A Letter to Nabil (Pt. 3)
6:00AM on a cold November morning, London Grammar’s Hell to the Liars playing in the background, papers strewn across the unmade bed, a pen in hand, the disorder familiar. The early light of dawn is starting to break through; a new day has begun.
I have recently been fascinated by London Grammar and Ghostly Kisses, two bands whose songs are both poetic and melancholic. I find in them peace and quiet, the kind that comes with floating on a lake somewhere in the wilderness, alone, with no needs or worries. They have become the closest thing to home I have had, since I made the journey away from home, or at least the place I knew to be home for most of my life. And in them, as with home, I find myself anew, a different version each time, and yet a version that feels like one I have been, before.
“Hell to the righteous ones, here’s to them…” For the longest time, I was the righteous one, not in a pure, religious sense, but in a moralistic one. With age has come more experiences and these experiences have presented me with ideas, some at variance with what I thought to be true. And therein lies a fact about life: it unfurls the delusions of grandeur we harbour and yields to us ourselves as we are. Sometimes, the reflections confirm what we have long maintained, that we are good or evil, kind or unkind, loved or unloved, hardworking or slothful, and so on.
The lucky ones are those whose ideas of self are confirmed, as its easier to act, subsequently. To those who are presented with visions of self at odds with the long-held idea of self, it can be hard to accept. This battle between self-written fiction and hard reality can drag on for long periods, and only leads to more suffering, sometimes not personal but to those around us. We inflict our suffering on those we judge, or worse still, those we claim to love. We become the villains we loathe, the antagonists in other people’s stories.
“And I’m no better than those I judge, with all my suffering…” I find that those that are the most judgmental see things through the smallest of lenses. Sometimes, they are the most hurt and the lack of sight that inspires the need to judge others is borne of the lens through which the world is seen, a lens that is shaped and limited by past experiences. At other times, judgment comes from the need to make others like us, because of our innate dissatisfaction with the lingering quality of our lives. Why is she so happy? How dare he be so free? The chains that bind me should bind everyone else, the rules I live by should be universal. These chains, of course, must be acknowledged before they can be seen to be replaceable, by our own will. Often, we know no other way. And to those who are born with love, we seek to impose our suffering on them. It is harder to at once embrace that suffering and not be defined by it.
“Here’s to you trying…” You are walking through the darkness that threatens to engulf you. The night brings with it demons which you try to keep out, familiar foes which force themselves in, a struggle for control, one you rarely ever win. And when the sun rises, you wear a smile and the dress in which you glow so brightly, and you make your way through the day, the constant activity a useful escape, sufficient only until the night returns.
“Here’s to the things you love…” To the things that bring joy and light to your heart, I hope you do and have more of them. To the things that bring meaning and purpose, I hope you walk with them a bit further, each day. And to the things that make you free, I hope you hold unto them and allow yourself follow the path down which they lead you.
P.S. If you would like to read them, you can find the previous letters here and here.
