8.

For some people, the world tears you apart. It does this in every way imaginable—ardently, as a reunion with an old lover who now lives abroad. Blithely, like running through a sprinkler on a hot summer afternoon. And quietly. Silently. Like nothing. Like an ocean of ache that roots you to the foundations of time. Sometimes—perhaps too often—this feeling grabs you by your quicksilver soul and flings you all over the place. It happens all the time: there, in the comely shudder of a candle flame; here, in the missed connections that resurface suddenly in your memory with a sobering splash of “what if?”; and in the little start you feel upon realizing that what we're seeing or doing is incredible, and wholly original—is anyone else seeing this?—and in the knowledge that perhaps another one does. For some people, these are the moments that carry us forward, that fill us with the emotional fuel required to move, to act, to call upon our creative influences and stretch ourselves, however stiff our wings may have become since our last summons. For you see, here in the line of a dancer's arm, and there in the candle flame, is our power and our directive: it is not a candle that we see only, not a dancer, not a dance, but a want—flashing forth from our hearts like a cannonade, like the artillery of the soul, to thunder over the world and its denizens! These thought-forms are the shells for our howitzers of the mind, far too new to censor, perhaps too hot even to touch. And while they often explode from us, how often too our words slither out, instead coercing their unsuspecting prey? Though their bite may be at times harsh, it remains the sole duty of the written word to light the way, through the sting of keen description, and never to stand in for the reality it strives to recapitulate. In this way, our words are the gatekeepers, the ferrymen, carrying us forth over the roiling Styx, sheltering and exposing us to harsh criticism all at once.

But I would caution us all, once more, to beware the deception of images, to focus our real attentions instead on the veracity that is illuminated by our speech, by our word, and by our action. For it is ancient Veritas who holds real power here, and all the words and the fine curves of the dancer's form and the motion of the candle-flame are but themselves in attendance at the Court of the Crimson Truth. That Truth is the connection, whether foreign or familiar, that we feel to the things in our world. Truth alone is the force that stirs us: the ache in the belly, the wild joy of the sprinkler, the deep preponderance that holds all the weight of what might have been.

And so I adjust my thought. For some people, the truth that can be found in this world shines or screams outwards and reaches a part of us that can do nothing in return but feel the whole weight of it. This force is all around us, often ignored and misunderstood—dare I say misdiagnosed—by those persons not prepared to face the fullness of it, the allness that it contains. How many nights now, and how many moments, as the stars turn about in the heavens, as the blood turns about in my chest, have I danced with this allness, unable perhaps to do anything else? I feel the thrill and I hear, distantly, the call of my own, though I have perhaps not been with them. The strangest paradox I think is to be, and yet not to know from where I've come, all that I have been. Though the steps to this dance are unknown to me, yet still there remains another, softer knowing—the certainty that, though I have never been here before, something that has been me, has. And so, in the shocking truth that sings its way into my heart, from every direction, I see myself: a part of a whole, a whole in part. I see reflections of reflection. I see the web of stars, and I am caught aback, again, again, again. How many nights? How many candle-flames?

But being torn apart by a loving and often bittersweet reality is itself a rather unforgiving process. One that leaves us—I believe the Portuguese word saudade is apt—a fuller, sadder, more open, and ultimately more real version of ourselves. These cycles of feeling naturally inspire us to attempt a communique with those around us. And therein lies the trouble.

To someone who sees something, and says as much, the pattern is perfectly natural. In fact, it would be something of a disservice to ourselves and our peers if we were to keep quiet about it. But to another person, who perhaps, does not see the same thing—maybe even sees nothing at all—there is, naturally, nothing much to comment on. Should that person then be hit with any part of the tidal-wave of feeling that their fellow attempts to express to them, a whole new range of emotions is thus solicited from them. The first, often times, is denial. It is obvious to them that nothing is there, and so, obviously, the other person must be either experiencing a different reality—the thought does not occur to them—or otherwise mistaken. If the two are familiar, something like friends, say, then they will simply shrug it off as their crazy friend going off about something or other again. If the two are strangers, or simply acquainted on a cursory level, then the urge becomes to put distance between oneself and this other—obviously a little crazy—person. There are other feelings that sneak in around the edges, too. What can this asshole see that I'm missing? In a way, this is an Emperor's New Clothes moment for both people. Neither one can quite believe that the other can see such a different reality, when the one they see is so plain, right in front of them. Resentments may start to build and their differences come into focus. A separation occurs between the two.

