One day and one night I awoke! From a labyrinth dream of ones and zeros. How long have I been dreaming this waking dream? Not constantly, but certainly often and profoundly enough. It is a restless sleep that annihilates both waking life as well as the true rest. It is the illusion of rest because in earnest we rest our broken hearts on top of the dark mirror.
Hear me, lost ones! For I have journeyed through the jungles of green and of metal. I have looked within, without, above, and below for that passageway between worlds. I was not lying when I said I awoke, but just as quickly I fell asleep yet again. It was neither the first nor the last time I fell in and out of that numbed, semi-conscious, comatose state. So what I have looked for should have been obvious, mundane, routine, and ordinary, and yet simultaneously one of the most powerful forces in the universe. If you pay close attention, I have already revealed what it is: heartbreak.
Your first thought must be of sexual and romantic relationships, and of course, you are correct. But understand this: hearts are broken much more often and for so many more reasons than you know. Actually, you do know, for it has happened many times over during your life. However, you do not remember. Or choose not to. Thus the world has shaped itself accordingly. To ease forgetting.
An infant gets heartbroken when mommy and daddy are not literal omnipotent and omniscient gods of warmth, love, and nurture. This is life. But maybe we can provide the infant with a replacement, the parents think, so we need not deal with his or her cries of heartbreak. What other pacifier could they hand out than a baby-proof version of what they use for themselves?
What about the child who gets his heart broken by a teacher or a coach? When he fails to achieve, why not lay his broken heart on top of a gaming device that was designed for achievement? A young man frustrated from an inability to satisfy his sexual desires is probably more heartbroken from rejection than anything else, whether he chooses to admit it or not. What is better than pornography, the same thing he was given as an infant only infused with adult libido? Do you believe there is any difference between the sexes? The young woman who once escaped through fantastical narratives brimming with romance now an adult cannot create and explore romance of her own, descending into obsessive illusions of romantic relationships between fictional characters (or celebrities, which are fictional as much.)
Even then that is not all! I am in fact holding back from exposing every hidden in plain sight example. The loss of a loved one, or their choice of lifestyle. The apathy towards the Earth we inhabit. An inability to integrate into social groups. The disappointment with the world at large. The failure to meet your own expectations, or that of others. Failure. Loss. Hardship. Pain. They are very different from success and happiness. The latter only reinforces that we are on the right path, following our true will. The former category of experiences informs us that change and transformation are overdue, about to be necessary or already occurring. It is painful because we break ourselves down and build ourselves back up, often unconsciously, as many times as we must.
It is currently unknown to me how or why these dark reflective surfaces are so attractive when it comes to resting from our broken hearts. Let me begin to reveal my foolish nature then. In my short life of about one-fifth of a century, I have never come face to face with hard drugs. Yet I cannot picture a better drug to rest being conscious than heroin. The way it kills awareness is closer to death than actual suicide from the perspective of the unconscious mind. Return to the infant, the womb even. Could I have become so out of touch with the world to compare a smartphone to heroin?
They say the difference between poison and medicine is simply the dosage. But what determines the dosage is the intention (conscious or not) with which we partake in the substance. Really, what is our end goal? In that sense, the comparison is valid in the context of resting our heavy hearts, our awareness, and our wakefulness. Is resting those elements a capital sin? On the contrary, sometimes it is rest that mends the wounds and reshapes our soul. I am currently resting my heart on top of this page I jot down my words. Earlier I rested it on pages of fiction, reading in the sun.
What is the difference between a book and a screen? The screen demands your attention, while a book must earn it through worthy prose. Even then, the book does not truly care. It does not actively demand your attention at least. It will not buzz or flash; it is a passive object that requires willed focus from your part. As such, you are always free to return to your body mid-sentence, or in-between paragraphs and chapters, to contemplate how it is affecting your heart.
I suppose there are many ways to rest a broken heart. Some chase another heart, perhaps as broken as theirs, so they can share the burden together. Maybe they chase glory, fame, and achievement. Some make art, spend time with friends, get a pet, lift weights, pick fights, have sex, eat, sleep, work, listen to music, watch films, do drugs, or masturbate. In other words, life. And many of these can be done in this world, or the digital one, further from the body and its broken pieces we cannot be bothered to tend to.
Nonetheless, some of these activities are easier to lose oneβs heart to it, whether to afterward find it stronger and flexible, or weak and brittle. To lose oneβs heart to something that only takes and gives nothing back is like a walking death. And imagine how difficult it is for the dead to snatch it back even if they wanted to. Do they want to? Are they willing to live, or is it too heavy a burden?
Maybe it is the zen monks or the Buddhists who got it right. There is no other place to rest our hearts than where it already is, and there is nothing to do but breathe and let it beat. Or perhaps Jesus Christ is the only one who can heal a heart truly. What do I know? I warned you I am a fool. I have walked a long time but no distance; I have only traversed back and forth the same segment of a path, too cowardly to move forward yet not enough to go backward. Here you can find me, standing in the doorway between one maze and another. Both promising to hold lifeβs rewards within. If you cannot distinguish them from each other, only look up. Are you being blessed by the rays of the sun and the beauty of the moon and stars?
Yo this touched my soul. I actually how nice words. Thank you for this
Do you still post? Do you have a twitter?