Bohemian pillars of belief.

Idealistic notions, borne of a time
when humanity embraced
the underlying virtues
that were the bedrock
of all that was good
in this world.
Truth.
Freedom.
Beauty.
Love.
*sigh*
Where have you all gone?
Why have you disappeared,
oh pillars that I have believed in
for the better part of 21 years?
Have you deserted me now,
when my faith, my belief
in idealism is at its weakest?

My eyes are almost dry now.
I can feel the streaks
they have left on my cheeks.
Downwards, they went,
burrowing a furrow
through my layered being,
piercing me to my core.
Unbidden. Uninvited.
Coarseness rubbing up
against the gentle fragility
of my weary soul.
They serve a biological function, no doubt.
But I just think it's God's way
of letting you know,
without any shadow of a doubt,
what you are feeling, at that very moment.

I hate them, and love them
at the same time.
I love the fact that they
portray the honest me.
And I hate them for that fact too.
I love them because
they are at times,
my only outlet.
Again, I hate them
for that very same reason.
I embrace my tears,
and shun them.
And that is the fundamental
simplicity of the ideal of Truth.

We look for it, yet
find ourselves afraid to embrace it.
We revel in it, yet feel the pinch
of its consequences.
And have the audacity
to complain about it afterwards.
Truth has always been impactful.
Either in the here and now,
or further down the line.
Be it painful, or otherwise.
The lesson? Simple.
We can never run away
from what is true.
Turn around.
Embrace it.
Deal with it.
It is always better,
than pretending it is not there.
The trials of today
will serve you in better stead for tomorrow.
And you will never outrun pain.
Never.

We mollycoddle ourselves
with the safety nets we put up
for contingencies that may
or may not affect our lives.
Insurance schemes.
Refunds.
Warranties.
God parents.
Wills.
Maps.
Directions.
Handbook Guidelines.
Laws.
All are restrictions.
All are barriers.
Barriers to what?
To freedom.
True freedom.
That in itself is
a dirty lesson
that no moral teacher
will broach with you in school,
or would even leave
a professor of philosophy hesitant.

Freedom, absolute true Freedom,
scares the shit out of humanity.

Imagine yourself alone.
In the middle of a forest.
No mobile phone.
No wallet.
No map.
No directions.
Nothing. Just you.
What are you?
Marooned, obviously.
All alone.
Trapped.
With no rescue forthcoming,
nor any sense of where to even begin.
Yet within this sphere
of your own existence,
you are FREE.
Free to go where ever
your legs can take you,
where ever your mind wants you to.

You are not bound by
your identity card
to stay on that piece of land.
You are not bound by laws
that say you cannot cut down a tree,
and make some space for yourself.
You are not bound by the constraints
that people around you would impose.
You can be as loud as you want,
whenever you want.

You are free, from the hope of rescue.
You are free, from being dependent on other people.
That is what Freedom is.
The freedom, to be yourself.
Doesn't that scare you? To be free,
absolutely, unabashedly, irrefutably free,
is to be alone.

Yoda famously said,
Luminous beings we are.
Not this crude matter.
Souls, as you would call them.
Everything else in life, is artificiality.
Nature, is artificiality.
Thnigs that are not made
by man's hand, are in themselves, artificial.
Constructed, put together, built, grown.
It does not matter. They are artificial.
How so? Because they are made up of other things.
They are not what they originally were.
And anything that has been changed
from what it originally was, is artificial.
Glorious sunsets.
Gigantic mountain ranges.
Sprawling green forests.
Beautiful, are they not?
But they are not true beauty.

Beauty has often been said
to come in many forms.
As the saying fondly goes,
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
But who is the 'beholder' exactly?
Each and every individual?
You? Me? None.
For we are all the same.
Humanity is the 'beholder',
for we all 'see' beauty the same way.
True beauty transcends any boundary.

Any. Boundary.

Be they literary. Physical.
Cultural. Economical. Genetic. Conditioning.
When we see a sunset, and say it is beautiful,
it is not mere colours nor
our lone Star that brings us
to this profound realisation.
It is the soul of what we see.
When you look into the eyes
of someone you love, is she beautiful?
She is, isn't she? And you knew it,
without even needing to see the rest of her.

The word 'beauty', and all its other forms,
have been abused and bloodied in spirit and meaning.
We have come to associate beauty
with what we can tag with our eyes,
with merely what our sight can tell us.
But doesn't true beauty transcend
anything, and everything?
You will know beauty when you see it.
You will know beauty when you feel it.
Touch it. Understand it. And to do that,
must we not embrace the truth of our own lies?
Cut ourselves free of our own inhibitions?
Once you realise that beauty
is so much more than we could
ever hope for it to be,
then you will have taken
your first steps into a world
far removed from
the one you live in now.

A world of love.

Love is neither pain, nor suffering.
Neither is it joy, or happiness.
Love does not entail trust,
nor does it encourage jealousy and suspicion.
Love is not appreciation, nor care.
Neither is it sacrifice, or risk.
It is not anything, nor any single one thing.
All these things, they are
the artificiality of human emotions.
The constructs of human minds.
Grown from our dying need
to use words on everything we have.
The love we are so fond of describing,
and so outward it may seem
in appearance, is a lie.
And we are guilty of
propogating it beyond measure.

Truth.
Freedom.
Beauty.
Love.

I don't understand any of them.
But I believe.