Getting lost into oneself, and suddenly being a wreck.

 © A. Bottarel - All Rights Reserved

My body is a cage that keeps me 

From dancing with the one I love 

But my mind holds the key

I'm standing on a stage

Of fear and self-doubt

It's a hollow play

But they'll clap anyway

Arcade Fire

Does my mind really hold the key? I sit and wonder. Because that's what one does when one has nothing else to do. 

As you bid farewell to places and people you're familiar with, every mistake you made sits in front of you, staring hard into your eyes. Are you ready to let it go? All the things you never said suddenly seem to matter more than the ones that really happened. And this is something we all know. The real matter is: is it worth trying to rush back, trying to salvage what you can from the wreck you left? 

I think so. Although it may sound greedy to chase memories that don't belong to us, it's also our right to fight for what could be ours. It's so damn romantic, isn't it? Romantic in the proper way. Hopelessly against reason and individual. It's like burning fuel, it keeps going on until everything is consumed, and nobody really knows why. Don't answer with chemistry, because each and every question could go back to something no living man can give an answer to.

You'll run out of fuel sooner or later, so what's better? The roads are so many and you can get lost easily. 

It's your life.

It's your brain.

Follow the white rabbit. Was it just a vision? Never mind, turn around and go back. 

Why should we consider desperate the chance to go back and do something right for a change? I'm not talking about silly dreams of alternative realities or parallel universes where we're all happy and shit. I'm not even talking about second chances. I'm talking about chances we never took and that might not be too late to take. 

Because, as you keep looking at the road running beneath your feet, you're focusing on something else, something you left behind, and there's a good chance you're gonna crash into something anyway. You got lost into yourself, and suddenly you're a wreck. 

It's not shameful to go back, whereas it's perfectly stupid to go on if you have no idea where you're going to. 

Long story short, we are not the key to our own success, but we definitely are the key to our potential. The cage is built of all the theories handed down by previous generations who didn't have the chance to see the world for what it really is. But this is a whole other matter. 

This whole metaphor of getting lost reminds me of an anecdote a shaman once told me. She said her "teacher" put blindfolds on her and some other people, and told them to find their way out of a maze. She overheard a noise coming from a certain direction on her left and found her way out pretty quickly. When asked how she did it, she told the truth, so one of the other "disciples" complained that she cheated. 

The shaman replied that it was not cheating, that it was our need to give a moral implication to each and every pointless action that stopped us from being useful to our lives most of the times. How was that cheating, after all? She didn't point her friend in another direction, or made him trip. She had the chance to do something good for herself and she took it, using her bare senses. 

So, before it's too late, here's the tip: use your senses to come to your senses.