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The freedom to be who you are… that sounds nice, doesn’t it.
Think of all the things you could say, do… if you could just be… yourself.
It plays the music of an ideal,
a longed for dream,
an utopia which teases from a distance like a mirage in the desert… is it a real place or just an illusion…
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What stops us from being who we are?
Or…
Who stops us?
The list is long…
we can pretty much blame everything and everyone,
although we may omit ourselves due to being distracted by all the other things and people who are stopping us from just being ourselves.
It’s raining today,
and cold,
so I can’t wear a bikini,
eat an ice cream while sunbathing on the lawn…
and if I did it anyway my neighbour would think I was crazy,
for some reason I think my neighbour has nothing better to do than watch my every move just to judge my sanity, and think about me,
perhaps they don’t…
have anything better to do, or maybe they avoid their own problems by finding ones with me…
and I want to control them (or what I think they’re thinking) to make me feel better, or maybe worse, about myself being me… or do I just want to use them to excuse myself from something…
like the fact that I don’t want to do that thing I’ve told myself I want to do because the real me would do that, so… so I create a complicated pickle, then eat it and blame someone else for the burps and farts it causes because it’s indigestible.
Or something like that…
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Sometimes… being ourselves is just in the things we do every day and not some far off destination… we’re at our most authentic when we’re not thinking about being at our most authentic… we’re just being, and often that kind of just beingness is not as glamorous or wonderful as we imagine it should be…
being ourselves is really rather ordinary, we just do it… it’s not some objective to achieve which once achieved comes with a trophy, a hero’s parade, fireworks and other festivities…
not being ourselves… is also part of being ourselves,
which is confusing, but that’s part of being ourselves too…
we want everyone and everything to make sense… but we don’t make sense, so… why expect it of anyone or anything else…
because we’re human and…
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“An adult life…is a slowly emerging design, with shifting components, occasional dramatic disruptions, and fresh creative arrangements.”
― Jill Ker Conway
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The other day I read an interesting post wherein there was a poll which left me a bit perplexed…
This is the poll with link to the post:
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8-9 December 2015 Highly Susceptible by Julie Demboski’s Astrology
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I was perplexed because…
I’m often that way, it’s the beginning of many of my journeys of thought, and the impulse behind much of what I do… perhaps it is who I am.
the post itself hit the nail on the head for something which was going on around me,
and spoke of an influence which was expanded upon by other posts I read on the same aspect:
Your Own Personal (Productive) Volcano via Planet Waves
Mars Square Pluto: struggle is optional via Insight Astrology
and gave me one of those delicious AHA moments where something is explained and now… I can relax.
What was going on around me… a couple of my friends were having a prolonged debate about belief, behaviour, and… other stuff which humans like to have discussions, verbal fisticuffs and flex their mental muscles about, especially online… which can cause schisms, particularly when it is about things which are well known for causing such rifts.
I was privy to this because people like to share and this kind of debate tends to spill over and involve others as the debaters seek support, reassurances or reinforcements… and the like (or the ‘Like’)…
Usually I love to wade in with mind guns blazing as I adore debating… I prefer not to pick sides but to bring my own into the mix…
but at the moment my mind is switched off and I feel a bit like a pen that has run out of ink and isn’t sure if it wants to fill itself up or remain empty… writing invisibly in the air…
it’s rather nice to not think about anything or anyone (not even myself) at all…
it’s like white noise without the scratchy noise particles…
with a heavy metal bunny hopping around…
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What perplexed me about the poll was… none of the options were quite right for my situation, yet they all were relevant in some way.
I suppose the best way to describe it would be to say it through a picture…
taken of a wall,
in my new home,
which was having some rising damp problems,
because it had been painted and plastered over,
fixed,
with modern materials that don’t suit its old structure…
these walls need to breathe…
and they were crying inside because someone had covered them over to make them aesthetically pleasing…
to the human eye…
the human eye is prone to seeing what it wants to see, what the mind wants to be real and not what is really there…
perhaps I’m doing that now too…
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We do that with ourselves…
and with our concept of who our real selves are…
we cover ourselves over with so many layers of plaster and paint,
until our walls can’t breathe… and the tears we cry are stuck inside, leaking out in strange ways…
like having debates with others (whom we plaster and paint over to suit how we want, need, to see them… for ourselves, to suit our purpose, or aesthetic), causing schisms that…
perhaps lead us further away from who we are or… maybe they lead us there.
To svatantrya…
maybe we fight to be free… but somewhere along the way we forget something, distraction takes over and becomes our focus and new home, which needs plastering and painting to stop it from revealing to us… something we don’t want to see.
What do you think…?
An Upturned Soul 
I think, that as soon as we make decisions on what we are going to do based on something outside of ourselves and our own desires, the shoulds, the worries of what others will think, our own lack of self-acceptance or an ego based decision which is always, inevitably shallow; we have stepped off the path into the mud. Our job is to make sure it doesn’t suck our shoes off.
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I like that 🙂 Reminds me of a game I used to play as a child called Stuck-in-the-Mud, which was a version of tag with added complications.
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I love that Spanish word “querencia”, intriguing it doesn’t exist in any other language..and i love your picture, you are so talented at crystallizing into poetry a torn piece of lost reality.
as far as what we do with layers of paint and plaster, following your metaphor, I am very concerned about the dampness we cause to ourselves, until it’s smelly and we are ashes..
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There are some great words in other languages which just don’t have translations or similar words, I kind of like it when that happens. Spanish has some lovely ones 🙂
I love seeing what lies behind a surface veneer, both with things and people 😉 When I found the wall behind the paint and plaster, it was so beautiful I wanted to bare all of it and have it as a feature. I might still do that, I just haven’t got that kind of energy at the moment. I was concerned about the rising damp, but the wetness has dried out pretty quickly since I let the wall breathe. Sometimes things sort themselves out when we let them be as they need to be, including ourselves.
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interestin 🙂
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Thank you very much 🙂
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You might want to be cautious with that wall – is there mold? Black mold can be dangerous.
It’s interesting that the practicalities are what I think of – not the metaphor. But then, that perhaps says something, too. Maybe I cover my walls with cleaning supplies rather than paint. 🙂
Great post. 🙂
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TY 🙂
I admire the ability to think practically, sometimes I can do it, but I often forget some intrinsic detail. Mostly though I tend to use the wrong tools to do things, I just use what is handy which is very annoying of me. However I surprised myself by wearing a dust mask while exposing the wall.
It’s dried out really well, I wasn’t sure it would. There was only a small patch of mold and it was a shade of green. I bleached the eff out of it. I like cleaning products too 😉
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