screams.
Sunday, March 23, 2008
♥ Sunday, March 23, 2008
The metal tractor moved towards the fire. On it is a wooden casket and flowers laid down from the ceremony held fifteen minutes ago. And about 20 metres away, behind the safe confines of an airconditioned hall stands a crowd. The mechanical slide towards the fire displays a complete nonchalance to the screams that echo not in the halls, but an individual's soul. The choir sings "Oh God you search me and you know me" a song meant to comfort, but what comfort can there possibly be. The unfathomable depths of grief is not shared, but witnessed. There may be about 50 individuals there..but perhaps 1 bleeding heart. And that is the paradoxical nature of loss- tears that of your own, but the grief that of everyone's. Time does not stand still. It moves backwards- the screams are of memories, of a love perhaps never uttered, a relationship maybe never explicitly acknowledged. For the rest of the crowd, with each second that passes and inch made towards the fiery grave is a speechless farewell, for who can say anything. What words would suffice. But the crowd does speak- they utter a language of hugs and tears, of hands over shoulders and of heads bowed, of hymns and prayers.
Someone asks, "where did she go...where did she go". There are no answers. Only screams. The crowd is deafeningly loud as if to drown out the equally deafening silence of sorrow, the unanswerably silent "whys" and "who" and "where". Like a roller coaster, the crowd screams to exculpate that plunge into the void-for where there used to be a person on a chair joking and nagging, jovial and playful, there is now only that chair.
To Accept.
Friday, March 07, 2008
♥ Friday, March 07, 2008
There are the doormats, those who accept just about what everyone instructs; you have the fatalistic, accepting what nature and gods have in store for them; you have the resigned, accepting of the inability to improve; the cynical, the acceptance of the impossibility to improve.It seems as though it is so easy to accept. Do what they ask, say what they tell, believe in what they preach. Just Accept! As a rule articulation, the only thing a person can accept is that he is never accepting what he needs to accept. A doormat needs to accept that he is a doormat, as a fatalist that he's one, a cynic that he is cynical. Perhaps more than that, a person must learn to accept reality. And that reality, is what EVERYONE avoids accepting because it is simply too difficult to.Alvin's left. And while i am pondering over what i am feeling, i realise the key to this internal pandemonium is real acceptance. Let me say that again jsut for amplified effect: REAL ACCEPTANCE. And lets discuss that for a second.What are the various realities that one must come to accept?1) That he is leaving.2) That he is leaving because he cannot stand being in the muck anymore. 3) That he is leaving, permanently.Lets look at (1). This presupposes that he was in the community and that he has chosen to leave. The person who is aware of such a reality that 'Alvin is leaving' and that 'he was in the community' must at some point in time consciously or subconsciously ask "what do i feel about his departure" It is at this juncture that acceptance may begin kicking in: I face the loss of a community member, i begin to accept the fact that in his words "our friendship goes outside the walls of this community", i understand that there must be respect for that particular decision. All this is bombastically termed "maturity" which is a big word used to handle the simple concept of "acceptance". Yet, we are just wired in such a way that the first reality isnt sufficient. We are angry, shocked, surprised, bewildered... We ask the next question and perhaps the only one that we believe can give rise to a more qualified and justified expression of our feelings. We ask "why". Which brings me to (2).Of course, i've summed up his reasons very simplistically. This discussion is not for the finding of truth in his reasons. This discussion is for the acceptance in the truth of those reasons. And that acceptance, i believe can be found in the grasping of reality. What are the way things are? What are the way things are like for Alvin? And perhaps the most sympathetic question one might be compelled to ask, if i were him, would i have done the same? These questions DO NOT suggest that a person might accept those reasons. These questions are already in themselves, a form of accepting. Why? Because im trying to understand and feel. I am trying to be him and human. That is why that is REAL accepting.(3). The most hard hitting fact. The possibiltiy that he might never return. In fact, in my opinion, he isnt returning. But the accepting of that particular fact is different from (1) because (3) does not give reasons. (3) simply demands the individual to make a speculation and that is very subjective- based on hte individual's relationship with Alvin, how well he/she knows him.. There might be variations as to how different ppl might accept (3) differently. However, one thing can be certain. The permanence or possibility of permanence of such a departure demands an acceptance on our part. Why?Firstly, because there is nothing a person can do about it, but accept it.Secondly, because of the severity of such a statement- that it is the end of our journey, that all we will share from now on are memories, that we will only see what is left. The emotional upheaval that can arise from the presence of such realities can only be mitigated by the acceptance of them.So you think accepting is easy?? Think again.