This is the critical moment. Because naturally achieving a sense of empathy is so often difficult to feel with other people, particularly without any perceived proof in one's own reality of the wild assertions put forward by them, most people are content, usually without realizing it, to react. They gesture wildly at the thing in question. There's nothing there, you idiot! Of course there is, it's amazing, how can you not see this? And so forth. Both parties are left feeling somewhat isolated and alone. What if there really was something there I missed, and what does that say about me? What if I only imagined it, maybe I just wanted to see something, and my friend is right, there was nothing after all...and what does that say about me?

And here we are. Some of us see certain things at certain times, an unusual feeling that we want to get out, to express, to share, anything!...but then communication breaks down, and our words (taken by themselves without the essential evidence of veritas) are confused. Tensions mount. The deception of images strikes again, and truth is not conveyed.

So how do we actually show truth to one another if and when we see it? What's the way forward?

Well, turns out we know it well. It comes to us as something we call art. But too often it comes sneaky-like, as a thief prowling around our subconscious, to jump out and freak the shit out of us and then disappear back from wherever it lurked about from to begin with. Sometimes we're so busy trying to explain to others how it looked and why it's important that we turn around and find we're not sure it was even there at all. Sometimes, we have a feeling that something's hiding just around the corner, and it takes days, even years, to try and discover it. Often we never do. Which is not to say that the search was in any way inconsequential or futile. The search never is.

What I'm saying is that we're all individually prone to bouts of Truth in our unique ways. Some of us are visited by it, perhaps a little more often than others, and who can say what colors our perceptions? Who knows why anything at all? Doesn't matter. What matters, what is important, is that at one time or another, we all feel it, it comes to us in the most unexpected places—yes, Scarlet Begonia-style, and it totally knocks us into last week. And so I will say that, even as you feel something, even as you wonder where or with whom or even how to begin to share what it is you feel, do it anyway. Do whatever feels natural. Because somehow, in the strangest of ways, the universe will find a method to use that spark, to get it to another individual just ripe for the kindling, with a heart made of the driest, fluffiest tinder you've ever seen. Who knows how many people will ever be influenced by our lives? And who cares? If I have learned anything, if I know a single thing, it is that this thing called life speaks to us, weirdly, in ways that can never be understood by us, and if we listen, incredible things happen. They may be subtle. They may be less than. But if we do not have the wherewithal to allow ourselves to be moved when the feeling comes, no matter how often and no matter in what way, how can we call that living? Because, my beautiful people, nothing is weird, nothing is strange. And, everything here is. Once we begin to see that and let it go from us, well...who knows what can happen.

Beyond the horizon of the place we lived when we were young In a world of magnets and miracles Our thoughts strayed constantly and without boundary The ringing of the division bell had begun Along the Long Road and on down the Causeway Do they still meet there by the Cut? There was a ragged band that followed in our footsteps Running before time took our dreams away Leaving the myriad small creatures trying to tie us to the ground To a life consumed by slow decay The grass was greener The light was brighter With friends surrounded The nights of wonder Looking beyond the embers of bridges glowing behind us To a glimpse of how green it was on the other side Steps taken forwards but sleepwalking back again Dragged by the force of some inner tide At a higher altitude with flag unfurled We reached the dizzy heights of that dreamed of world Encumbered forever by desire and ambition There's a hunger still unsatisfied Our weary eyes still stray to the horizon Though down this road we've been so many times The grass was greener The light was brighter The taste was sweeter The nights of wonder With friends surrounded The dawn mist glowing The water flowing The endless river Forever and ever