Life is a Tango
Best performed like a dance.
Be attuned to changing rhythms
Be light. Be ready. Be responsive.
Tease life. Challenge it. Own it.
Be graceful.
Grace is about offering yourself
To the divinity of the moment
Knowing that glory
Lies in defeating limitation.
Are you-
Feeling low? -Step up.
Feeling hopeless? -Step forward.
Feeling confident? -Step back.
Life is not so much an externality
As it is an internal movement
Of pulse and impulse
-Unknown cause and
Its sorrowful effect….
Between which man must learn
How to be. Should he be
Defined by his fears and
Limited by his desires?
Or, refusing all definitions and
Rejecting the impulse for an identity
He should give up the idea of being someone?
Achievement (of anything in this world)
Cannot be a worthy goal
If it is pursued for its own sake.
It becomes liberating
When it entails
Leaving behind the need
To be accomplished
…To be someone distinctive
In the vastness of existence
That is the real need;
The real poverty of consciousness
We need to be free of.
Who, or rather
What is the Other?
Your hope? Your helplessness?
Your expectation? Your indifference?
Your need for control?
Or that which you hate?
Or that which you fear?
Or, a target for your anger?
You exist in a vacuum.
Your chronic need to be someone
Creates the Other
–The matter to your anti-matter.
They are what they are
Because of what you wish to be
The Other is that part of you
That you have disowned.
Emotional pain is a shapeshifter
It can take on endless forms
The more you try to escape it
The more persistently it stays with you.
Suffering is the price you pay
For being a fugitive in life.
An ache-less heart is no solution
It is the most ignoble form of suffering.
It reeks of weakness…cowardice…denial.
A habitual dulling of pain
Through a vapid indulgence in the pits of pleasure
Cannot really be an indication of wellbeing.
To be free from pain
One must climb its walls
Refusing to be imprisoned by it.
One must see
The want it points to;
As that is the need of your soul.
Wisdom is coming to know
The unreality of dichotomies.
Our pain is not the problem;
It points to the problem.
Our pain is not a signal of things dying
But is the harbinger of a new possibility.
The Beautiful is the teacher
Of the Philosophical.
Apprehending beauty
Is the dawn of understanding.
Expressing beauty
Is the awakening of knowledge
Living as its instrument
Is our pilgrimage to wisdom.
Love is indefinable
But it needs to be explained
Lest we begin to define it
In terms of our bittersweet experiences;
In terms of what it never was–
An artefact of our desires.
Love,
Even if it were a thing
Would not be the thing in itself
But the spirit that lends itself
To a constitution and
Makes perceptible a harmony.
It’s the melody in a song
It’s the fragrance that emanates
From a flower and then
Fills up the air that surrounds it.
It is the intensity within emotion
That is distinct from the emotion itself.
Our very being is love.
And to the extent we are free
From the hunger and thirst of the heart;
From the endless wanting of the mind–
To that extent we are able
To express our love.
What mistakes am I making?
What mistakes have I made?
Is regret even a reasonable emotion?
…When you know that you’re on a journey
If you didn’t take a path
That you could have
Does it matter?
Destinations are just stops
…Milestones that you arrive to
And then move on.
They’re not permanent
…You’re not permanent
Concern is just a desire for permanency.
Let go of the need
To predetermine outcomes
Make better judgments
After you have made the bad ones.
Live life
The way it’s intended to be lived.
The pain of an ending
Is never so much
As when you know it.
And yet the sobs are silent
Muffled as they are
By the gags of normalcy.
Decency ensures
That the lines on your face
Are drawn into a smile…
That pretends to keep you social
While ensuring
That your façade reveals nothing.
You are close, yet far
In continuation
But discontinued.
Remembered
But not needed
Loved, but relegated.
‘Forever’ is no one’s destiny
It can only be our prayer
…Our hope.
And hope- we forget
-Can only convey us…
It makes no promises.
Separate we must.
All beginnings must end
All journeys must traverse a destiny.
Our days are ever-developing patterns
Of activity, of attention
Of thought, of belief
Of hope, of feeling
Of organization, of comfort
Of sustenance, of communication
Of staying connected
And of togetherness.
Humanity is the art
That emerges from
Intelligent Design.
When the minute
Inspires the hour;
And the hour
Builds the day;
And the days
Deliver the week;
And the weeks
Accomplish the month;
And the months
Grow the years;
And the years
Create a lifetime…
You realize-
It’s the little things
That matter.
Wit. Wisdom. Wonder... 