Our lives are inundated with rules, expectations,
pre-conceived ideas and pressures to be something other than what or who we
are. We are led down long, exhausting
paths that find us traveling further and further away from your true
selves. Media, politics, religion and
our workplaces are some of the culprits.
Some people can’t be who they truly are at work for fear of being
ostracized or not fitting in, some live double lives based on family ideologies
and strict religious direction, some exist to simply please others because they
have no idea they are able to choose for themselves. I’ve seen it all. It’s sad and frightening. We are only on this earthly plane for such a
brief time and it is an unhappy verity to know there are so many of us living
by someone else’s trend instead of our own.
Time and time again, I’ve been cultured by wise humans to never suppress
the characteristics of my true self in exchange for someone else’s preference. The older I get, the more I heed the
advice. It started with writing. Learning now to not censor myself in case
someone I loved may take offense or issue with what was put on paper. It’s probably the greatest lesson I’ve ever
learned and has spilled over into other areas of my life. From there, I’ve tried incredibly hard to
maintain that attitude in my relationships with other people and the
world. Relationships with other people
can be a challenge since there are several who are still living their lives
based on what others believe they should be doing or thinking, who they should
love or not love etc, it is terribly hard to break through their barriers and
much of it has to do with debilitating fear on their part. My relationship with the world is much less taxing.
I have come to trust my own voice, my
own opinions, beliefs because I listen and learn and contemplate before I
decide how to proceed, whatever it is. I
have had people fall away from my life because we don’t agree or enjoy the same
things or even though we both believe in God I choose to follow my faith in my
own heart instead of inside a church.
That being said, I’d happily congregate with anyone in their place of
worship to broaden my perspective and who knows, maybe my spiritual serenity
would truly be discovered. However,
because of such rigid black and white ways of thinking, the one invitation I so
desperately wanted never came and truthfully now that I have some space and
perspective, there isn’t room in my pro-happiness, free-thinking all-encompassing
goodness-filled life for those so shallow, narrow-minded, so caught up, so judgmental
and for what? Someone else’s opinion of
what they should be doing? Boring.
At any rate, this poem is written with all of those
things in mind. That it is so damn
confusing to choose what and who to believe in, and how and really shouldn’t be. I vote for believing in myself. You should too. Don’t accept someone else’s dogma because of
tradition or family obligation, don’t accept an opinion if it isn’t truly yours
and don’t waste your time not being a whole
person, splitting yourself into pieces to fit into certain folds. It’s a waste of precious time and a detriment
to your uniqueness, the one who really matters and the one who deserves the
world.
Stand up for yourself, for who you are, as you are, not
how someone wants you to be. You rule.
/rant
Elsewhere
behave cautiously
tethered to instructions
consider the act of suffering
through opportune margins
but resist
& look instead toward
the ribald ruins of poetry
for customary questions
& anticipated demands
slender queries
yet prosperous
with definitive conclusions
full of raw luster
& human guise
believe everything
is insufficiently inadequate
choose elusive uncertainty
bound to pastel commands
deliberate reverse happenchance
through unfavorable boundaries
but repel
& seek instead the stillness
of stretched sentences
audible only to you
(be tangled
elsewhere)
anywhere but here
with anyone but them
**
Over and out.
In propinquity,
Nic
