THE CLOSET MYSTIC

innate at birth, gradually unlearned by what the world tells us we need to be, and then either re-learned by choice and effort, or robbed from others due to one’s own lack of self love.

We either choose to heal or become the reason why someone else gets sick.

who the fuck am i even? i’m just tired. who am i even? do i even like myself? does that even matter? i don’t know who i am. i don’t know what i am. none of this makes sense. i feel my spirit being pulled towards something else. something else. something else. writing, this is a tricky thing. writing. somehow, someway, simply through these words you see here displayed on your screen, i am supposed to communicate to you the happenings of my soul. and funnily enough, sometimes it works, or sometimes, it points to something going on in your own soul. sometimes both. and yet, despite the impulse i have to translate feeling into the verbal and written, i feel as if no matter how much i say, i still have a hand clasped over my mouth. no matter what i do, no matter what i say, no matter how much i drive a point home, something is lost, there is some distance, some gap that i cannot close no matter what. no matter how hard i try, there is this distance. i’ve learned so much during my time here on earth. one of the things i’ve gotten best at is being a performer. i perform no matter what i am doing. adapting, changing, contorting to fit the stencil of the eye before me. is that the gap? is that what it is? is it that i haven’t quite learned how to not be liked? do i distance myself from others unwittingly because of this? do i demonstrate an untruth to those before me to elicit positive reaction? isn’t that the problem of love, though? to demonstrate who you are not in order to receive love isn’t receiving love because that most tightly veiled part of yourself is kept private, that part of yourself that needs it the very most is hidden for none to see. that part of yourself that needs love the most is so afraid of not receiving it that it acts in ways that only push it away more. 

but you know what i learned? i learned the more i dialogued with that part of myself and communicated it — raw, ugly, unrefined, not palatable — the more prepared i became to actually love and be loved. so funny. 

but i guess i am just… done trying. i don’t want to have to try so hard anymore. i’ve been punishing myself. has it been punishment? i don’t even know. i don’t think i’ve been acting as if i like myself. there’s been some deep dissatisfaction. i… want to rest. i want to stop trying. i want to be like water again. i am doing choosing an uphill ascent constantly when i don’t have to. can i just be the river and float downstream? can i just be myself again? i don’t want to have to hide from the world. i want someone i can open my heart to. but isn’t it strange, the grass is always greener. why wait to open your heart to another when you can do it with yourself? 

even now, when i write. there is that fear. that i need to write and make it sound good. because what? if it sounds bad, then what? then what happens? then someone will come across this blog, not resonate with it, think it is bad, and it is left to oblivion. but then what? what happens then? i don’t even think it’s the fear of someone disliking it, maybe it’s the fear of not being significant? maybe it’s the fear of not being remarkable? where on earth does that even come from? what if no one ever sees this blog? who. cares. who the fuck cares. who the fuck cares anymore. i want to like me. and i mean, really like me. like actually like me. and you know what? i can’t tell if growing into someone i can like is a matter of changing myself or changing what standards i have for liking someone or something. maybe it’s both. maybe the part of me that is so reluctant to like things and people and the part of me that is so quick to see flaws inner and outer is the very part of me that i do not like. i don’t know. but that’s the scar tissue, that’s the bitterness and hardness that builds up over time, vitriol that crystallizes over the liver such that you wince and clasp it because there’s something over it that it cannot digest, that you aren’t digesting, and yet you’re only consuming more of it: vitriol, disharmony, bile, bile, bile, bile, at each other and everywhere you look and go. and i don’t know who got sick first: me or the world? 

i don’t know anymore, none of this is relevant. none of this is significant. do you know what it is? do you want to know what is at the heart of all of this? it is the desire to have hope. to be happy. maybe it is that i see so many unhappy souls and hearts out there. maybe i want to cultivate a happy heart, to show that it can be done, maybe if i find happy for me then i can help others do the same. maybe that’s it.

