I have this thought, that if I could outrun my yearn for sleep, stretch the nights into paper-thin sheets that pass second by dreary second, tomorrow would fail to come, and I would not awake in my bed, covered in sweat and pleading again for the darkness to find me. 

Maybe- I Think- Maybe if I could find just the right balance between exhaustion and alive, I could entrap myself in some self-deluded escape from reality, hallucinate vividly and come the dreaded daylight, awake a renewed person, a different person entirely- one for whom meaning is simply given or perhaps, is even unnecessary in every waking moment. 

But I have always failed at this.

Mornings have always carried with them the weight of a thousand mountains all stacked curiously at the base of my chest. 

They are the stark and overbearingly constant reminder that there is no back-alley reality to which we can escape.

"We are here, we are now, we are ever-so-flawed and inescapably on the path to the unknown," they say. 

So I trudge through each day, yearning to find sleep, rest, a place to be removed from the furious roar of existence and always, to no avail.

There was once a time when I had depended on the night's silence to escape. She was once my co-conspirator. But when the darkness comes now, she comes slowly, a thick suffocating heavy she brings with her, with which she forcibly cloaks by head.

She too has turned her face from me. 

I had made plans in her dark, wrote words, sang songs, set promises in stone or otherwise discarded them like useless scraps into the never ending abyss. My soul emptied to her, the hopes and dreams of the 5-year-old inside me, exposed to the bare earth as she rotated helplessly around the sun. 

Tonight she roams like a lonely beggar wandering an empty backroad, not even an echo to bring comfort nor even to instil fear.

Here is a better question. Why? Why is existence plagued by the existential crisis? Yes, we are finite beings with infinite questions. Yes, we are limited in knowledge and understanding. Yes, the world does not compile answers and distribute them. However, one's sense of self does not merely stem from his understanding of the world around him. Self is intrinsically determined. Self is definitively intrinsic. So why is it so hard to understand?

Perhaps we have sold ourselves into a culture that explains self externally as opposed to internally. Your family tells you who you are, your friends tell you who you are, your teachers tell you who you are. Who you are is marked by status, by grade, and by class. As much as we would like to argue that such a scheme no longer exists in modern society, it would be hard to deny. While external identifiers are indeed essential, they are not the only identifiers that exist. The emphasis placed in a fast-paced world on the easily administered external identity has diminished the need for self-reflection. If we are told who we are, why would we seek to determine who we are?

Therein lies the problem. One we ironically have the capacity to fix. You are not who other people define you to be. Your job does not define you, your social media followers do not define you, the amount of money in your bank account does not define you. Even your significant other does not define you. You may search in your life, and stop where you are met with projections of who you are to other people. Yet you will find, that you may fall short in every way, without introspection. When their expectations and your inner musings collide, are they fully reflective of each other? Are you happy being the person you are?

Who are you when you are stripped of these things? Spend some time with that person. They likely have been craving your undivided attention.


-crumblingcookie

The things I remember about you are your smile, which was a rarity in the tough times but always a comfort. The evenings out with the entire family, strolling around the park and buying us ice cream while you held my brother in your arms. I remember going to church every single Sunday and holding on to one of your fingers with my tiny hand. I remember you and my mother and how you loved each other complexly and completely even when things got tough. I remember Christmas mornings at Grandma's house, where for a moment we were all happy and nothing else mattered.

 I remember the times we would talk about religion, God and philosophy. You taught me to appreciate these things for as long as I remember. You made me fall in love with books, giving me as many old ones and news ones as you could find. You made me appreciate music and taught me my first three chords on the guitar, Em, F and G. You were passionate about art and history, things to this day I remain intrigued by.

Dear dad,

A lot of people have a narrow perception of the idea of art. Naturally, visual arts take precedence in our understanding of the concept. We picture renaissance sculptures and vague images of men in berets posed lavishly in front of blank canvases, awaiting the brush's stroke. While a simple google search will return you several definitions, I'd prefer to speak of my own understanding of the word. To me, art is indeed paint splashed on canvas, but beyond the physical creation of something possessing aesthetic, art is something that lacks precise definition. Art can be manifested in any way imaginable. The only string of constance that is completely definitive of art, is the word passion. To me, being passionate about any subject matter, ranging from economics to graffiti, is what makes its production art.

In my mind, passion begets agony, through loss and though excess. In other words, true passion is felt when deprived of the subject or when overwhelmed by it. The longing felt by the artist who is denied creative expression is the same longing felt by the producer who is engulfed in the creative process. Agony if anything is idicative of passion. 

Theorethical assumptions aside, I would say it is this exact agony that makes the idea of catharsis so immensely beautiful. Some of us do not feel particularly passionate about anything, yet we occassionally indulge in some sense of agony. When this happens we look for escape even though escape may be improbable. Robert Frost says that the only way out is through, an arguable proposition but one to be considered. If the only way out is to fight the fight, then we must be able to endure. From personal experience I'd say that the best way of doing so, is by monopolozing agony and turning it into some form of invigourated expression. An expression of passion driven by agony, a description you may or may not find familiar. 

This is by no means an unfamiliar concept, expression of pain through art is perhaps the most universally understood notion within the creative process. The reason I've decided to write this was because of how often I've encountered individuals who simply disregard creative outlets in dealing with problems in life. They claim they are "not good authors," or painters or creators in general. Yet, what remains unseen is that creation need not be good if it is passionate and art, as said before is not limited to simple constructions of language or design. Judgement is subjective and if what you create is important to you, the opinions of others should not matter at all.

At the end of this, I hope whoever reads it finds solace and motivation in the power they unkowingly possess in both their hands and minds. You may feel alone and you may feel overwhelmed but when there's no one else there to lean on, you have your own ingenuity. As simplistic as that sounds, it must help knowing that there is unlimited power between your own fingertips and consciousness. You must dream and you must create.

-CrumblingCookie

And in spite of the many things I have found about people, both in their good moments and in their shadows, I have always considered myself to have the advantage of observing this mild and often unnoticed sense of purity- a sense of wonder, mystery, and curiosity that has always left me contemplating on the imperfections of our universe.