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Sometimes Life Leaves You Alone
Vincent Van Gogh, possibly the loneliest man in history, once said - “A great fire burns within me, but no one stops to warm themselves at it, and passers-by only see a wisp of smoke.” We are so much, and so little at the same time. As we transverse our fulfilments and relationships, seeing one flourish, and the other flounder. And we struggle to understand why. We find that we are that person who is loved outside as also the person agonizing over the one he loves the most. So much of us lies unidentified. Why - we struggle to know ourselves! As we see ourselves in other people's eyes and are astonished that they see someone else altogether than the one we thought we knew. Until the realization comes that we are illusions trying to find our own realities. And we transverse the world through the dream version of our lives. And we encounter strife and pain. Things start unravelling. And with dread within our hearts we know we are less than ideal. And we find ourselves alone. With space to not find someone else but to find ourselves. If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on loneliness and aloneness - Elegante Solitude Sometimes We Remember So Hard Those Days of a Lost Summer Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup. Get in touch with me on [email protected] The details of the music used in this episode are as follows - Rising Sun by Sascha Ende Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/Rising_Sun Licence: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
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5:30
Living Inside a Wound
Too often, only too often, couples live lives of quiet despair. Without knowing that's not ordinary, that's not what coupledon is all about, that we can't have lifetimes compromised to the extent that an entirety passes by and there's nothing to show for it. Life is valuable and nobody, no relationship, has a right to take away from the preciousness of each moment. Because we have too few in the entirety of a lifetime to be in a position to even lose a single one of them. We need quick reparation, priority conversations, time to sort things out, to sit down with the intent of resolution, to come halfway - if not whole - to mend. But that's easier said than done. For the simple reason that hurts are deep-seated, more cavernous than ego. And fault lines once created are like deep crevasses. The solution is not bandaid, neither surgery because the scars which remain still hurt. It's only massive change and a change of attitude that will act as the silt to fill those fissures - a flood of gratefulness which would leave its residue behind, a continuous level of self-awareness of how our inadequacies are compensated by the other's presence. Couples are a team, and much more than the centripetal forces of differences, it's the pre-assumption of intent which destroys. Close relationships have to start with gratefulness, take each other as gifts and stay in the moment, to find real joy. Zen is not a strategy for love, it is the first principle. Nothing is impossible if intent and awareness are the emotions which lead. Ordinary lives are then haloed in quiet beautiful ways. If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on the struggles which mark coupledom - Before Bruises Become Wounds What is Loss, She Asked Me Grief Strikes Where Love Struck First Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup. Get in touch with me on [email protected] The details of the music used in this episode are as follows - Evacuation by Sascha Ende Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/Evacuation Licence: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
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5:45
As Summer Finds a Beginning
Summer is late in the city I stay in. There are discussions about it but no conclusions. Some say - enjoy the extended spring. Nobody minds, as there are high winds coming in from the south-west, and windows rattle. There is more time to get the air conditioners serviced. But the intimations of summer have not ceased. Much before the papers announced the hot days ahead, the mornings had started to get more humid. Joggers knew. Windows in cars started being closed and the air conditioning cranked up. Summer bushes along walking paths started flowering. Pink Bougainvillea, red frangipanis, yellow elders. Flower beds had amaranths, salvias and hollyhocks nodding away delightedly. And as I went to office, Red Road and the Victoria Memorial complex was strewn with gorgeous gulmohur and amaltas, the golden yellow shower tree, the purple jacaranda and the flaming royal poinciana. My drives every morning were ablaze with colour. And I knew though it was a welcome, things would unravel in different ways. The tar on the roads would start to melt, as would the barely hidden anger on the edges of side streets. People would tend to get tired faster and more irritated. Fuses would ignite and punches landed. Relationships would begin to unravel and truths told in harsh tones. People would fall into lust more than they fell in love. And there would be too many misdemeanours conducted by common people in commonplace ways. But legendarily people understand. Even as they fight and argue, they understand that the heat is a character in every situation. People make plans to go to the hills but some refuse. Summers are when they reveal themselves to their own. They write their most honest poetry. And understand the enormity of their misdemeanours- and do not hesitate to ask for forgiveness. Springs just make you glad, happy to be alive, perky without reason. Autumns are for deep depression, to think of the worst life has every given as just desserts: it's the time for seeking redemption. Winters are to freeze inside, to not reveal oneself. Everyone is too embroiled in one's own battles of seeking succour and warmth, to be able to think of being benevolent. But summer is when we allow everything to fall apart. Our clothes, our