how awfully strange it is
how foreign you feel in my mind’s eye
this was death both acute and chronic
a snapped neck and slowest suffocation
the last blip of a dying civilization
final radio waves like stragglers
across the vacuum of space,
an SOS heard far too late —
the subtlest instruments,
of time-traveling ears,
hearing ancient echoes,
that traveled lightyears —
from utmost familiarity,
to a stranger —
a face obscured
by the fogs of time —
somehow, despite your indescribable beauty, your inner radiance makes the artwork that is your appearance pale in comparison–
but comparing your inner and outer beauty is like comparing infinities.
and yet, one of these infinities is without a doubt larger than the other. it is that of your heart. your outer beauty has a definite beginning and end point, for we are mortal, bound by time, by that beloved and terrible cycle of birth and of death.
but your inner beauty… that is eternal, for I see the grandeur of the cosmos within you. I see that which came before us, I see that which will live on long after us, the majesty of creation held in your spirit. you are stardust. you glitter like the night sky before the fog of modern civilization estranged us from the heavens. you are reminiscent of a time better, possessed of a soul without light pollution, a time before. how grateful am I that this celestial collision came to be. what might be created in our wake?
your eyes… to me, they are the nexus point of these two, a bridge from the outer world to the vast universe of beauty contained within your heart.
looking into them is stargazing.
they are possessed of an irresistible pull and you draw me into orbit
my hands have a life of their own
what moves them?
it is certainly not i.
or perhaps it is i?
perhaps it is an i that i’ve denied.
ah, yes, that must be it.
the scope of the inner horizons is as infinite as the macrocosmic wonders
i receive impressions from the great beyond
and despite their movement at light speed,
it is from a long-dead star
a distress call.
far, far, far too late.
echoes across this void
this great universal hall
how can any of this even be?
physicality itself is a web
our spirits are flies entrapped.
let’s make the best of this bondage while we can.
can i at least have a hand
to hold
while i’m suspended here?
can we laugh together
as the weaver comes
to swallow our memories whole?
will our candle flames in infinite
be snuffed simultaneously?
i’d at least ask,
that our grip
on each other’s hand
is so great
that we go together
when the time comes.
i’ll swear it to you
if you swear it to me.
love is the flame of Prometheus.
for what other source of light and warmth
exists in this great void?
what else could thaw the ice over our hearts
no,
i’m not crying —
those tears are simply the ice melting, that’s all
exist in a realm beyond causality
i’ve no firm grasp on a shared reality
i exist in a sequence
where each number’s anomalous
but this evades mere randomness
for it is without emptiness
chaos
is oft thought meaningless
but there’s linearity
underlying
the insanity
look deeper —
NO!
not that deep…
back.
the chickens, do you see them?
they always
come home to roost.
the unconscious erupts if you neglect it!
will it be mere confetti
or a pyroclastic flow?
the denial of your innermost self
is you choosing
this:
instead of destroying
the chains that contain
i
will instead bear
the burden of atrophy.
i said back!
back up, please.
i can see what you’ve denied!
i can see those plates slide
pitiful!
your tectonic soul —
prideful.
an insincere veneer
you smile
with your face in the Sun
ne’er to look
at all that festers
in the shadow
cast behind.
“remember, remember, the fifth of november —
the gunpowder, treason and plot —
i see of no reason why the gunpowder and treason
should ever be forgot.”
the crescendo
cannot be escaped,
merely staved.
what
will you choose?
your own unconscious
conspires against you.
will you be
the stormed
bastille?
or
are you one of
the liberators?
To grief and loss I am no stranger
For all I’ve done my entire life is lose and gain
I walk underneath the Saturnian Moon
And it dawns on me
That I’ll never be 5 again. I’ll never be 10 again. I’ll never be 15 again, I’ll never be 20 again. Every day, every moment is dust blown in the wind. The passage of time is a never-ending gust that I will never keep up with.
Here I am, having grown so much. I feel, for the first time in my life, like I am truly entering adulthood, and how I mourn. How I mourn for the folly of my adolescence. What felt like my entire world, colossal then, has collected as snow globes on the cluttered desk of my psyche.
I hold my younger selves. I shake the memories and discover new specks that glitter in the light of my consciousness. I inspect them from different angles and see things I didn’t notice then.
But all of these selves are forever gone. I permanently bid them farewell as I give a warm welcome to this next chapter of my life. Wow — birth and death really are the same, are they not? Every beginning an end, all ends a beginning.
Tonight I mourn my childhood. It is a bittersweet farewell. Things are so different now.
I know my future self looks back on me similarly now. I hope he’s proud.
This life has passed me by so quickly.
You wanna know how I know each moment, each hour, each day is precious?
The value of a resource is determined by supply and demand.
Today will never be lived again.
Yesterday will never be lived again.
The day before will never be lived again.
They all happen and occur exactly once. They are all collector’s items, gems, one-of-a-kind — and thus, priceless.
