Free your will.

Stills from the movie “Whisper of the Heart” by Studio Ghibli

As surely as the water must meet the shore, and the seed must rise from itself to greet the sun — as surely as our destinies are written in the stars, this was ineludible.

That I should struggle against my restraints, try to dislodge myself from the mould of pre-made decisions. It was meant to happen. It was either this, or a life like drawn-out death. A death that would look like success but never feel like it. What is success if you’ve lost your spark? What is success if your most violent passions, the ones lusting for fulfillment, have dulled into what-ifs that punctuate the daily routine? Days that are different, surely, but all look the same… What is a life if April 23rd and November 16th are one and the same?

It is no easy thing to seek freedom.

How much simpler would it be to sit back in life and bear the drudgery, the grating injustice and follow the path? The congratulations would have flown in, drowned me. The awe and the envy would have made it all utterly delightful.

“So young, to have reached this far at this age?”

“How did she do it?”

Like expensive cocktails, I would have sipped on these words delicately…

Even now, I am still drawn, hypnotised by the path, like a fly to the light. How desirable. How endlessly pleasant to knock yourself out for the day, and emerge after-hours and in the weekends? How delicious would it be to fall in the ranks and make no hard decisions, to flow like water in a stream.

It’s madness, a form of insanity to leave that safe mould.

(Yet I have.)

Another comfort zone smashed.

Another state of weakness, back bared to the world.

I still ask myself what I’ve done, what I think I’m doing, what I think I could possibly achieve this way.

But it’s too late for all that now. The only way is forward.

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Note: I really said New Year, New Me 😂 I hope you are all doing beautifully 💕

Listening to:

A Timekeeper’s Impatience

Art by: Bruce Riley

I don’t have the patience to let life happen to me anymore.

I will seize the hands of the clock and turn them back if I have to, and even though I can’t turn day into night, I will twist the minutes and extend the hours.  That is because I have a power all my own—I can warp time, elongate my days by simply making them count. All by just breathing and living the moment. So, some days, there’ll be no time at all—just peace.

I will stay the hands of Fate, too, knitting my destiny away onto a broad, infinite tapestry. And gently, I will take the reigns. I will falter, I will fall. I’ll hurt myself trying. I’ll burn myself, trying to cup the light in my hands. I’ll even stray into the darkness and come heaving out of it.

But all this is better than the safety of routine and small, too planned-out lives.

My canvas is blank and I don’t want to keep it that way.

I’m not scared of dirtying it, not too particular about the kind of picture I want to paint. I just want to have enough colours to paint something worthwhile.

via Patience — Prompts – The Daily Post

Scared to Be Free

(Somehow, this photo caused all this writing.)

“People,” I recall her saying, “They are like boats in a harbour. They think they are free, but they’re really not.”

“Where’s the freedom in only being someone you’re supposed to be?” she asked. “Where’s the freedom in being moored to paperwork, to rules that are unspoken and unwritten? How free do you feel to be made to enjoy the sun’s bright glow behind a desk in an artificially lit room?”

“We’re too scared to be free.” I whispered. “Freedom is dangerous. Out at sea, there are storms. The waves are so monstrous that their very shadows instill fear in our hearts. How much trust can you put in one boat?”

“But don’t you want to know?? Don’t you ever wonder—”

I shook my head. And her voice, the light in her eyes died down.

Later, she was gone, her risk had not paid off.  And I was safe, warm and well-fed. But it still felt as though she had won much more than I ever would.