I have never been sure how close I was to madness. The line between reality and imagination is so finely draw in some, the razors edge keen enough on our unprotected soles to make the mind falter between one and the other continuously. The precarious nature makes us shine brilliantly, spurt with light like flame from a rockets trail but equally can bring days of morbidity to oppress and torture. The even plain of the steel faced cutting table is a mystery; always up or down, never satisfied with the moment; each moment must by necessity lead to another that can as easily overwhelm as satisfy. I have attempted to control the demons with pacifity, quelling my nature by labor, or service, immersing my conscience in a world that had no flavors or colors to dull my senses to anything but gray. Even thus, guillotining my mind from any form of opportunity to rebel is fraught with perils. Sleeping is dangerous, reading is contaminating, seeing carries the parasites of a universe much larger than I allow myself, or am permitted safely to envisage. Worst of all is judgment. Seeking truth takes us to places we do not wish to go, trails that others question because of their taboo or danger. Even my voyeurism from the sidelines of the world’s playing fields becomes questioned. Looking at snakes does not require being a serpent, even if the camouflage of a dead skin is sometimes necessary. Recently my mind has become fixated on book burning. Not because it is unusual, or an occupation in any way unrelated to the human condition, rather because it appeals to me suddenly, frighteningly, as a remedy to the disease of thought. All I hold in the confused and unappealing mess I self absorbingly call my intellect has been collected, picked and funneled from a library of others ideas and visions. Brilliant, average, inane, I have read each word, grappled with every sentence, tried gainfully to weigh all concepts and opinions with equal openness and attention. The same concentration I have given to speech, to every syllable addressed directly, or by default, through contact, signal or medium. I have chewed on the fat of it, struggled on the gristle, crunched on the bones and to what end? Has this great compendium of knowledge gained me one degree of comfort or solace, or rather does it push me further and further into a place that is untouchable as lepers clothing. Perhaps filtering out the perceived evil of the world would have helped, avoiding the portions that repel and place the reader on the crucifix of misunderstanding. Perhaps the hardest fence to overcome is prejudice. Not the obvious and easily ignored disgusts at color, race or any other physical condition clearly discernable, rather a devaluing of ideas, parameters, notions that fall outside of daily sight or touch but still drive sections of humanities lives. These forces can be as simple as religion or as complex as id. I hear your confusion at religious differences being simple, but any guide that manifestly rules all actions is simple, you agree or disagree, follow or ignore, a simple yes or no question with no room for ambivalence. ID the most complex? Decidedly, what can be more perplexingly unique than the driving force behind one homo sapiens, than the sum of their individualism? To like or dislike a person is a decision based on as simple a notion as the length of their hair, or as deep as the chasm of their lifestyle choice or nature. My object has always been to have no prejudice. To accept, attempt to understand, even support all shades of the rainbow. Yes moral and ethical questions intercede sometimes. Certainly there are parts of human experience or experiment that stretch acceptance to limits that can be torturous to the mind and soul. Does one act as the confessional priest, ears but a conduit for the obliteration of what society labels inappropriate, or does one use intellect to attempt to understand and place garnered knowledge into an open forum. The priest is a bridge that carries no reflection of its passing traffic, which is the safeguard. The recorder allows the words and pictures sanctuary and by acceptence stores the knowledge happily or painfully till time or infirmity erases the strands. The world is excavating a pit. A hole that can cover in eventuality any thought, any picture, all actions that do not conform to the self proclaimed laws of majority opinion or taste. The diggings are masked cleverly in freedom of speech, freedom of thought and publication but all is editable and equally destructible with a touch of the delete button. Do not be fooled by the freedoms of technology, when knowledge is accumulated to one space it is far more vulnerable than hidden dusty on a thousand thousand library shelves. Perhaps a book is never opened, but it exists till only time and nature controls its demise. I do not fear being misunderstood by most, it is the expected reward of striving to understand and enlighten. I do not even criticize being shunned and abandoned, that is far easier than defending my right to be an individual rather than a happy face amongst a crowd. My only regret is that those that once stood up for my right to myself, to be complicated, inquisitive, cerebral, anarchistic, subversive turn their back on all I have and might accomplish for the sanctuary of the legions I strive so hard to overcome. The world is full of little people wanting safe lives, with too much of everything apart from a thought not given to them by somebody else. I will die as I have lived; fighting with the one thing I have ever possessed in abundance and not had taken from me, words.
Posted on: Fri, 02 Aug 2013 09:23:35 +0000
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