Why do we squander our wealth? Why are we too often prodigal children who spend our inheritance with the pen of folly signing checks?
No more. I return home and am celebrated. We are all the richest beings alive by virtue of this holy gift that is a beating heart. Our treasure chests are our chests — the prized gem within is that ambrosia-pumping organ.
I weep and mourn at the death. Oh, how I’ve changed, how I have grown. I stare adulthood in the face. Working full time. School full time. Soon to move out. So much is different. So much is different. I love all of it, do not get me wrong — it is equal part celebration and grief.
But I truly feel like I’m saying goodbye to a part of myself. My younger self. Or perhaps I’ve already said goodbye, and now I look back at an old friend whose acquaintance I am no doubt romanticizing —
I feel like true masculinity is found in suffering appropriately. suffering like an adult. without petulance, without whining. true masculinity is in embracing one’s suffering with strength, continuing regardless.
that does not mean one cannot ask for help. true masculinity also lifts up others in their suffering, true masculinity is also about the brother/sisterhood of all of mankind. we are stronger together, only compounding the other’s strength.
but I do believe masculinity is created with suffering. it is the principle of hormesis. one suffers and discovers their ability to make it through. this is about fundamental opposites: suffering, and the very principle of struggle and challenge, is the opposing principle to our strength, our strength to survive. they are puzzle pieces that fit together, on one another. I do not think masculinity can be discovered without challenge.
it almost feels Darwinian in nature. this is Mars-Saturn in action; Saturn says no, Saturn is the challenges of nature, Death’s scythe ready to chop the chaff from the wheat, Mars is us deciding if we will be wheat or if we will be chaff.
toxic masculinity is created with strained and discordant relationships to suffering. toxic masculinity believes it should suffer more than it should, or that it should suffer in the wrong ways. toxic masculinity believes it should suffer alone. or, toxic masculinity might save itself suffering at the expense of others, being without compassion to the suffering of others. toxic masculinity either endures suffering too much, to its own demise, or does not endure enough suffering, giving the weight for others to bear.
true masculinity is found in humility, for in humility we embrace our suffering without seeking escape. this is not about martyrdom nor masochism — rather, it is about the recognition that the some of the greatest accomplishments in life worth our time cannot be completed without work, without pain, without suffering. we recognize that our labor will have fruits, and humble ourselves enough to tend to the Earth that she bring forth reward. we bear the weight of the cross and tend to our work dutifully.
this is all about the principle of entropy.
human strength is about our God-given ability to be the equal and opposite force to the natural entropy of the universe. without work, if we are to sit idly by and let life pass us, the universe’s natural tendency towards entropy will take over. entropy in this sense is atrophy. our strength atrophies and the universe’s entropy dominates.
i do believe this is all behind the saying “hard times create strong men; strong men create good times; good times create weak men; weak men create hard times.” hard times are the equal and opposite force that demand us to cultivate and use our strength; once the challenge is met, and hardship staved off for a time, strength can atrophy when it is not being used (because it is not in immediately-high demand). the short-sighted lack of strength does not tend to the natural process of entropy. suddenly, before it’s realized, entropy has created hard times again, beckoning the strength to come forth and meet the hardship once again.
anyway —
I do believe suffering is a necessary ingredient in a balanced psyche. it is merely about how we choose to suffer. we will all have a baseline degree of suffering, it is inevitable. I do believe in picking the right means of suffering. I believe if we are not choosing the right kinds of suffering, then our mind will conceive of imagined scenarios to fulfill that unmet need.
I think practical means of choosing the right kinds of suffering is in doing things daily that are not immediately comfortable but that are good for you, such as exercising, meditating, reading instead of doom-scrolling your phone, taking a risk and making a social or romantic connection despite nerves, taking steps towards a long-term goal (such as in your career), and so on.
I genuinely wonder if our modern mental health crisis has anything to do with the comforts of modern living. We have become completely separated from the natural hardships of existence that all humans had to deal with since the beginning of time. Fetching food and water suddenly involves little to no effort. Even lower class citizens in this nation have luxuries that ancient kings could not enjoy. Is it possible that our biology is used to more hardship? is it possible that our amygdalae (yes that’s actually the plural of amygdala LOL) are used to being activated more for real threats? perhaps our hardwares are unhappy because they’re not used to how they’re being used/how they’re not being used.
I wonder if people haven’t been looking in this direction because of our natural desire to feel comfortable. What if, in looking to alleviate our suffering, we’ve actually been compounding it? What if the key is in suffering in the right ways instead of looking to escape our ills?
something I love about animals and small children is their lack of ability to lie
there is no difference between the inner and outer with them. what you see is what you get. this is purity. no matter what they do, who could really be at fault?
and, quite honestly, in a higher and more meta way, I don’t know if adults really are so different. perhaps more advanced beings see us similarly.
i honestly suspect that omniscience and infinite love are one and the same. i think infinite compassion and infinite knowing are one and the same.
THE CLOSET MYSTIC 