My Heart, My Traveler*
My heart, my fellow traveler. It has been decreed again That you and I be exiled.
Go calling out in every street, Turn to every town,To search for a clue of a messenger from our Beloved.
To ask every stranger the way back to our home. In this town of unfamiliar folk we drudge the day into the night, Talk to this stranger at times,to that one at others.
How can I convey to you, how horrible is a night of lonliness? It would suffice to me if there were just some count, I would gladly welcome death if it were to come but once.
*Translation by Hamid Rahim Sheikh
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Latest Addition
As suggested, I have 'moved' the Pengu Suicides series to blogspot.
http://www.pengusuicide.blogspot.com/
Enjoy
http://www.pengusuicide.blogspot.com/
Enjoy
Friday, June 18, 2010
Sattire Attire part XIII Angel of dreams & Dreams of deaths
“...dying, in short, continues for a long time after death.” Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
The greatest fear of great men is to cross a path and not change its course; to wither away unnoticed, uncelebrated and unchampioned. But then, in the deepest confines of their hearts, all men consider themselves great. Why, then, only so few can live up to their heart’s greatest desire?
The greater the longing for greatness, the greater the pain after death; it is hard to forget perceived failure when reconciliation is no longer a possibility. So that even after death their souls are unable to come to terms with the finality of death and the eventual exhaustion of all their chances to become mythical and legendary. Indeed, even in death they are bound by chains of failure; failure to live again. But in life chances are aplenty in each breathing moment. And Sylvester was still breathing.
But death lingered close by. Overwhelmed by an emotion so potent, he did not know whether it was grief, guilt, anger or jealousy, Sylvester was unable to let his mind rest. And since his body was always in sync with his mind, it refused to rest as well. Sylvester had trouble sleeping. He had trouble sleeping because he feared it. Aspiring-great-men are permitted other fears besides the failure to fulfill their desire for greatness, and Sylvester feared sleep.
To be more precise, he feared what transpired after his eyelids curtained reality from his senses. He feared what he dreamt. He dreamt falling in an endless, dark pit. He dreamt drowning in the ominous depths of an unwelcoming ocean. He dreamt being torn apart by wild animals (big and small). He dreamt being consumed by an enormous conflagration, its origins unknown. He dreamt being stranded in a deserted town and left starving for days.
He dreamt many painful situations, but he failed to dream their end. He suffered relentlessly in his dreams but his sufferings never ended; he never achieved death in his dreams. And I wonder, if any of us can? But what a strange turn of events: a setting of a pseudo-alternate reality and the aspiring-great-man’s fear is no longer his Fear. His fear is now the opposite of his Fear. He fears the inability to die, irrespective of how ceremonious it would be. How must it feel to face death and know that you will live through the endeavour to eventually face it again? Sylvester, though a great-man-to-be, was struggling where both reality and imagination were concerned.
So, unconsciously he feared not dying, and when in his senses he feared an underachieved ending. But of late another thought had plagued his reality and imagination; the fateful woman, Fate.
Why was his longing for Fate so great? He had come across many a dame that had numbed his senses for a few fleeting moments. And having procured the cure to numbness, he had scurried along without any excess baggage of guilt or shame. The fate with Fate would have surely been no different. Was it just the desiring the unattainable syndrome or was it something more? Was it the making of a great love story, which would permit him to play the bereaved lover’s part who has to make the great sacrifice? Only time would be able to tell.
The greatest fear of great men is to cross a path and not change its course; to wither away unnoticed, uncelebrated and unchampioned. But then, in the deepest confines of their hearts, all men consider themselves great. Why, then, only so few can live up to their heart’s greatest desire?
The greater the longing for greatness, the greater the pain after death; it is hard to forget perceived failure when reconciliation is no longer a possibility. So that even after death their souls are unable to come to terms with the finality of death and the eventual exhaustion of all their chances to become mythical and legendary. Indeed, even in death they are bound by chains of failure; failure to live again. But in life chances are aplenty in each breathing moment. And Sylvester was still breathing.
But death lingered close by. Overwhelmed by an emotion so potent, he did not know whether it was grief, guilt, anger or jealousy, Sylvester was unable to let his mind rest. And since his body was always in sync with his mind, it refused to rest as well. Sylvester had trouble sleeping. He had trouble sleeping because he feared it. Aspiring-great-men are permitted other fears besides the failure to fulfill their desire for greatness, and Sylvester feared sleep.
To be more precise, he feared what transpired after his eyelids curtained reality from his senses. He feared what he dreamt. He dreamt falling in an endless, dark pit. He dreamt drowning in the ominous depths of an unwelcoming ocean. He dreamt being torn apart by wild animals (big and small). He dreamt being consumed by an enormous conflagration, its origins unknown. He dreamt being stranded in a deserted town and left starving for days.
He dreamt many painful situations, but he failed to dream their end. He suffered relentlessly in his dreams but his sufferings never ended; he never achieved death in his dreams. And I wonder, if any of us can? But what a strange turn of events: a setting of a pseudo-alternate reality and the aspiring-great-man’s fear is no longer his Fear. His fear is now the opposite of his Fear. He fears the inability to die, irrespective of how ceremonious it would be. How must it feel to face death and know that you will live through the endeavour to eventually face it again? Sylvester, though a great-man-to-be, was struggling where both reality and imagination were concerned.
So, unconsciously he feared not dying, and when in his senses he feared an underachieved ending. But of late another thought had plagued his reality and imagination; the fateful woman, Fate.
Why was his longing for Fate so great? He had come across many a dame that had numbed his senses for a few fleeting moments. And having procured the cure to numbness, he had scurried along without any excess baggage of guilt or shame. The fate with Fate would have surely been no different. Was it just the desiring the unattainable syndrome or was it something more? Was it the making of a great love story, which would permit him to play the bereaved lover’s part who has to make the great sacrifice? Only time would be able to tell.