Suicide by Honesty

I write this with a fervor that often eludes me, and so I pray for the moment of clarity, or at the very least the desire for one, that birthed these words doesn't leave me alone and disoriented whilst I find the most honest and sincere way to bring this to an impermanent life outside the high and impervious walls that shelter my secrets.

The walls are there, as always, overhung with vines of foregone conclusions and covered in the moss of memories and I feel the acceptance of their existence is the first real step I can take to begin this confessional or revelation.

The recognition of one's self is an arduous task indeed and anyone who has ever found themselves staggering along that dark, often unbeaten path can vouch for the perils that wait for you on your lofty but worthy quest.

Let us begin simply and end with hope, or progress, if things do get that far before the very words I depend upon to cut through the darkness turn on me and lead me astray. For it is a great deceiver, this self of ours and it is only the stripping it of its clothing of manipulative acceptance or deluded denials, and revealing the stark naked beast that cowers beneath, that will aid us in vanquishing it.

A mighty dream.. and one that may transform before me in to a nightmare, or much worse - a fantasy.

What am I? That which I've always been. An odorless, shapeless, formless entity that dwells in time or rather creates it in its pursuit of continued but transient existence at the expense of the Truth. The Truth, as it says in those ancient scrolls of supreme wisdom passed down over the ages, is simply that which is forever - that which does not change or cease to exist.

Then I cannot be true because I am not forever.

Make no mistake, it is hard to see this 'I' when it is that very 'I' that is carefully jotting down the words that essay its true nature. It is a defensive beast, this I. And a determined attitude and a self destructive appetite is necessary to even make such an attempt.

I see it as I write this now; it prepares to flood my mind with a desire for applause and recognition, in order to turn what started off as an expose of what lies within, in to a parade of pretension and cunning half truths spewed with the sole purpose of survival. I must fight it with the whole of my being.

So here is what I am..

I am born and grown in arrogance that masks my deep seated fears of irrelevance, worthlessness and inevitable regret.

I am masterful in disguising my cowardice to face what I truly fear by recounting and reaffirming what I have no trouble facing.

I am manipulative in my interaction with that which is not me and yet claim sincerity in showing the side of me that has always been on display to all.

I chose my desires and gratification of my needs over everything else and anything that stands in the way of the realization of this fact in my conscience, I shred with countless blades of distorted intellectual premises.

I revel in the recognition of my false self because I am ashamed of my true self and all that it represents.

I knowingly ignore the fact that the hole in my being, which I came to know of years ago, cannot be filled with that which I can buy, borrow, beg or steal.

I shamelessly indulge in spending my time intoxicated by the blissful fantasies of worthiness whilst avoiding that which might grant me actual salvation.

I pretend to hold within my limited reality, God like control over what I am and what could happen to me, to any extent possible and those that get in the way of this fantastic illusion are subject to my callous wrath and petty indifference.

I am flawed, damaged, insignificant and deluded.

This is what I am. And with these words, I make my first of many moves against me. For the worst this 'I' can do to me has been done and to let it continue its miserable, mongrel existence would be a disservice to those moments of clarity that dawned on me many times over in gracious succession in the months past.

But there is the light that spreads its warm, comforting glow at the end of the path, the mere thought of which is the one that should give me strength - 'I' am not forever.