defences, our truths, our untruths. Even as the most iridescent flowers burst uncontrollably in colours which sometimes hurt the eyes, something soft inside wants to tell truths. It seems easier to give in then rebel, or wallow in stories with long lives. It's good to be ordinary and open. Summers are the time for both passions and truths to find their own paths of destruction or redemption. Whilst other seasons are one dimensional, summers are when the roads get forked, ready to form - or destroy you. If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on the the seasons of our world and lives - Those Days of a Lost Summer In the Winter of Our Relationships The Passing of Autumn Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup. Get in touch with me on [email protected] The details of the music used in this episode are as follows - Sehnsucht by Sascha Ende Summer Dream Instrumental by Sascha Ende Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/Sehssucht Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/Summer_dream_instrumental Licence: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
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7:29
Return to You
The riches of our lives, even when we are not searching for it, is like the journey of Santiago, the young Andalusian shepherd boy in Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist. The treasure is always nearby, always close. We just don't have the eyes for it. The treasure is often our search for meaning, sometimes it is the clarity we seek of what the fulcrum of our life is, so often it is our despair to put together the disparate parts of our lives into one knowing compass. Most often it is our search for a person who gives meaning to our lives. And we have to wander through our days and our dullness, the inequities and confusions, the seemingly directionless pull of our lives, the cornucopia of choices, or the dearth of choice. And we return home, tired, our ties crunched, our spirits defeated. No balm, no gentle commiseration, no time with the closest to us, seems to make a difference. And we keep searching, keep looking outwards, keep wondering what will give solace, give intent, bring significance. Who would be the compass and the companion, the commiserater and the catcher in the rye? And in our search for an adult cradle, even as we lie curled on the lap of someone we care for, laying bare our existential issues, we forget that possibly, this is the person who is both the destination and the means, the person who could hold us and lead us, the one who both understands and scolds, the one who is the wind beneath our wings and the first step of beauty in our lives. And in that realization, lies the gorgeous reconciliation of our search, as we realize that who we thought of as an accessory, a necessity, a cultural perk, a socio-economic order, a social necessity, often a burden, an enforced liability in the form of a gift, is actually purpose and direction, succour and signal, a parachute and a mattress. And in that realization we are like the prodigal son. Our return becomes then just a realization. If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on elusive love - Before Bruises Become Wounds Old Poems for Old Loves Bella's Meadow Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup. Get in touch with me on [email protected] The details of the music used in this episode are as follows - Der Kristall Ending by Sascha Ende Der Kristall the Glade by Sascha Ende Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/der-kristall-ending Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/der-kristall-the-glade Licence: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
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5:07
Elegante Solitude
Aloneness is forced, solitude is a choice. Loneliness forces me unwillingly to be with myself. But solitude, as the great Montaigne said, gives me a chance to know how to belong to myself. A mental stand - and an entire outlook changes. But, of course, it is not so simple! Ironically in our worlds, we have to forcefully claim our aloneness, often to fight for it. It is antithetical, nay, antisocial, to voluntarily eschew company, and be alone. In its own way, it's a rejection of social norms, company, to say that 'hey I prefer myself to you.' We are all meant to be social animals, and nothing should deviate from that. If you seek droplets of solitude - that is acceptable. We need 'me-time'. That's hip. It's new age, recommended. But to deliberately and pointedly eschew company - to travel alone, to go to a film on one's own, to decline an invitation to a party for no reason whatsoever - is anathema, non-understandable, hence, well, 'unacceptable'! Because nobody can understand solitude. How can I explain its texture, its ability to embrace like a warm comforting room, to give the feeling of teetering on the edge and of being held at the same time, of getting the feeling of being with a stranger you know well, of discovering the undefinable in the person who's definition you thought you had down pat, of having the full force of freedom with oneself and of pulling oneself back all the time, of being excited because you've just said yes to something which all company would have abhorred. And one discovers what the great Soraya once said - "Sometimes being surrounded by everyone is the loneliest, because you’ll realize you have no one to turn to.” If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on the loneliness - Sometimes We Remember So Hard I Can Sense Her Loneliness The Art of the Lonely Good Deed Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup. Get in touch with me on [email protected] The details of the music used in this episode are as follows - Time Is Now by Sascha Ende Colossus by Sascha Ende Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/Time-Is-Now Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/Colossus Licence: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
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5:02