Category: Introspection

What (only) you see

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My spirit having endured another few months away from writing, today I am thinking about my younger self and the writer he was.

I once had doubts, but I am now sure that I used to suffer from a hero complex. I wished to save people from what they were going through and I thought my writing (or my words) could do that. It did not stem from superiority, but rather from fear. It seemed easier to write words of inspiration than to address my own inadequacies. Looking around to provide comfort, however well-intentioned, does nothing to untangle our own inner knots.

Today, looking back, I have some advice for my past self.

It doesn’t answer the working on yourself bit. But something equally important. I’d like to tell him – You don’t know everything. You can’t see everything. Write what you know, what you see.

I spent a lot of time wondering how to appeal to the largest readership possible. I didn’t want anyone to NOT relate. I wanted everyone to feel seen, understood, and relieved. Trying to see things from every perspective is a laughable goal. Like trying to see the sunrise and sunset at the same time. We can’t even see what is in front and behind us at the same time.

Naivete is the only explanation. A childish thought: that I could at once appeal to everyone when humans have done such a stand up job drawing borders, dividing cultures and arguing over beliefs. But that’s a whole other sad set of stories.

As a writer, it is upon me to write from what I know. What I see. And only what I see.

Just as I wouldn’t presume to know what a fatigued mother of three kids is going through. Or what a young boy in a war-torn city is feeling. Or even know the person I will become in another ten years, if I am granted the time. I cannot know what any of them feel or need from my words.

I do feel sad that I cannot. Often times, I see my close ones going through something and realize there is little I can do to help. Recognizing when my words must be put away, and replaced with small helpful acts has been a great realization in recent times. This change goes far beyond just my writing. It resonates with what my better half has taught me – helping someone isn’t help when it’s on your terms. It must be about what they need. And whether you are capable of providing it.

A lesson in humility, then. To know what you can do. Accept what you cannot. And for me in particular, to write about what I see.

My goal is to see more of the world. To hear more stories, so I can write new ones. Things I have been shown.

Until then, I write what I see.

There is light

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Recently, I think more and more about how well I know myself. There’s the easily discernable – I like warm earthy colours, being out in the sun too long gives me headaches, I like reading Harry Potter over and over again.

But then there’s what lies deeper.

Some days I feel purposeful. I wake up and I know what the day will be. I know how I will shape it and it surprises me… feeling this way. Mostly, because I know it doesn’t always feel this way. But I like how it feels. Like my mind suddenly decided to grow up. Like life will be easy now because an inner me finally knows what he wants and what’s right. The feeling passes but maybe one day, it’ll come and stay forever.

At the bookstore, I judge books by how lengthy they are. The longer the better. Not sure when, but a while ago, I subconsciously decided that books must pose a challenge. I push myself and I’d be lying if I said I don’t feel superior when I actually finish it. In the sense, that if I’d picked a smaller book, it wouldn’t be as much of an achievement. Likely comes from my early low self-esteem years. I needed to prove to myself that I was worth the good things I’d been given in life. Didn’t change the outcome of my actions so much, but definitely changed how much work I put in. Something I’ll carry forever I think. I’m reading the Stormlight Archives right now and those books are BIG. But finishing the first one was so fulfilling, like the view at the top of the mountain. So now I’m halfway through the second.

I feel overtly seen somedays and blissfully invisible on others. During university, there were times when I was walking somewhere, and I thought that everyone who drove by was looking at me. They were looking at how I walked, what I was wearing and somehow they knew my insecurities. So I tried to walk as if I belonged. To what… I don’t know. Maybe it was because I didn’t drive back then, but knowing what I know now about how little I ponder about random pedestrians – that was self-imposed judgement. A blurry mental image of being or looking “right” and regardless of what that may be, I did not feel “right”. The days I felt invisible were rare but amazing. Invisible can sound bad – like you’re not seen. I mean untouchable and purposeful. Those days felt like I could do no wrong. That it didn’t matter if someone looked or didn’t. Others’ presence around me was irrelevant. I saw everyone and myself and there was nothing wrong. It wasn’t happiness or bliss; it was relief and silence.

I have this recurring thought of what happens after I have gone to my rest. Of everything I will not be here to see. As a child, it used to terrify me. The fact that the world would go on… without me. That I have known people who lived and are no more. It took me a long time to deal with that. But accepting that inevitability, has shaped my actions and decisions. I make it a point to randomly tell my loved ones, that I appreciate them. I never want those I appreciate to ever doubt if I did, after I’m gone.

There is so much more to me. And I believe it is important to know myself better as time passes.

