Safekeeping

One of the hardest things is piecing yourself back together again after breaking into a million pieces. 

Trust.

You can trust someone with information, or trust them to get a job done. Trust someone to have your back, trust someone to be there, no matter what. Or trust someone to keep you safe. 

The worst part in misplaced trust in a person is that when you give that trust to another being, that trust is completely contingent in your very own personal trust of the self. You are trusting yourself, your sense of judgement, in being able to believe that this other person is worthy of keeping your trust.

So, when they decide they no longer want that burden, when they decide that hurting another person to relieve their own stress in life is OK, because they have already done the calculations and decided you will be OK even if your trust in them was wrong all along, they forget that the implications lie on a much grander scale. Because, even after the damage is done, and they have moved on, that huge earthquake is only the start of an avalanche of aftershocks: you are left stranded in a place where you cannot even trust yourself.

When you have moved from a space of casual acquaintance, slowly and systematically ingraining everything inside of you with this person's aura, their function in your life slowly becoming part of the very equation of who you are, so much that you would bet your life in that trust, nevermind your own sense of identity and trust, it goes without saying that once that little piece of trust is removed like a Jenga piece down there below the other million pieces which comprise you, of course everything, absolutely everything, collapses.

But it is all inside of you. And not any other person ever could imagine what it is like beyond that outer shell.  Inside, you are juggling the pieces that have not yet fallen, and yet you are trying to pick up, and catch, the other falling pieces which are sharp, fatal, piercing you with pain. Inside, you are slipping trying to escape falling completely and utterly to that bottomless pit where your sense of self can never be resuscitated, and yet you are slipping on the shards which make up the slopes you are trying to keep a grip on with the soles of your already-ripped and bleeding feet, and mutilated palms, slipping on the blood, bringing you to your knees, on which you continue to struggle up. Inside you are suffocating, as the atmosphere around you is a vacuum-sealed vessel of building pressure, toxic fumes of self-hatred, green gaseous canisters of laughter assaulting you with no remorse. Inside, you don't even know which part of you is really you, and inside, you don't even know who you are anymore, not really. 

Can you ever really—really—trust another person to keep you safe?

Interview with Jeodie

"Do you ever regret it?"

Jeodie: Regret?

Interviewer: Yeah, do you?

J:

I: You can be honest.

J: Why do you say that? Honest. Everything I say is already honest because I said it.

I: I'm sorry. I didn't mean...

J: Why did you not say what you mean, then?

I:

J:

I: I...dont know?

J: Who will know if not you?

I: Er, you, perhaps?

J: This is what I don't understand. You keep staring up at your sky. Or looking in many places, in the places you know you can never find what you are looking for because that which you are looking for does not in actuality exist because you do not in the first place know what it is that you search for but you look to it to cast your blame or to get an answer to a question that you do not even try answering because you are instead looking for answers in impossible places. Does this not render your question impossible?

I: ... <coughs uneasily> I...uh, <riffles through notes> Uh... My question was "do you regret it?"

J: No.

I: <smiles in relief> You mean to say that we aren't so bad afterall, huh?

J:

<very long pause>

I: <clears throat>

J: No. I do not associate with regret. Or honesty either.

I: You mean, you're lying?

J: No.

I: ...Uh. I'm confused, like, do I write that down as "yes?"

J: <sighs> My statement signifies that honesty is not a concept required by myself because
the inverse does not exist either, for me. Deceit, dishonesty--these are all your making.

I: But you made us!

J: Oh me. Are we really going to do this

I: But you did <tone becomes whiny>

J: Do you have to justify yourself to your omelette in the morning, or in the afternoon when you are digesting it for that matter--or in the night when you excrete it? Do you tell it your reasons?

I: What

J: We must be at the end of our interview by now

I: No! I have many more questions! Everyone has questions! You are so hard to contact, we all have questions

J: I will ask them

I: But you have to answer them not ask them

J: More important is why you need to ask. More important is why do you ask if I regret making you and your world, what does that imply about your self-conception. Do you not have accountability?

I: Yeah but, things sometimes don't make sense

J: Tell me about it <stares at Interviewer quite closely>

I: Are you....are you....looking at my soul?

J: No, you have ketchup on your right eyebrow

I: Oh, thanks.

J: Sometimes I come and take a look around. Things don't make sense. But I wasn't implicated in the causality of your choices, only in the causality of your inception, and that was whatever it was.

I: <nodding and scribbling notes furiously> Yes, so, so what are we doing wrong?

J: I don't know. I try to help, sometimes, but you are very strange.

I: Really, like how?

J: Well, sometimes my mother has to yell up the stairs because there are so many calls for me, but when I go downstairs it's just a transmission of your conjoined thoughts and when I try to extract meaning out of it, I find that it is all autocorrected because you don't really know what you want.

I: I...think I see. Yes. So, what are we doing right then? What makes you proud?

J: I like your insistence for art.

I: Really? I am surprised. You don't feel it is superfluous? But why?

J: Because it reminds me of my own art.

