So much bondage for the sake of facade
The deep gulf between men and women exists simply because we resent what we find when we listen to what we feel.
A couple months ago, I set out to be a better writer. I quickly realized that the key missing ingredient in my writing was stories. I had deep thoughts that challenged people but it often left them further away from where I want them to be when they engage with my ideas. A friend of mine told me, use stories. I heard it, discredited it and moved on until the echo became so loud my ear drum thud like a beating heart. Speaking of ear drum, the wax in my ears are a perfect depiction of how my writing was. I got the cotton swabs and tried teasing out the wax from other people’s ears but I ended up shoving it all the way in but I rejoiced in the stain on my white cotton swab.
Overtime, I realized that I had done more damage that good. My victory was not merely incomplete, it was a defeated mask in a faux victor’s chant. Ahem, Stories! I had told myself stories of great triumph because I couldn’t bare the truth much like the reasons for neglecting stories; the truth is messy and I don’t like an untidy mess.
You see, I want my cotton swab to burrow in there and dig out the wax neatly, logically, as it should be. I wanted only ideology that I had the remote control to. I picture myself as a surgeon whose performing an arthroscopic surgery. Get in there, pin down the body’s intruder and ring it out. Leave no mess behind.
Let me say it one more time, leave no mess behind. The objective of my writing was to bolster my image, to establish my thought leadership; in plain frank terms, I wanted you to feel inferior to my intellect and be motivated to follow me. You were to leave my writing in awe of the soil in my brain and how seeds of thoughts germinated like a fertile womb. Do all this without any iota of backlash.
Anytime a chorus of applause wasn’t returned in unison, my soul will drag my body to a mirror so it could reprimand the fool for failing once again. It is tiring chasing perfection. One more thing, it is tiring living caged, secure avoiding remorse like a plague. It is less than living to not feel.
A story without me in it is not a story. It’s a plot. Because even if I repeat verbatim the story of another orator, the points of inflections and emphasis that my pronunciation communicates, says lots about what I feel, what I perceive, equally what I omit to feel and perceive. To be a story teller is to be a vulnerable, transparent sculptor.
This whole time, I was blessed with the gift of story telling except I lacked the vulnerability to wield it. Today, I confessed to the clearest sin and stain on my conscience; only to realize the finality of my lesson. My journey to obediently pen the inspirations in my soul whenever they came regardless of what they reveal about me has served to paint a vividly clear picture, one so glaring even blindness shouldnt miss it.
Art is sculpting into perceptible language the details of inspiration. What this means is that an artist must be willing to go to the depths of a well or the peak of a mountain to get the best view of the scene; and whatever the scene presents whether it be a nude Halle Strawberry or a demonic pink serpent. One must sculpt honestly because to be an artist is to be a vessel that releases inspiration. The artist is the conduit and any attempt to mould the inspiration is a nauseating contamination. Inspirations don’t continue to return to vessels that are impregnated.
This week one of the few consistent readers that I have, started her own medium page and she made sure to let me know that my writing have helped her realize that she can just be and release herself of the judgment to be who she isn’t yet. Maybe those were not her words and maybe I am contaminating her meaning with my own interpretation but whatever it is, my soul was warm because one person was moved to be. I am convinced that if I persisted with my logical writing, I may have gained followers and readers — mere consumers. But to release inspiration that isn’t mine to own and to see another wrestle with becoming a vessel for it, this is living!
This is art.
Will you deliver your 10 year old pregnancy, another inspiration is waiting to be birthed in you. It takes release. It takes courage. It takes being vulnerable to just be. It takes painting your ugly self until your acne dries up as you eat better. It takes celebrating the bulge in your stomach because you choose to enjoy the fizz of Coke Zero. It takes listening to your thoughts of death like the adventures of James, the one in Bondage. It takes being just where here is today until here is somewhere else no matter if somewhere leads to where you want here to be.
Just be, here. Now.