The Awakening

At that moment, when the world around him melted away, when he stood alone like a star in the heavens, he was overwhelmed by a feeling of icy despair, but he was more firmly himself than ever. That was the last shudder of his awakening, the last pains of birth. Immediately he moved on again and began to walk, quickly and impatiently, no longer homewards, no longer to his father, no longer looking backwards. -- Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

Over the last years, I have spent a lot of time with myself - getting to know myself better and understanding myself better. It was, at first, a matter of necessity after my father's death. It wasn't a particularly difficult time because he died, but what was difficult was coming to terms with the relationship he and I had. The ups and downs, the trials and tribulations of a tempestuous relationship dashed onto a pyre. One half of that relationship gone, there was not much left. I do not let many people close, and to that end my father was not close when he passed away - partly of his own choosing, partly of my own. It felt right at the time, and yet it still hurt. It still was right, but identifying that hurt required staring into the well. And that well, you see, is quite deep. Mortality is a troublesome thing, but it has its uses.

This is the trouble with life. We do not pick our family, and we almost never pick the ones we love. And when the ones we love do not love us in return, we feel a pain - but what is that pain but a longing for what could never be? So you pick up your toys and you go home, or should - though more vengeful people are known to do hateful things. And because I have understood this trouble with life, people have considered me many things - aloof, distant, perhaps even absent. But what is the sense in loving what can only bring pain? And what is pain? And why do people bother with such trials and tribulations when there is a whole world out there to care for. And while some define themselves by what they care for, the sad truth is that we are the sum of what loves us back... for when we are gone, who remembers?

A close friend of mine and I started talking a bit about The Picture of Dorian Gray. How Dorian Gray's portrait reflected all the misdeeds, and how he hid his portrait away - a powerful metaphor for what we human beings do all the time. It is not that we wish to hide our souls, it is that we wish to hide the blemishes... and we hide these blemishes, these imperfections, we hide the soul. And when we hide our souls, we hide what we care for... and when we do that, we become what others see instead of who we really are. To many, it seems, this is an existence that they can live with beyond themselves... but to me, that existence seems unworthy of having. If one is to have an existence, to be, how can one do that through the eyes of others? I never understood that, but then there is the conundrum. How can one not love what does not love back and still be?

But you see, there is no conundrum. There are just hidden portraits, scars on our portraits that we have placed there - some by our actions, some by our own choices, and some by circumstance. There is plenty of literature on being a good human being, but there is no way to write how to be. To exude. The first step is to awaken, but that is not the only step... because one is never truly awakened.

Awakening is a process, a path, a mystery. When your eyes open, you truly don't know what is going on... and that, in time, becomes OK. And when that becomes OK, the next step is finding the next thing that isn't... and coming to terms with it.

Eventually, one day, we will face the dilemma of Dorian Gray. I am of the opinion that he should have eaten his portrait if it meant so much to him.

I am not awake yet, but I have awoken many times before.