From where did this illusion come?
Who fed me this illusion?
Was I force-fed it? Spoon-fed it? Breast-fed it?
Wouldn't
we all sell our souls; our desires, in exchange for contentment,
safety, security? We'll buy a myth, a story, a fortune cookie from any
gypsy on the street, just to be able to have a prediction of the
future...to kinda-know what we're in for...kinda-know what the stars hold for us.
We
swallowed it hook, line and sinker, and we swallowed it because we
begged for it. We begged for the appeasement. Anything to minimise the
nausea of the open sea; of freedom, decision and risk. Desiring is such
a risky business. Some of us titillate ourselves with wants, appeased but unsatisfied. Wants
are the diuretics of the soul. We addict ourselves to wines and spirits, but starve ourselves of the waters we are truly thirsty
for. We trade in our desires and the risks inherent in them, passing
the responsibility on to someone else or something else.
We,
who like to get caught up or swept away. We, who are the flotsam and
jetsam in the turbulent river of our circumstances. We, who let it all
feel like it is beyond our control. We, the passive pawns push our
desires safely beyond our reach. We get to wash our dirty hands of
messy, disconcerting desires. Lest we be caught in the act of desiring,
and acting on it, and risking getting something close to satisfied. We
console ourselves with the idea that life was beyond our control; beyond
the realm of our own personal freedom, decision and risk.
Do
we pray to a God to change his mind about his working in the world, or is
God beyond human persuasion? Like Jesus in Gethsemane, requesting the
cup of suffering to be taken away from him. We request it, we plead for
it; sweat blood for it in utter desperation, and we suffer the
disappointment, suffer the world that does not correspond with our
desires.
The Gethsemane of the Disillusionment, when Narcissus is left without an Echo.
Of
course, we crave control, as much as we crave the loss of it. Yet,
oftentimes it is the fear that wins out, and we retreat to safety in the
surrogacy of responsibility. Risking the world against the weight of our
desires. Throwing out our voices like Narcissus, hoping desperately for
the return, for the correspondence. Here we are, hooked on the idea and
the illusion that the world corresponds to our desires.
It doesn't.
Sometimes
it does, or seems to, but that is simply a hankering after the illusion of
correspondence. That is me reading with desperate eyes and a hungry
heart, trying to connect the arbitrary with the intentional. The
intention of a God, the intention of fate, being looked after, watched
over and provided for. My secret needs, known without the risk and
responsibility of communication, and those needs being met. Ah, sweet
synchronicity, blessed coincidence, the answer to prayer.
The twenty pound note on the pavement when you are running low on funds at the end of the month.
The love of your life coming into your life just when you were feeling so lost and alone. The lost ticket being found just in time for the
departure on a long journey. The health of a loved one returning days after the
prayers have been said.
But, then there is the falling feeling. There is the nausea. I have felt it before at
different times of my life. Each time I had convinced myself that I had
developed my sea legs; (and maybe someday I will) the nausea had gone, but what I had really done was I paddled
back to dry land. I was flicking my toes in the water, longing for the
open sea, but too terrified to go out of my depth: beyond the
continental shelf of my control, into the turbulent ocean of my desires.
When
the world corresponds, we get to wash our hands of the responsibility
for communicating difficult feelings, and we get drugged on the myth
once again. We dread the thought of demystifying our desires and the
complex little stories we weave around them. Like the partner who never
experiences pleasure during sex, yet refuses to communicate what it is
that might bring them pleasure. Suffering in silence, the dissatisfaction, the
discomfort or even the pain, rather than risk making a request. All to
maintain some illusion, to keep us mystified and hidden in a cloud of our
own making.
Some are getting by on
their own personal superstitions. They roam the streets, with nervous ticks, expecting
nothing but hoping for everything, disguising their hopes through the
monotony of routine and ritual. They are the magpies looking for treasure.
Looking for the coins that have fallen through the hole in God's
pocket. Still hooked on the illusion of connectedness, just lowering our
expectations little by little, until we are waiting desperately for
crumbs of correspondence. Morsels of meaning.
Still out at sea, and still looking for dry land.
