In Awe

‘Death is the road to awe.’ Mayan Proverb

I always found the art of self-flagellation quite intriguing since my early childhood. Tales of monks in monasteries lashing themselves incessantly in the hope of purging themselves of some vice have an appeal to me, and perhaps that is a signifier of a truer personal fixation which has to be analysed.

What other forms does’ the mutilation of self’ take in the processes of maturity of spirit that we all have to experience?

Does debauchery and self-destructive behaviours among contemporary men and women resemble this pastoral art intended to elevate man to the stature of their most pristine morality?

I have found that true genius seems to exist in the marshes of insanity and pure entropy of mind.

Artists who resided in asylums and those heretics who are portrayed as psychotically decayed souls, have always produced the most profound of art.

In all essence it seems that beauty is birthed in immortal decay and depravity.

But why?

Failures that feast on our souls as artists specifically have been construed as self-destructive tendencies which require to be medicated through therapy, and with that I agree.

But first I wonder from where had my demons arisen?

What navel of earth bears the horrors that taunt my sleep?

Others place the blame at the door step of like, the birth experience, while others speak about traumas incurred during childhood.

However, do we even dare look at the traumas from past lives spent in the pits of wars with unfathomable assailants?

Those scars from daggers in a distant place untouched by the memory of our present incarnation, are they perhaps not archetypes of fears that breed our insanity in this present life?

Now I wonder what dooms of love have I left behind my soul trailing incomplete and sundered.

Could those loves lost be the crying void that swallows my present emotions of love?

I know society encourage one to ‘deal with their fear’ and so forth, but I beg to ask if it is actually plausible to ‘deal with the fears’ thus relinquishing them?

My answer is to the negative, because I believe each one has those fears on purpose; the trick is to live with those fears sublimed and calm within the adventures of new life lessons.

Those fears created our defense mechanisms and instincts, they helped our species navigate through evolution intuitively.

An analogy I always return to is that of a dog’s sense of fear. The fear is always there, even though a fear for cats and people is now discarded.

Some pent up fears are too detrimental yes, and those we can address such as evolution also does with obsoletes – we discard those fears.

Hurt people, hurt people’ I often hear, and would it not be plausible to also assume the inverse.

And do these inverses actually exist?

Do those villainous warriors who were dreaded in their past lives’ conquests become recluses who shy away from war?

Do perhaps those who were meek victims of past wars become captains of destruction our contemporary life time is experiencing?

Am I descendant from a dying star and are my feelings of expiration attributed to the death of my soul’s birth place?

If my soul is a city, am I failing at saving it from eminent destruction?

Are my fears an irony of an eternity I am borne to carry? What has to die in me in order for new life to sprout?

I hope it is in growth that some of these archaic questions will find resolve, because if not, why does one grow old on this planet?