for someone or something that only exists in their imagination, as if there were a mythical creature or prize that has the special ability of turning shit into gold.

Conclusion. Neither spend your life nor waste it. Share it, instead.

The disconnection formerly mentioned is thus, for the sake of sharing, bound, now, to become a connection. So, deluded self, kindly be brave enough to break the walls you've built around your heart and mind. Be brave enough to risk them both again because some people are worth it.

In fear, we run to escape our own soul.
In courage, we run to find it.

~

“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.” 
E.E. Cummings