Tag: Solitude

be alone

I guarantee,
there will come a time,
you will regret not being alone.

You’ll scurry like a cockroach when the lights come on,
scathe walls with skinless fingers,
walk barefoot and barren back,
trying to flee from the noise inside,
and you’ll see people for who they are,
all cowards,
afraid to be alone.

What strength and sinew,
men and women who choose the life of solitude have,
without so much as the flutter of apprehension,
without any doubt,
they breathe.

But what spine and love,
those that choose to return,
and effuse their wisdom into the fabric of humanity,
have better yet.

Ay this,
the paradox of losing and finding your self,
to be selflessly of servitude.

Try as you may,
listen to the hucksters of academe,
or the deluded,
hypnotised by technology and science,
the secrets remain with the sages and saints,
with the barefoot troubadours,
with the barbarians and nomads,
desert folk and mountain people,
farmers and shepherds,
the loners,
those who have time,
to simmer their thoughts,
thrash open their wounds without shame,
and suture themselves in front of us all.

I’ve never seen a thing of repute,
roll of the tongue of a man infatuated with attention,
nor a woman that needs reassurance at every pulse of her vein.
I’ve not seen hands that wait for eyes to ogle,
create a thing that benefits us all.

You’ll cry a tear yet,
for not embracing more solitude.

W.E.

I’m not socially awkward, I’m socially unwilling

Sometimes I wish I could dance with the rest of you,
but to waltz into conformity,
leaves me two left feet awkward,
stumbling over myself to find a foot in mediocrity.

I’ve been guilty of looking down on others,
and what a bitter lesson it is,
to taste my own bile,
and stare straight at a victim in their eyes.

I’ve no boat big enough,
to carry my remorse out to sea,
the most restless winds,
won’t blow my shame away.

So when I see how easily,
everyone makes the same mistakes,
it hurts to be reminded,
to have a replay reel of who I am inside,
flickering perpetually,
a self fulfilling prophecy is inevitable,
if I don’t pretend not to know how to dance.

That’s why I shy away.

I can love with the best of them,
boy can I love,
I can laugh and play,
I fight with a rage so turbulent,
it attracts even those who hate it,
but looking at innocence is too much for me to bare.

This comfort with the quo,
is the mediocrity that pains me,
alas, solitude is a great shackle to wear,
and if all else fails,
a great anchor for this flailing soul that won’t behave itself.

If the boat isn’t large enough,
and the winds aren’t strong enough,
the sea bottom is surely large enough,
to swallow far greater than me,
far worse than me, far better than me.

Here I am all Pharaoh like on display,
waiting to be swallowed whole.

All this,
admittance,
ownership,
accountability,
and still no acceptance.

How then,
did I find solitude in separation,
calm in introversion,
whilst others are out wrestled by urge and inclination?

How do I pause when others impulse?

There are still a few of us,
who shun the outer for the inner,
but society has been a frequent customer,
of the comfort world.

We’ve learned to avoid pain so well,
that we’ll inevitably stagnate and whither,
if people don’t remind us,
that it’s OK to see some ugliness,
some bad shit,
some gross stuff inside you,
not to accept and parade it as acceptance,
and contentment with ones’ self.

Rather, it gives you the incentive to improve,
to learn – in the process – what it takes to get away from all that unsavoury stuff inside.

Any process that allows you that,
will inevitably add value to your character,
be it in a month or twenty years.

Pain is not there to be avoided,
it’s there to jolt us into growth,
a reminder to manage and push through it for adaptation.

Avoidance, only limits exposure,
and lack of exposure leads to oblivious ignorance to a better way.

I recluse,
cocoon into hermit disregard,
to bathe in pain,
because I want to grow.

How’s that for a dance with ones self?

W.E.

Art by Viviana Gonzalez

Introversion – seventy six

 

Introversion isn’t an inability to socialise,
communicate, or come out of my shell,
it’s a choice not to.

 

When you are not overwhelmed, influenced or feel the need to conform to the social behaviours, to the appropriated practises and often mechanical actions of the rest of people around you, when you don’t feel the pressure to be a certain way to please others or fit into their comfortable habits, you become a subconscious agitation in many uncomprehending minds.

It’s the irreconcilable idea that you have the ability to overcome anxious desires to be around others and can do it alone. It’s not social anxiety at all, it’s the opposite for a true introvert. It’s the ability to not be lured by anxiety to any extent and carry on your own way without even batting an eye.

But do you know what it takes to be like that?

Yes you can be born with stubborn resolve and an ability to see things beyond the average person, to overcome otherwise paralysing and habitual ways to respond to stimulus. But it also means there are things you must learn and train yourself in, things you practise and grind repetitively, things you drill ad nauseum, revisit and keep drilling. It requires discipline you don’t wane from, and that path is stoic and noble. It’s dignified and shows character that frightens people who haven’t got the balls to grind it out.

W.E.

introversion- seventy five


I didn’t plan this, but I wish I had.
If I had, then I could have arrived much earlier.
Many a breath would I have saved,
many a wasted heart beat,
a dry mouth.

Perhaps I could have not wrestled with so many souls,
with so many egos,
with my own ego.

One of the greatest changes,
I have ever experienced,
is feeling the urge to answer everything,
to not wanting to answer a soul

Perhaps finding You,
means tasting everything that isn’t You,
Your largesse, although not never in need,
is only experienced through my faculty,
by what minuscule it comprehends.

W.E.

introversion – seventy four

Being alone is only quietude to the outer world.

In reality there is nothing quiet about being alone.

Your mind is amplified, and the cacophony of noise is deafening.

Your soul begins to speak to your heart and the conversation is loud and outrageous.

The difference is, you choose the music, the setting, the volume and intensity.

If people who are outwardly loud knew the inside of us, they’d flee in terror.

-Wesam El dahabi

Irrespective of natural predisposition to introversion,
for some of us, it becomes a conscious choice.

Unbound by what nature wants,
we forge our way inwards past its reservations for us,
to kingdoms of our own accord.

The folly is not on one who lives there,
imaginary as it may be,
but for the one who hasn’t the conceivability,
worse yet,
who hasn’t the will.

W.E.

happiness myth

And what if I don’t want happiness?
What if purpose, is my calling?
Would I be less joyful,
if meaning and contentment are my aspirations?

If ever a delusion remains,
fed in all its rabid gluttony,
it’s this appetite and scavenging for happiness.
We scathe, like drug fixed fiends,
like un-sacred things.

Selling our identity,
for persona,
cheap whores for mundane,
and temporary thrills.

W.E.

supple soul


You age,
stiffen your sinews,
bones etched with hieroglyphics of hurt
and beautifully,
your soul becomes supple.

I couldn’t show you how this happens,
when vigour clouds your judgement,
when youth gives you hope,
yet numbs you of tasting.

There’s an agreement with time,
relinquishing your affairs to their allotted appointments,
trusting beyond your comprehension,
faith if you will,
in being faithless insofar as holding God accountable,
rather, holding Him capable,
of anything, of anything.

Your soul aches for this flexibility,
but first,
your body waits for the battering.

-Wesam El dahabi