flickering flame & phantom dreams

what do you believe in when you don't believe in anything?

(things that keep me up at night #4)

I had a keen sense of the power and the joys of life, but I was shut out from them. I had a capacity for happiness, but it was locked away. I was like a person dying of thirst beside a fountain whose waters they could not reach. It is a bitter thing to see others succeed where you have failed, to see them walk in the sunshine while you are left in the shadow, wondering what crime you have committed to deserve such a fate.

~ Charlotte Brontë

The world is a cruel, cruel place. I really believe that. I didn’t use to.

When I love something, like really, really love something. The world has a way of snatching it, breaking it into two and handing it back to me. Now, all I can do is tape the two pieces together. The world keeps breaking it. I keep taping it. Until it no longer resembles what it used to be. It is of no value now. It’s a useless, pathetic and broken artifact that has absolutely no significance whatsoever.

Now, all I have is a broken dream and an empty roll of tape.

It’s the death of something really important to me. The world is like this bully in the playground who breaks your toys and laughs at you or like the lonely neighbor who punctures any football that enters their lawn and never returns it.

I have been asked many times in my life: “Do you believe in god?”

I never say no. I used to say maybe, but not anymore. Now, I just say, I don’t know.

Then again, it isn’t about god. It’s about me. The question isn’t about the existence of god, it’s about my belief in him/her.

And, really, I don’t know.

You see, believing in dreams is just like believing in god. It’s just like following a path that you can’t even see. Believing is easy; not believing is courageous. Not believing is like living in black and white.

It’s never a linear journey. You lose sometimes. You lose some again. And sometimes, you just keep on losing. Now, all you have is a pipe dream. It’s like a phantom. Haunting you. Mocking you. Watching you.

So, after a while it feels like, you’re sitting in the dark, playing chess with an opponent that doesn’t exist and the moves that aren’t visible. You could be losing but you wouldn’t know. You could be winning, but again, you wouldn’t know.

They say, trust the process. Trust. The. Process.

But how long? How long do you have to trust the process? How long can a flame flicker before it dies? Before it goes out, leaving one in complete darkness? How much can a person lose until they lose everything? How much can a person believe till they run out of belief from their system? How much can one dream until they start resenting it?

The funny thing about life is, as I have said before, that it has a way of finding your achilles heel and pin you to it.

Pin, it does. Mocks you. Mocks you a little more. Then leaves you hanging. In the dark. Alone. No light. No flame. Just you and that hole in your heart, that has been with you for so long that you’ve learnt to live with it. You don’t feel whole but you’ve never felt whole so, maybe you’re just lying to yourself. Maybe, it was never meant to be.

See, I would’ve believed in anything 4 years back. Hell, I used to believe in everything 4 years back. Now, I barely believe.

I heard this somewhere recently (can’t remember where):

It’s been said the saddest thing the man will ever face is what might’ve been but what of the man who was faced with what it was or what might never be or what can no longer be.

It got to me. The words. The truth.

But what does a man do when faced with what can no longer be. When the man is tossed out in this stormy ocean with a broken compass and a bad sense of direction. When lost, when does the man give in to the ocean? To be not lost but to lose to the ocean. To leave on your terms, good terms.

How do you know if it’s meant for you or if you are meant for it? How do you know when to just pull the plug, before it starts feeling like holding on to a dead body.

See, that’s the problem.

Dream no small dreams, for they have no power to move the hearts of men. Make your life a dream, and that dream, a reality. ... Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.

~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe & Langston Hughes

If you really love something, with all your heart. You can never resent it; just regret it. It will always be a part of you and you will never not make any decision that won’t lead you back to it. That’s the truth. It will remain with you until you die, deep in your bones, then in your ashes. Because, you really wanted it. More than anything else in the world. And the problem with us, egoistic beings, is that we never give up. Mankind is destined for progress, because it is science. It cannot be changed. We humans, we never give up. Even if we say otherwise. Somewhere inside of us, there will always be this hole that can never be filled. Humans, compound all our regrets and fears and hopes and dreams inside of us, till our deathbeds.

So, no.

If you really love something with every fiber of your being. You will never lose your spark. You might, temporarily, misplace it or watch it quiver, but you will never, permanently, lose it. It will be etched on your soul and you will carry it wherever you go. For you, my friend, dreamed. And now, you will forever be haunted.

The tragedy of life isn’t in failing to reach a goal, but in having no goal

~ Benjamin Mays

Thank you for reading!!

~Ash