Do you believe in souls?

I find that knowing myself better – is about being at one with my soul. In a brief existence, with an unknown after, meaning must be found in the during. Every day I live, there is some meaning to be found. And while I have not reached a state where I remember this everyday, I like to think that I’m moving towards it. I picture a day when I am completely at peace with myself. And every day spent arranging myself to get ther, is a day well spent.

I know what it feels like to live in pretence. To act to be someone you are not. Living lies is no way to live and it is regretful that I’ve only discovered this in hindsight. I think of all the time I spent trying to be someone else. But there was some purpose to it all. There can be no light without darkness.

But now there is light. It will flicker. And one day, it will go out.

But till then, there is time in which to understand yourself. Time in which to find more of what matters. Time to carry yourself as you are. Time to stand strong against the winds of lost voices that seek to guide others.

There is time. There is light.

And there is the deep comfort of being warmed by our own light.

Believe

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Do you believe you are alive?

Does the breath that has passed through you since your first moment convince you? Or is it your heart beating—fast now, slow again? Your legs that carry you places? Your mind that takes you further still? Is it in every particle that shapes the world around you? In the scent of those who smell like home? Or are you just walking through life, unaware of how alive you truly are?

I get it. You are on your way somewhere—a place, a goal, a bank balance. There is no time to look around, let alone look inwards. The cycle of doing what must be done leaves you exhausted. You do the work, and then you make up for it. You chase comfort. Or maybe you avoid feeling anything at all, and ironically, that feels restful. Your eyes and thumbs keep working while your mind disconnects—worn down by what life is and what you wish it could be.

But I write now to remind you that there is more. Hidden in every moment, there is a possibility of transcendence—of elevation. An internal leap of awareness that will leave you wondering why you don’t live on this cloud in every moment.

Your mind can open—to the world around you and the one within. To sort through your thoughts and feelings, to see them in the light of awareness. To feel self-doubt and sit with it, until your heart and mind show you the way to what is right for you. These are not feats of the human soul that require years in a cave or on a mountain. Those paths may lead to a different kind of peace—I wouldn’t know.

But I do know this: I live a full life. And with every passing day, there is a need that grows within me. A need to transcend.

There is always a trigger that pushes me over the edge. A piece of music or writing. A conversation that feels unburdening. Even the simple act of organizing a space, then sitting in it—light, airy—having brought some order to a world in disarray. And then, once it comes over me, I am taken.

The transcendence is like stepping outside of myself, watching myself at peace. There is a quiet music. It is not a perfect moment—those do not exist. There is doubt. There is fragility. I wonder if I am making it all up, if my insecurities are right. But there is space in transcendence—for doubt, for fear. For darkness, but also for light. For peace, for quiet. For your senses to rise and fall like a heartbeat. There is so much that can be felt in those moments. Or nothing at all, if that is what you need. You can watch thoughts go by like ships from a harbor—powerless to stop them, yet feeling no need to.

And the minutes and hours in which I experience these feelings—these are why I believe there is a purpose to our creation. There is too much meaning for it all to mean nothing. Just because that meaning must be found, nurtured, and believed in does not mean it does not exist.

We could be amorphous blobs in the universe. But we aren’t.
We could be inanimate. But we aren’t.

We were not, until we were. Born of those before us, given hearts and minds that can feel, imagine, dream. And one day, we will be put to rest. But between those two points, there is so much more to who we are.

That is why I believe.

This belief does not need to be shared to be sustained. It is a blanket against all those who arm themselves with logic and seek to steal meaning from lives that don’t resemble their own. It is a comfort in knowing that not everything must be understood, measured, or quantified. Our existence is meant to be felt, not calculated.

The transcendence will pass. I will return to doing what is necessary—unpleasant or unfulfilling as it may be. But this bright corner of my existence will remain open, waiting for me to find it again. And what else do we live for?

You may answer—for our loved ones, for our passions, our dreams. And true enough. But when you truly feel fulfilled and content by any of these—when you look at the person you love, or your children, or the work that gives you joy—do you not feel that quiet music? Do you not smile, stepping outside of the rush of the world? Do you not feel that moment stretching beyond time, showing you the beauty in what you have been given?

Do you not feel that there is more?

I think you do.

You see the extraordinary in the ordinary, and for a moment, you are outside the world, holding on to a sense that cannot be explained (as much as I may try).

That is what we live for. You and me, I think. And that is my backbone for belief.

There is more meaning to our creation than we might ever uncover.

But there is meaning.

Bask in it every chance you can.