We are alone
in this ocean of people and things
and events…
We are alone
with our thoughts and feelings,
our emotions.
We are alone
always, at the deepest, barest core…
And yet, scared of being alone,
we want to belong,
to be understood,
to be patted and hugged and soothed.
So we humor ourselves
with people to talk and share our lives;
to create a chatter around us.
We create games and elaborate affairs
to quell the silence that we so detest.
We dot our road with milestones,
and goals, and companions;
crowds of known and unknown.
We project our dreams and desires
onto our fellow travelers.
We pin our hopes onto others,
each with their own wants –
living and breathing
and changing shape on an impulse.
And we propitiate our nerves
by taking comfort in the noise
that surrounds us.
Sounds, rising and falling
and rising again –
the beats of the primordial dance –
following mindlessly in the footsteps
of others before us,
like convicts…chained together.
We sway in drunken stupor,
devoid of senses,
bereft of sensibilities,
chasing shadows of a promised land.
A land that does not exist.
In the excitement and chatter
of the chase,
we forget our essence
and become a mere shadow
of what we were meant to be.
Until one by one,
the pennants fall,
the bugles cease,
the throngs leave,
the mirage we created disappears.
We are left alone.
Unknown to ourselves.
And then
we must unlearn
the aeons of learning
from the myriad grim voices of mankind,
passed on to us
like a baton in the relay.
And then
we must learn –
in the discomfort of silence…
the luxury of our company,
the freedom of being in our own skin,
of facing our feelings threadbare,
of listening to the tiny voice inside us,
of knowing our Self.
And in that knowledge,
we become aware
that we were always alone
in all the clutter and bondage
that we willingly and painstakingly
built around us.
And in that knowledge,
of being truly alone,
we become what we always were.
