The mind is a scary place. We exist in a corridor, dimly lit, and wander aimlessly down the long hall of locked doors—unable to resist trying every knob. We have a desire to know everything there is to know...but such knowledge would be our end. We're simply not meant to just know.
As I walk through life, a lock sounds audibly, and I run down the line searching for what I've paid in experience to learn. I don't always like what I find on the other side when I find that door, but there is a certain comfort in knowing that it will never be locked to me again.
We all exist in this way, though many of you probably shrink from my brand of metaphorical philosophizing. I call it metaphorisizing. Words are fluff to me unless they paint a picture for me to study as a visual aid.
I've talked about the empty corridors of my dreams before. It refers to those restless nights when I want answers so badly that I can taste them, almost feel them against my outstretched fingertips. I'm not content enough to hang out in one of the rooms I've managed to unlock, to be happy with what I have.
But, when a person wanders in that emptiness for long enough, they find an evil brand of answer. One of my mother's sayings through her ordeal with cancer is, "I'm looking for answers where there are none." My version through my own travails goes, "In the absence of answers, one makes them up." Your most desperate thoughts emerge there in that solitary place, unabated by concerns of your loved ones' reaction. Eventually, the echoing ripples resonate like the voice of reason and you have a sick little falsity to illuminate your days.
In a concert of these, I heard a door creak open late last week. I was on my back, staring up from the basement of existence, and didn't believe it at first, couldn't. There is a strength in needing. I put a voice to a dark thought, and all at once, it became diseased and began to die. Rejection may thunder, but it does not reign. I spent far too many nights convinced that a fire had gone out in my soul, but it burns still.
