Everyone has a plan for you but none of them are from you. I’ll half-listen to a theory about myself and extend the range of my ears throughout the entire restaurant like a breeze reaching through the window. Then there’ll be a phrase that snags me back to my seat. Harsh. Insulting. But something about it is compelling. True, maybe.
I'll entertain this version of myself like watching an early cut of a movie. Are you serious? I say. They double down the same way they double bite their burger. One bite isn’t enough. Their conviction is loud. Rational. One-sided. I’ll think about it, I say, knowing that after I leave the restaurant, I’ll reject it. I’ll get angry at myself. Think about what, exactly? What am I trying to justify?
They’ll tell you who you are on a Tuesday afternoon. Then they’ll crank their necks back along with everyone else on a Friday evening. Drips of alcohol running down their chins. Full-toothed-fake-smiles in venues where the music’s too loud. So loud you can’t talk to anyone. They’ll look for love in the smoking area and find entertainment, or flirtation, or some veiled version of affection. They’ll down their drinks and stare at the ground in faint awareness of the stones. What you staring at the ground for, someone will say. They’re just as flawed as anyone, they just hide it better. And you’re gonna listen to them?
Hard to blame myself, I don’t know what I want. Sit up straight, look at my toes on the carpet. Two fingers on my eyelids like golfer’s fingers on the grass. Squeeze them lightly and watch fireworks shoot through the darkness. Pull a chair back and flinch at the screech of its feet along the floor. Down a glass of water and tap my foot under the table as time stretches out before me.
What I need is homeostasis. Tie me around the couch and throw my phone into the lake. I’ll raw-dawg the rest of life while the sun sprints round my axis. Untie me when the rain bursts from the clouds. Let me wash off with the dust. Let the people look for shelter while I run outdoors. Let me walk around the world in endless loops. If people ask about me—ask the dust.
All the answers are inside.
Need a trip into my own psyche, but there are always reasons not to go. Watch the flies zoom deliriously around the light and try to find a pattern. Infinite shapes of eight and Jackson Pollock paintings inside transparent canvas. No one sees the paint, but I’ll stare nonetheless.
All the answers are inside.
Bottom line is this: if they don’t have what you want, don’t listen to what they say. Name a bigger waste of time than justifying your actions to people who don’t have what you want? I’ll wait. Wait in the kitchen. Wait in the living room. Wait in the shower. Wait until I forget what it is I’m waiting for.
All the answers are inside.
Inside that head. Inside letting go of resistance. Inside observation. So I sit down, finally. Eyes closed and breathing deeply, and it’ll come to me. The nothingness. The whole living room tipping out the window. Everything flying out till the words drift in.
Cast away pretension.
The performance. The people pleasing. The upholding of a character. Who you are to him, to her, to all of them. The more you define, the more you constrict.
Get them out of the room.
The past. Your friends. Your enemies. The art world. Above all, your own ideas. Get it out. Then see what remains. It’ll hit you like lightning. It’ll feel like clarity. Stick with it. Follow it down the path until it shows you what it is.
“I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I woke and saw that life was duty. I acted and behold, duty was joy.”
— Rabindranath Tagore
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Thank you revathiiii 🫶🏼🫶🏼
All the answers are inside!! This keeps ringing in my head! How true you write everytime!❤️🩹