Denied Din and Refuted Silence

"You deserve better" is a codex of contradictory emotions wrought into three simple words.  When one is in love, there is a rush of hormones and nervous impulses that implicate the mind and body in delightful mischief.  However, the realisation that the object of one's affection may be happier or 'better off' with another, more suitable option is a difficult concept to digest.

On one hand, it is a bitter feeling knowing that you have somehow introduced misery into someone's daily routine by simply (unintentionally or otherwise) swaying them in your direction.  On the other hand, it is quixotically soothing that they could possibly find happiness, though not with you.  The joy of knowing your feelings are requited is unmatched, but at what point are you allowed to negate their God-given right to choose to be involved with you simply because you feel they would somehow be more content with someone else?

Is it when you observe that you are Rekha to the archangel Gibreel (The Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie)? When, though your love cannot be realised, you want him to stay, hope beyond hope that he will stay with you?  When, because he necessarily severs his affection for you due to your duty to family, you (metaphorically) throw yourself from a rooftop and stalk him on a flying carpet in an attempt to seduce him in your posthumous state? Or is it when you become his Alleluia? When you, his mountain-woman, are instantaneously taken captive by his innately seductive aura? When you find that he has come after you out of deep longing for your mind, your touch, your scent, you, and you take him into your heart assuming that he will be yours completely despite the warnings you receive from those closest to you?

I wonder about this every now and then, among many other love puzzles I may never solve.  It is tempting to force separation and distance between you and the one who feels so strongly for you that he would deny himself the basic "better" that he deserves.  It is all at once easy and difficult to become a monstrous thing that you believe he could never desire so that he will finally notice how truly mismatched you are.  However, it is just as easy-difficult to accept that he has seen something in you that gives him a surge of happiness that he would in no way discard.  One must sort through the ridges of the din and isolate those that will strengthen whatever it is that has been built with this chosen being, for emotional investments have been made.  One must also scrutinise the viscous silence for those impurities that seek to defile this built thing, for it is wholly unreasonable to single-handedly make decisions for you both based on clouded judgment.

"This wondrous malady", as Petrarch called it, need not be a mangled, deprecated thing.  It could be a beautiful paradox that unfurls between consenting, though weary, beings who want and may even need each other.  And, though it may be brief, it is better to have tasted that wondrous pastry than to never have had such sugar coat your lips.

No Need for a Hissy Fit

Here are my two 'Saturn ad' cents:

I'm not offended by the ad in the same way I'd say an American or any other nationality would be overly sensitive if they were to react in that way to a similar use of their flag.  The ad is PRAISING Jamaica. Did you realize that? Yes, they probably broke a few copyright infringement laws and a few discretionary protocols, but all in all it was just saying Jamaica is awesome.  Just like the VW and Heineken ads, the use of the great black, green & gold was not degradation, it was admiration. 

Do you want to know what the funny part is? This is exactly what happened in the ad.  One act of admiration was misunderstood by millions and the result was an UNNECESSARY RIOT.  Yeah, I yelled it & I'll yell it again. UNNECESSARY!

When did everyone get so testy & high strung? No need for a temper tantrum, people.  Calm down & sip some Blue Mountain coffee.

For those who missed it:

What's This All About Now?

I've been thinking a lot about life lately.  The main foci have been career, peace of mind, art, travel, love and health.  I've always seen my career as the backbone of my life, the steel on which the concrete of my days will depend for support.  Peace of mind has always been the scaffolding of my life.  It's that structure that allows everything else to be built smoothly and to be structurally sound, although it tends to be creaky and downright questionable more often than not.  My art is the door to my breath and the key that releases my spirit into the woods to wear flower garlands and skip through grass as dandelion seeds are plucked from their stems by playful winds.  Travel has always been the decorative colouring in the corners of my mind.  I want to visit all the ruins of ancient civilizations, from Petra to Athens to the Valley of the Kings, and feel what the people must have felt as their skin got burnt by the sun or sand filled  their lungs in those very spots.  Love has always been that elusive, but tyrannical imp that pulls my hair, teases me with ticklish giggles and yanks from my soul less than glamorous outpourings of entirely overblown affection.  Health, though, has never been a serious consideration for me...until recently.

Recently, I began to notice that all the little quirks of my body were becoming imposing oddities.  My cramping knees became too weak for walking, headaches became sledgehammers to coherency, clogged ears and sinuses became inhibited senses and constant ringing.  Suddenly, my little temperamental body would no longer stay silent.  That was when I realized that the structure of my life may have had bones, scaffolding, doors, decoration and sweet pests, but this was the concrete I had so long ignored.

We don't always realize what's brewing beneath the layers that we consider most important.  Then one day we aren't able to walk, think, hear or breathe and it hits us that we've been neglecting these colossal parts of our beings for too long and they've simply degenerated slowly at their own will.  You see, they don't care that we have reports to finish or people to see.  They do what they are wired to do, disregarding you as if you were the speck of dust on the wall that everyone overlooks.  If that wiring is deterioration, then what do you suppose you will ever be able to do about it?

In my case, I've come to realize that my bodily quirks are more than just annoyances, but what's this new eruption of health issues all about?  They could potentially- and already do- get in the way of the life I have planned.  Admittedly, I imagine my future and everything I want to do and, once continued degeneration is factored in, I wonder if these plans and dreams of mine are realistic.  What have I not told anyone? Take your pick.  This isn't the first time that my knees have buckled beneath my weight, my head has struck me motionless for hours on end, my ears randomly pop every now and then and suddenly I realize I was barely hearing the world around me.  No one needs to know that I've taken to grinding my teeth because almost every act is too painful for some part of my body to bear.

Will the pain stop me from hiking up that hill or writing that paper? It may try, but I'll fight it if I have to.  Hey, it's not that bad, right?

...

Lives there who loves his pain? 
Who would not, finding way, break loose from Hell, 
Though thither doomed? Thou wouldst thyself, no doubt,
And boldly venture to whatever place
Farthest from pain, where thou mightst hope to change
Torment with ease, and soonest recompense
Dole with delight...

- John Milton Paradise Lost

Mini Identity Rant

I’m not fully white & I’m not fully black. My hair has never been down to my ass & it’s only broken a few comb teeth. I’m not one thing, I’m a combination of gloriously multifaceted people & to say otherwise would be to disregard crucial parts of me. So stop trying to figure out my ethnic cacophony & thinking you can define me by it. Even I don’t know everything in my genetic mix. Stop trying to box everyone in. What’s so wrong with us all simply being humans?

When I cut my hair, I realised how much I relish androgyny. I've already been mistaken for a boy & it makes me feel a little bit more perplexing than I already was. I’m not a delicate flower that must be protected by a glass case, but neither am I rough & rugged. I like it that someone can look at me & not be sure what I am. Maybe it’s because I don’t even know. Maybe it’s because I’m having fun figuring it out & I find it strange that anyone would try to confine me to one phase of my process of discovery. Whatever it is, I love the new do more than I ever thought I could. I love being ambiguous because I don’t feel that I’m any one character that each person I meet makes me out to be.

The funny thing is, I think everyone & no one is ambiguous. Everyone has quirks that can’t be personally identified or understood. No one truly fits into the boxes built for him by people's opinions of what he should be. That is really the source of ambiguity/androgyny/whatever you ascribe to.

A close friend of mine likes to say that Christian denominations are “all different flavours of the same Kool-Aid”, & I think it’s the same with the state of being human. We just don't always appreciate that we're all mystery flavours in one way or another.