aside

photo by unknown genius + rant by me

There are people who can see beauty- recognize the sublime, and there are those who can’t.

I wonder if it’s an innate ability sometimes, but regardless, it is the in-between-ers that baffle me most; those who do recognize the universal consciousness that is good in other beings, objects and situations, but are either content with their carefully crafted illusion of  joy and persist in their states, never reaching for anything higher, or worse, those who feel threatened by the same and tailor their pursuits to the reduction of the reaches of that good.

Why doesn’t everyone want to touch the edges of the beautiful especially after having caught a glimpse of it? If you know the possibilities are limitless, how is it not tempting to test them out, to be the best you can be, to nourish the good and wean the bad? Simply to reach farther in the world there is out there?

Is it tacitly programmed in us through years of being taught we ought to compromise? You’ve all heard it- you can’t have everything you want, you will never find someone who’s perfect, everything is flawed (what defines a flaw is so subjective, I can argue there is no such thing)…idealism is unreal…etc. etc. etc…it’s tiring, this battle against settling, and the best of us begin to doubt. But the question here is how will you find something you have convinced yourself doesn’t exist? In life, in love, in everything, the upper limits of what you get is set by what you demand. What you will not settle without…

We are people, and we are good and strong and beautiful, and our natural state is one of bliss, and peace, and oneness. Existence in itself is sublime. It is noble, and you as a part of it, are no less.

Call me an idiot, a dreamer or a sufi, but my optimism is unyielding and I am just tired of disillusionment coming in different packages. I am tired of the glorious human spirit being reduced to a joke, I am tired of hearing about settling, of following the norm, and I am tired of hearing people cite the “ignorance is bliss” philosophy to allow themselves to carry on just so. Since when can knowledge take away bliss?  Ignorance could be de-constructed into a sheer lack of curiosity, ambition or courage (if not a combination therein), or just plain old denial. Denial doesn’t yield happiness and isn’t that the ultimate meaning of existence itself?

Delve a little deeper, ponder for a moment longer, and understand that bliss which can be denuded by knowledge, discovery, understanding, really isn’t bliss at all. So ingrained in the consciousness of the world- from the Adam and Eve fairy tales to taboos attached to questioning a tradition or established authority across so many cultures…this subtle acquiescence to live unquestioning, submissive lives in nefarious guises…where has it ever led?

This aside digresses, and these thoughts will need more ironing, but in the meanwhile let Tagore resonate:

Where The Mind is Without Fear

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depths of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake

[ Rabindranath Tagore- Geetanjali]