but here’s the thing, right now, this very moment, at the heart of all of this. i forgot to speak on how i feel. why? i guess it’s because i ran into trouble speaking on how i felt too much. i guess it’s because i was told directly or indirectly by someone i was very close to at a time that i was overly dramatic and emotional. and guess what, i was, i absolutely was. i was also told i didn’t work enough and spent too much time dedicated to self-care. and guess what, that was true too. that was very true. but you know what else? when i commit myself to something, i go for it, when i say i’ll do something, i usually do it. so when i said i was going to change, i did, and my life has now changed. here i am living alone. but do you know what i miss? it’s the magic. it’s the magic that permeated nearly every waking moment before. it’s the magic of the sea, the magic of the moon, of the saltwater cleansing my airways, cleansing my spirit, making everything make sense and making everything feel alive. i’ve matured in a way i’m not sure i like. there’s things i do like about how i’ve changed — but you know what it is, perhaps, that i miss most of all? it’s the lack of orderliness. when did everything i did need to be recorded and checked off on a to do list as some achievement? every mile counted, every meditation prescribed. what about being taken by an impulse on a whim? what about the formlessness of the sea? what of that? what of forgetting about work and about school and about what i need to do and clean my home and do my laundry and exercise and watch what i eat and read and meditate and do my homework and do my work and who am i becoming and who am i becoming and i can’t just sit without needing to achieve and i can’t just sit without needing to achieve and holy shit this is never who i was where did this come from and i used to not care and now here i am and now i feel like i am letting loose if i don’t do my dishes immediately and now my version of being a little wild is leaving them for the morning and oh my god i can’t look at that and not clean it and oh my god i didn’t do my assignment three days in advance and left it for the day of and what happened i wanted to read everyday and this and that. where the fuck did this come from who the fuck is this? 

every action calculated every aciton calculated i don’t want to do anything anymore i don’t want to achieve i want to do nothing and be creative and silly and childlike and oh my god is this where the rest of the world is right now too and oh my god can i help and oh my god why don’t we run away from it all and start fresh in the forest and oh my god people who think like that are delusional and oh my god i need to think about my taxes and oh my god that’s unsexy and oh my godmygodmygodmygod can i move away is there another country where they’re happier and oh my god i haven’t traveled much and i’m 23 and oh my god my cats need love and oh my god all i want is love and oh my god why am i looking for a partner to feel fulfilled that’s just a distraction there’s so much living to do so much to see and oh my god maybe i’m happy with what’s simple and oh my god i need a rich and vivid life

Maybe the act of falling in love isn’t even just the act of falling in love with each other

maybe we’ll also both fall back in love with being alive together. 

maybe most things in life that are fun mean being a fool. maybe some of the things in life that are the most meaningful extend beyond the mind. i don’t want to think anymore. i don’t think i ever got closer to the truth by thinking. i don’t think i ever got closer to the truth by thinking. i don’t think i ever got closer to the truth by thinking. 

isn’t it so fascinating how writings like that ^ they chronicle someone’s prison break from themself? the self breaking free from the self? the confines of the ruminating, overthinking, self-imprisoning mind; then another aspect of the self who finally wants to break free, an aspect of the self against another aspect of the self. Prometheus rising up within. an inner uprising against one’s own inner oppressive regime. 

maybe a real revolution begins against oneself

i guess there is that urge within me to just give someone my worship and adoration. it’s an urge that doesn’t even necessarily have an aim. it’s just there, ready to be given. 

and you know damn well they don’t “deserve” it. but maybe that’s part of the healing power of love. who of us really ever truly deserves it? depending on how you look at it, it’s either all of us or none of us. 

but you still want to give it anyway. yeah, i’ll be looking at you with rose-colored glasses. it’ll be silly. it’ll be foolish. but i’ve spent too long thinking too hard. let me be a fool for you. let me love you 

i stood before the goddess 

bare. naked. my ugliness and shame and all the ways i missed the mark exposed to her

and i surrendered.

there was no need for apology. no need for forgiveness. she simply accepted me and loved me. i curled up — she held me. and i fell asleep.

then when i awoke, i was young again. i was me again. she smoothed over the blemishes and scar tissue and wounds and every physical sign of fatigue and what i had gone through and all i had done. my hands looked like they’d never worked a day in their life; i was quickly forgetting the hurt they had caused in a previous life, one that was quickly dissipating from my memories.

she saw my heart. that was enough. she saw my intentions. that was enough. “it does not matter how much sickness,” she told me, “has spread throughout your body.

“If there is but one portion of you that is still possessed of health, one portion of you with love pure and untainted, the whole can be saved.

“Remember this when you wonder why Mother Earth hasn’t wiped humanity off the face of the planet already.

“On the scales of the cosmos, one act of selfless love can bring balance to thousands of acts of selfish injustice.”

today i touched grass

and let go of the past

with but a singular laugh

the stuffy air of my home 

reflected my mental stagnancy

every little frustration was suspended dust 

every fear, every condition of happiness my mind made up 

imagination’s dual edged sword wielded against oneself 

the mind with the power to create anything

choosing to create a prison cell

why?

…

but today i chose differently 

and won the argument against my mind

with but a singular response:

to those essays

novels

volume 1, 2, ad infinitum

of rumination  

I picked a flower,

and looked.