I: Wow, that is definitely inspiring. Everyone will be pleased to read this from you. Even the atheists.

J: Yes. But I don't care for them.

I: Yeah, I wouldn't either, if it were me and there were people who didn't believe in me despite everything.

J: No, I don't care for any of you, is what I mean.

I:

J: Well. Art. This was my artphyscie project when I was in kindergarten.

I: What is artfizz....WHAT?<chokes> KINDERGARTEN?!

J: It is a form of art where we create a programmatic code for our basic material, what you call the canvas and through many visceral variables of corporeality incorporate many multidimensional pigments to create the ultimate art.

I: No, you said, kindergarten? YOU MADE THE UNIVERSE WHEN YOU WERE IN KINDERGARTEN?

J: Yes, it was my term project. Though we do not have grading criteria the way you judgmental fools do, my teacher did not like it. I did not like my teacher's face either. But this is not judgement, only a matter of objective preference. I tried to convey this to my principal as to why I caused my teacher's gravitational device, what I believe you might call a whitehole, to explode but I still had to repeat kindergarten. Several times. Yes.

I: <hyperventilating>

J: I think our interview is done, yes?

I: <splutters> NO! Can you at least tell me, Jeodie, and...thanks for clarifying your name, but why are there so many names for you all over our world? This seems to be a main point of contention for most of the conflicts.

J: You all are fools. That is why.

I: But your names? All these different versions of religion, for example?

J: I don't know.  Sometimes I like to come down when I am playing.

I: Playing.

J: I think for you, you might understand it like, you call it RPG characters.

I: You play video games.

J: In your terminology, maybe, yes. Our system differs substantially.

I: How...err. How old are you?

J:  Fifteen. In your terminology. Oh mother's calling.

I: My mother died when I was a kid and that is something I wanted to talk to you about! I want to understand why! I--YOU'RE A TEENAGER?!

J: Not yours, mine. I gotta go. Dinner is ready. <EXITS>

I:

Interviewer's phone rings, keeps ringing as Interviewer sits, stunned. Finally, Interviewer answers, "I....I think I just got trolled by God."

Thought of the Day

Believing in yourself does not need to mean that you have to discover a cure for a chronic disease, or run a 50K marathon, or write the greatest memoir. Nor is it contingent on your achievements or aspirations. Instead of invigorating yourself with pep talks or consolation, sometimes all it really means is being able to have a simple, quiet, honest conversation with yourself—and when I say quiet I mean unplug yourself from the rest of the world, let everyone and everything else wait for a bit while you have yourself a real genuine chat, and I say honest because sometimes that is one of the hardest things to really be, especially to oneself. We always keep tiny secrets, hide away little things, for whatever reason. You don't need to punch down lumps that seem to define your imperfections, you don't need to slice off the flaws. You don't even need to make resolutions or promises or find a reason for being. Just be you--the real you, maybe even for once in your life. Believing in yourself doesn't mean that you can't count on anyone else, and it definitely doesn't mean that you can't cry or feel lost. All that is you. Talk to yourself—even if it makes you feel crazy—as if you are talking to the only person left in the world that you can unconditionally trust.  And listen, as if you are listening to that one person who makes your heart sing, as if the person talking is that one person you really would do anything for, for whom you would shrug off your pride, scruples and apathy just to make them believe that you care.

Hallelujah

This morning as I left the house in the middle of a bright, quiet, sunny morning, I emerged from a shortcut through a peripheral park path, and entered another neighborhood. There before me was a black coat squad, maybe about 10 of them, unloading from their squad church van: the omnipresent holier-than-thou Catholic (or Jehovah's Witness) door-to-door converting mob.

Their eyes lit up upon seeing me, their first hapless victim. Out came the many, many hands with their many, many pamphlets. "Good morning!" They beam at me. I do a quick internal calculation and come to a decision.

"Good morning," I smile serenely back at them.

They seem pleased.

"Have you embraced the word of the Lord, my dear?" said a man in a black trench coat, black oxfords, and holding a leather portfolio.

"May Allah save you from your sins," I smile back at them, nodding.

An awkward pause settled on the crowd. A crow squawked, as if right on cue.

A 5-foot momma decided to clarify things. "Now dear, we mean the lord Jesus, praise him, son of God, amen."

"Amen," the rest of them all chorused, sighing collectively in relief.

"Jai hanuman gyan gun sagar jai kapeesh tihu lok ujagar" I began to chant at them a la Salman Khan in London Dreams. Unfortunately, before I could get to the really cool part where he does the rockstaresque "HANUMAN KI JAI" with an air guitar accompaniment, the crowd had dispersed, sidling away as quick as their little proper black oxfords could take them without offending the lord in all his message of tolerance.

I shrugged and kept walking in the quiet, beautiful spring morning.

A crow squawked again.

"You too, baby, you too."

Thought of the Day

Faith is a tree, growing new branches even in the face of a storm. And when the time is right, those new branches bear fruit. When you have faith, despair is not an option. Faith is a lesson to be learnt, just like everything else in life.