Archangel

I haven't been able to blog of late. I've been experiencing what I'd like to call a creative vacuum. I'm trying to be as random as I can. As a friend of mine says, "All my life I have wanted to be different, but in doing so, I have been so ordinary." Ironic and subtle at the same time. What is it that prompts so many of us to be different? At what point in our existence does it stop being an effort and becomes a way of things done? Questions like these seldom are answered because this is a lifelong struggle to be different. Fight to be different so that you can be one among many and yet be the one above the others. The Archangel - the first among many.

Intelligence and Madness

" A powerful wizard, who wanted to destroy an entire kingdom, placed a magic potion in the well from which all the inhabitants drank. Whoever drank that water would go mad.

The following morning, the whole population drank from the well and they all went mad, apart from the king and his family, who had a well set aside for them alone, and which the magician had not managed to poison. The king was worried and tried to control the population by issuing a series of edicts governing security and public health. The policemen and the inspectors, however, had also drunk the poisoned water and they thought the king's decisions were absurd and resolved to take no notice of them.

When the inhabitants of the kingdom heard these decrees, they became convinced that the king had gone mad and was now giving nonsensical orders. They marched on the castle and called for his abdication.

In despair, the king prepared to step down from his throne, but the queen stopped him, saying: "Let us go and drink from the communal well. Then, we will be the same as them."

And that was what they did: the king and the queen drank the water of madness and immediately began talking nonsense. Their subjects repented at once; now that the king was displaying such wisdom, why not allow him to continue ruling the country.

The country continued to live in peace, although its inhabitants behaved very differently from those of its neighbors. And the king was able to govern until the end of his days. "

-- excerpt from 'Veronika Decides To Die' by Paulo Coelho. --


It is a rather thin line that separates intelligence from insanity and also from vanity. In the king's kingdom, everyone was mad. However, everyone thought the king was mad. Its tough to tell who is correct and who is not if we do not know what is correct. Even if you somehow get to know that something is correct, how do you determine its accuracy? While intelligence is accepted knowledge, insanity most of time is the forerunner of evolution.

Hope

Ironic it is that my next post would be all about hope and survival. I had just written about the end of all hope. An old lady I know suffered a serious accident and she is fighting for her life in the hospital. I've heard of people who put an end to their life because of trivial things like trying to prove a point or simply just giving up because there was nothing else to try. I wish there was someone to tell them there still was hope.

When she was in the hospital, she needed help. When I tried asking for help at work, the response I got was overwhelming. Almost everyone who was eligible to help tried their best. We tend to think that people have become more self-centered and insensitive. But that is not the case. People who care still exist.

You need some more proof that hope exists? Ask the parents whose only son battled for his life after being hit by train. Ask the student who works untiringly from three in the morning till midnight to fight and earn what he wants. Ask the social workers who leave their comfortable lives and go and help the poor and helpless. Ask the old begger who survives just by begging for food. Her life centers around hope.

Hope is eternal. Hope stems from the determination to fight. When you really want something to happen, the whole universe conspires to help you achieve it. Hope. Just Hope.

End of All Hope

It is the end of all hope
To lose the child, the faith
To end all the innocence
To be someone like me
This is the birth of all hope
To have what I once had
This life unforgiven
It will end with a birth

No will to wake for this morn
To see another black rose born
Deathbed is slowly covered with snow

Angels, they fell first but I'm still here
Alone as they are drawing near
In heaven my masterpiece will finally be sung

Wounded is the deer that leaps highest
And my wound it cuts so deep
Turn off the light and let me pull the plug

Mandylion without a face
Deathwish without a prayer
End of hope
End of love
End of time
The rest is silence

My Journey

What if I never want to reach the destination? What if the journey is more interesting? I have a predicament. I've always wished I would meet that special someone. And at those points in time, I was with someone special enough for me to assume that I was finally there. I'd then be rudely reintroduced to reality only for me to realize that I was still on my way to getting there. Things were slowly starting to go numb. I experienced such conflicting emotions that I didn't know which road to take at the crossroads. I was left standing right there in the middle watching people cross me everyday. After I spent some time there, I began to feel like I was no longer a part of the main flow of life. It was more peaceful now. The will to continue was slowly slipping away. Is this the sense of oblivion that I was searching for? The irony is that I'll never know until I leave this place for the unknown. Maybe the end is the means itself. Maybe.