The Moon On My Ceiling

I was reading The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera, and I came across a quote that quite literally knocked the wind out of me. Kundera goes on to explain how in all Latin-derived languages, the word compassion is built from a prefix-suffix combination that means, “from suffering”. This makes the whole business of being compassionate seem condescending, like you are lowering yourself to the level of someone less fortunate. It’s a word that has nothing to do with love or empathy. But in all other languages, German for example, the word compassion is created by a prefix-suffix combination that means “from feeling”. It’s the ultimate emotion because it means you are feeling exactly what the other is feeling. You are tapping into their unique frequency as if their nerves were attached directly to you. It’s an honorable and perhaps the most powerful sentiment in the human emotional spectrum. I don’t want to be the former. What use is it to be understood if you’re just a project? If you don’t want to understand me because you love me or feel connected to me in a profound way, then what’s the point? Compassion shouldn’t be a talent; it shouldn’t be an ability that you spread around the world as if you’re doing a good deed. It should be a natural instinct, when in the presence of someone who has grown into your heart like a rooted tree, to feel exactly what they feel. You can be as complicated as you want, but that shouldn’t be a test of clairvoyance for someone who comes along. If they should see right through you like an x-ray machine, it doesn’t mean they have achieved some honorable level of greatness. It can only be rendered significant if they can feel their heel throb when you step on a tack, or taste salt on their cheeks when you cry because you couldn’t make your rent payment again. I don’t care about being understood, it’s irrelevant in most cases. I just want an invisible piece of string to connect my heart to yours. But asking that is equivalent to me asking you to shrink the moon and place it on my ceiling so I can fall asleep fearlessly at night. I believe in magic, but I think you can only create it for yourself. The rest of the world will have to find their own way to get to where they’re going.

Copyright Yasamin Aftahi 2011

Ch-ch-ch-changes

I hate that feeling where everything you are begins to slip through your fingers like sand. You build yourself up, not realizing that the foundation is shaky, and at the slightest touch the whole thing crumbles. A single breath from the lips of change and you wake up one morning having shed your skin in the night. How nice would it be to be able to trust yourself? to trust in your instincts and convictions as if they were permanent? But there's always something that we want that our present selves can't reach out and grab, so as our desires change so do we. But what are we supposed to lean on then? If you think about it, the only constant thing is the past, but if you lean on the past then your not living at all. We're left hopping from one space to the next as they shift and shake and throw us tumbling off the edge only to land, not so gracefully, into the arms of the next person who claims to "understand". Then they catch onto you and wheel around your head until your too dizzy to notice them slipping out the door with a suitcase full of your ideas and plans.

I'm just wondering why. Why am I willing to participate in the game even though I clearly understand there's no way to win? And why am I willing to lose everything for someone who is as permanent as dirt on a car windshield. One revelatory rain storm and they're gone.

I'm just wondering why. Why am I so in love with idea that I'm not one thing, but everything and everything I want to be? Or maybe everything you wish I was.

I'm just wondering why being sad can be so wonderful.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMG6W-kPk6g
Drop-Hope Sandoval and the Warm Inventions

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead; I lift my eyes and all is born again.
Sylvia Plath