…

Silence.

those organic instances in which i need to stop and ask myself: why is the world so beautiful?

they make life worth living. looking around and remembering that art is everywhere. I love beauty. I love surrounding myself with beauty. beauty that is not merely of appearance, but saturated in beauty of the spirit. there are countenances with perfect symmetry and no radiance; there are countenances with every angle “wrong” that emanate grandeur, evident in the gaze, in laugh lines, in a glimmer of the eyes.

but the natural world is where that nexus always lies. the natural world tells no lies. 

i realized i wasn’t living unless i simply had to stop myself in my tracks and admire the beauty of a flower, or to be entranced by its fragrance. i had these moments where it wasn’t a choice, i simply had to, the impulse overtook me. the beauty of people’s cute little homes and the way they decorated them.. the way people congregated… i think there were times i could even see beauty in the ugliness, in the way it would hurt my heart to see people acting ugly to each other.

i found it curious that an action could have the quality of beauty or the quality of ugliness. i found it exceptionally curious that i could look at the very same world through the very same eyes and either be entranced or repulsed by it depending on what stood out to me that day. reality itself was subject to a parallax effect, its position along the spectrum of goodness or badness, beauty or ugliness, could be entirely dependent on not it but me.

i found myself straddled between the ugly and the beautiful and the standards i’d set for each. i’d jog around my town — i’d experience pure joy from how phenomenal the flowers smelt and looked — beauty. an old diesel engine would rattle past, its emissions right in my face — ugly. i’d see children in the park, their parents bearing witness to the beginnings of their lives like a sunrise of hope — beauty. I’d smell cigarettes, my nose would crinkle, a large shirtless man with a sunburnt upper body in his backyard hurting his lungs and polluting the surrounding air close to the children — ugly. a phone call — my parents, disrespecting one another — ugly. a phone call — my parents, so excited to see me tonight and hear my voice at all — beauty. my parents, wanting to cook for me — beauty. my dad, snappy with my mom — ugly. my dad, so readily able to tell me he wants to see me, loves me, misses me, how many people have been deprived of hearing their fathers speak from the heart like that — beauty.

myself. anger rooted in hurt — how can I define it? it made me act ugly, it made me work to preserve beauty. myself: hopes and aspirations that would at times lead to confusion and misunderstanding — how can I define it? myself: trying my best, wanting to be better — beauty. myself: the mistakes that made that more paramount — ugly. myself: the intentions that were good that didn’t always pan out that way. myself: the stubborn know-it-all who would point the finger. myself: the self-sacrificing one who wanted better for those who hurt him. myself: the one who took for granted the ones who were self-sacrificing and wanted better for me even though i hurt them.

the closer i got, the more the line blurred.

might i always be willing to look closer to afford that luxury to those i might label too quickly.

and I wonder where this civilization is heading. 

will future historians look back on us, at this point in time now, as the beginning of the end? will they study us like we did Rome, wealth and greed making the societal structure too top-heavy to be sustained? without balance, the scales horrifically lopsided, and down we go. 

will they look back on us and study us, wondering? will they look back on our greed, indulgence, avarice, corruption, like we do Rome? will we become one of their maxims? “Rome wasn’t built in a day” — no, and the USA didn’t fall in a day, either. 

well, if they do end up looking back, please know, we didn’t want it to be this way. please know that we didn’t want this. please know that we felt helpless. please know that we grew exhausted. please know that our senses were bombarded not just with indulgences but our minds were also stunned by those repeated, flashing images — injustice after injustice after injustice after injustice. you see so many of them, you no longer know what to act on. you know deep in your heart what is right — but, again, what are you supposed to do? self-preservation kicked in, we worried for our families, what were we to do? we had our history books to warn us — they shut down the libraries. we had our dystopias to warn us — they shut down the libraries. we had our very fucking gut instincts to warn us — they numbed us. 

please, future historians, just know we did not want it to turn out this way. if these are one of the final echoes of a dying civilization, just know we are human and have a conscience just like you do. know we did not want this, but whatever mass psychosis, mass hysteria, mass madness has infected our minds has taken root and hijacked our very nervous systems. 

i want to run away from it all. 

Done done done

done with false digital bravado.

like the newsflashes of tragedies 

rendered meaningless by distance 

these screens live up to their names

screening, filtering, sifting, separating

opportunistic indecencies, 

forgetting our humanity.

at least in the past 

the warfare had to happen face to face

at least in the past

you had to look them in the eye

those mirrors, reflecting your own humanity

now what do we have?

we fight not other humans, 

we disrespect not our brother

we bicker with pixels

digital demonization 

like propaganda dehumanizing the enemy 

for when your opponent is no longer human 

it’s oh so easy 

to justify cruelty 

we wonder: what’s happened to our world?

it is this. 

I am done seeing people speaking over the Internet in ways they’d never do in person

I am done with how it is ravaging our world

Enough