"And he whispered fear is logical."
The weight of illumination is to be crushed by a dazzling light. One that blinds us to the faults of the earth
Irrational fears are often born from rational situations.
Someone I once knew had an embarrassing fear, almost to the point of paranoia, of growing old. But I guess I can see the appeal of fearing something like growing old and useless. It’s fighting to think that this youthful body I inhabit now will one day, if I’m lucky, become immobile, full of aches and pains, and eventually deteriorate. I am sure he saw with his own eyes, the impracticality and obsoleteness of old age. It’s hard not to gawk at the revealed mystery that is old age. To wonder why we age and break down and become nothing.
I once had a fear, based on apocalyptic type dreams. It was that the sun would fail to rise. I would wake up to complete darkness and be faced with the unfamiliar such as life without the sun. I used to have these dreams over and over again; they plagued me night after night. I don’t know why my subconscious foisted these images on me…but it preyed on some deep fears that found their way underneath my skin. They followed me throughout my day, forcing me to wonder what I would be like to live in total darkness. And now, as I write this out I suddenly come to realize what my dreams mean. My fear, my irrational fear, is living life without a shard of light. To stumble along, bumbling worse than a newborn foal without a glimpse of the sun to guide my path is the one thing that haunts me. Yet what is humorous is that I never had that illumination to begin with, my fear is losing something that I never obtained in the first place. I crave warmth, or at least its illusion. I wonder if my fear of the sun failing to rise and the fear of growing old are born from the same place. Both fears are something that has not happened, yet. For my acquaintance, like the sun, will grow old one day. So maybe my fears are not so irrational. I know it will happen, the sun will one day fail to rise and I shall one day fail to get out of bed.
We will both grow old and die.
But what about my own personal sun? The light that I crave so deeply, I long for it so deeply that my heart aches. I wish to be enlightened, to be illumination. But something tells me enlightenment is for those who have already caught a glimpse of the sun, whereas I have only seen pictures of it. Everyone is free to pursue the light, all except me. Maybe it’s because I’ve been tainted by the darkness and I am far too bleak to stand in the sun’s rays. Everyone finds the path to illumination, everyone but me.
And I’m frustrated, I want to cry and scream and pull my hair. I want to shout how I, too am worthy of illumination. I want to prove my case; I want to make it known to the world that I strive to be enlightened, to stand in the sun. But I realize that proving that I am worthy to be illuminated is just as hard as peeling off your own dragon scales. It cannot be done by yourself.
I no longer dream that the sun will fail to rise. Yet my acquaintance still fears the inevitable. I was able to cast my fear aside, and it is now a longing for my own light. Old age is creeping, ever so slowly towards us all. My acquaintance’s fears are more rational than mine, or at least I think so.
Yet I know that my fear of failing to find the light is rational as well. There is a good chance that I can search the world over and fail to find what I am looking for. I am blinded by my own needs, needs that create artificial light. Just like I am trying to peel off my own dragon scales.
Until next time, my invisible audience.
The cynical InkMask aka ginxkira
Standing in the shadows since 1986