Tuesday, July 13, 2004
Have a Heart
I recently had one of those conversations with a friend that would make any sane person want to jump off of a bridge. He was the one experiencing the moment of existential crisis, but somehow it felt like everything that he was saying had been on the tip of my tongue too. The only difference is that his heartache had given him the courage to say it! What we shared is between him and me, but the general gist of what I got out of the conversation is this:
"Is this all there is? The world is really screwed up, and having a heart in a world such as this is just a liability. What's the point in caring when that love of others and love of life will simply be a source of pain, with little or no hope of finding our way to anything better?"
So, yeah. Needless to say, it was a rough night! And yet, it was a very necessary night for me, because it allowed me to give voice to some of my own heartache rather than using a false Pollyanna positivity to deny my true feelings.
At the time, that was about all that I could do for my friend and myself -- be there with the pain rather than trying to fix it. My wheels kept spinning, trying to solve both his problems and mine, but ultimately I just resigned myself to the fact that whatever the future may hold, the present was a time for a heartache so deep that it was reduced to a hollow numbness.
Now that I've had a few nights to sleep on it, however, I feel that I can go a few steps further.
On the one hand, that feeling is still there in a part of my heart. It's odd, really. For whatever reasons, I've been very blessed on a personal level, relatively speaking. I'm not starving, I'm not being hacked to pieces in some genocidal war, and I've even got a lot of wonderful loved ones to share my journey with. But I've connected empathically with so much suffering that my very soul has been twisted by it. So, a part of me really does just feel hollow and numb, resigned to the belief that the world is a place of eternal damnation that will never be safe for my heart. I will never find success in the work that's closest to my heart, never find a lover to share my heart with, and never create anything even mildly resembling the sorts of utopian communities that I envision in my heartscape.
On the other hand, another part of my heart is forever free, forever defiant of any external restraints or circumstance. I've spent the past few years reclaiming my heart from the cold, dead prison that I locked it away in so many years ago. My heart is now FREE -- and I embrace it fully! I will be true to my life's work, even if everyone else sees me as a dismal failure. I will love whoever I want, however I want, even if I never again know the warm hug of a friend or the hot touch of lover. I will sustain my vision for a better world and take action in pursuit of it, even if the whole world descends into a state of eternal soulless fascism. Of course, I carry in my heart great hope that none of these terrible things will come to pass -- but damnit, even if they do, my heart will still be free!
That's one of the beautiful things about the heart. Even in the face of infinite opposition in the manifest world, we can carry infinite love in our hearts. The manifest world is a place of co-creation, meaning that what I can or can't do here is dependent in part on the choices of those around me. But my heart is mine alone -- a heartscape that I can either expand infinitely through love and hope or contract completely out of fear and despair.
Who knows what tomorrow may bring -- but today, I choose love. And because of that, today is a good day in my heart. On that note, here's to the hope that tomorrow will be a good day for the world.
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"Is this all there is? The world is really screwed up, and having a heart in a world such as this is just a liability. What's the point in caring when that love of others and love of life will simply be a source of pain, with little or no hope of finding our way to anything better?"
So, yeah. Needless to say, it was a rough night! And yet, it was a very necessary night for me, because it allowed me to give voice to some of my own heartache rather than using a false Pollyanna positivity to deny my true feelings.
At the time, that was about all that I could do for my friend and myself -- be there with the pain rather than trying to fix it. My wheels kept spinning, trying to solve both his problems and mine, but ultimately I just resigned myself to the fact that whatever the future may hold, the present was a time for a heartache so deep that it was reduced to a hollow numbness.
Now that I've had a few nights to sleep on it, however, I feel that I can go a few steps further.
On the one hand, that feeling is still there in a part of my heart. It's odd, really. For whatever reasons, I've been very blessed on a personal level, relatively speaking. I'm not starving, I'm not being hacked to pieces in some genocidal war, and I've even got a lot of wonderful loved ones to share my journey with. But I've connected empathically with so much suffering that my very soul has been twisted by it. So, a part of me really does just feel hollow and numb, resigned to the belief that the world is a place of eternal damnation that will never be safe for my heart. I will never find success in the work that's closest to my heart, never find a lover to share my heart with, and never create anything even mildly resembling the sorts of utopian communities that I envision in my heartscape.
On the other hand, another part of my heart is forever free, forever defiant of any external restraints or circumstance. I've spent the past few years reclaiming my heart from the cold, dead prison that I locked it away in so many years ago. My heart is now FREE -- and I embrace it fully! I will be true to my life's work, even if everyone else sees me as a dismal failure. I will love whoever I want, however I want, even if I never again know the warm hug of a friend or the hot touch of lover. I will sustain my vision for a better world and take action in pursuit of it, even if the whole world descends into a state of eternal soulless fascism. Of course, I carry in my heart great hope that none of these terrible things will come to pass -- but damnit, even if they do, my heart will still be free!
That's one of the beautiful things about the heart. Even in the face of infinite opposition in the manifest world, we can carry infinite love in our hearts. The manifest world is a place of co-creation, meaning that what I can or can't do here is dependent in part on the choices of those around me. But my heart is mine alone -- a heartscape that I can either expand infinitely through love and hope or contract completely out of fear and despair.
Who knows what tomorrow may bring -- but today, I choose love. And because of that, today is a good day in my heart. On that note, here's to the hope that tomorrow will be a good day for the world.
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