Black

A little poem/story I thought would look better in its own page:

Black

Inverted

It begins at the Spring of Birth, at the Mountain of the Past. It then flows down the Stream of Childhood. Meeting the Waterfall of Reality, it plunges into the River of Life. After flowing through many dark and dangerous places, the River enters the Sea of Sorrow. The supernatural powers of Hope lift it to the Sky of Achievement, and around the clouds of Inspiration and Enlightenment. The Eternal Storm rips them out of the Sky, sending them downward towards the dry Riverbed of Experience. Then the demonic, decomposing creatures of Time enter. They tear them apart, leaving nothing behind.

This is the epitaph of an inverted universe. However bizarre and unthinkable it may appear, it is plausible. If one extreme exists, so can the other.

Love. Hate.

Hating love, loving hate. Two starkly different feelings, ways of life, frames of mind. Both so powerful, so intoxicating. Is to hate love to love hate? If you love hate, you obviously don't hate love, because you're loving your hate.

Loving love, hating hate.

Becoming numb to all emotion. A living shell. No feelings. Living without life.

Hating love, loving hate.

Immerse yourself in an emotion, a feeling, an instinct. Look around. What do you feel? Light, dark, smooth, rough, warm, cold? Hear it. Smell it. Taste it. Imagine experiencing this forever, having no escape. No way to change, no going back. The past is gone, the future doesn't exist, and the present is overtaken with this emotion. Live this feeling until you truly feel you understand it.

Now let go. Take a step back and admire it from the outside. Yes, even the dark and coarse feelings are beautiful in their own right. Mysterious, ominous, oppressing. Feel the temptation of the power, the seeming invincibility. Turn away if you can. If not, be lost to the vast world of emotion. If you can turn away, change yourself.

Change yourself, change your views, change the world. Inspire such lucid views and frames of mind that you overflow with imagination. Be the catalyst of the revolution. Reform the idea of what it means to love, to hate, to feel, to live. Do not shun change, embrace it.

Put yourself in the other's place. Understand fully what it means to be individual. It can be a lonely solitary life at times, but it is necessary. Comprehending others in detail is a monumental task, and should not be taken lightly. If you can truly understand another's intellect, you have succeeded in conquering emotion.

Use emotion and feelings as compliments to logic, and not the other way around. Use both together, and employ the synergy in your life. Account for “gut instincts,” but do not follow them blindly. Step back and take a critical look at your feelings from the outside. If they coincide with your logic, combine the two to make your decision.

Be the catalyst, change yourself, and revolutionize the world in the process.

Expedient

Many have traveled before us, and many may come after. We have come far, and still have a great distance to go. Expediently; No other way is acceptable. We travel with haste, not knowing exactly what is happened ahead or behind of us. Haphazardly, we traverse the landscape with no purpose other than to maintain expedience.

Our point of departure was being torn apart. We left in the hope that there was something better, something out there, something. Something. We don't truly know what it is we're searching for, but we proceed towards it with all possible speed. The ones who remained behind will surely be engulfed by the overwhelming pressure: Conform. Any deviations from the form were not tolerated. We were on the brink of becoming outcasts, and our standards did not permit that. Our expedience was too open for them.

I have mentioned standards. They commended some for being "ahead" and having things "under control." They shunned some for staying behind, for thinking of their past experiences and letting them "interfere with their better logic." They shunned us for looking to the past for knowledge and experience, and thinking that their definition of "ahead" was, in all actuality, nowhere near our standard of expedience.

In the general sense, "they" refers to the establishment, the masses, the common frame of mind. Your frame of mind is very important to your window on life. Remember this. If your frame becomes covered in dust, warped, and not kept in good repair, your window may bend and possibly break.

We must be expedient in our expedition of searching for expedience. Don't live in your own world. Change the real world and make it your own.

Of course, call me a hypocrite, I am nothing but a member of this world we have created for ourselves. We ran from the pressure, the enormous analogy; We ran away from the world. You are still there, "there" being in the same general sense as "they," but you have the power. Change your surroundings, don't find new ones. Everything in moderation (including moderation) of course, but improving your environment will benefit you and others.

That is the ultimate purpose of life, no matter what window you're looking through. Improve yourself in the pursuit of helping others.

I now continue on my journey, expedient as ever. I shall never reach my destination, but when my time comes, I will have traveled far and seen many things. I am, and will always be, happy.

Life is a journey, not a destination.