Chapter One: Why are conversations important?

Understanding the dichotomy between speech and silence 

Well, to be honest, this should not be something we should be reading at this time and age. Maybe that is what harks back the urgency to have such a conversation in the first place. 

Sometimes I find that the world around me is buzzing too much and that is what has turned it utterly silent. Everyone is speaking but the words lack an essence. The words trailing down from the mouths are as if they are falling on deaf ears. That way, I presume, it is only better that they do not fall at all. 

To this, I guess it is only fair that I put my overthinking brain to some use. When I look back I see glimpses of many of my own personalities in all these people I meet. I do so because I certainly feel that to know someone you need to find their parts within yourself. Like really look for them inside you, within your very entrails until you make peace with the external realities they bombard on your subjectivity. 

Nevertheless, I stop here until I make any further digressions and list the important aspects downright. 

Capitalistic Guilt 

How many times have you thought that it is better to be productive than to have a lame conversation? By lame I mean when the point of that conversation is not to win any argument or to suit any ulterior motive for that matter but only to have it.

I get it, there isn't enough time in our hands these days. But, when you assume that any conversation has to lead to something or the other, I am sorry to say you are assuming that the other person is nothing but a product you are venturing out to buy. This is pure market economics where a perfectly able-bodied human with lips, teeth, and tongue has been psychically dissected beforehand for the purpose of a sale kind of situation he is unfortunately chosen to sponsor. 

Like seriously, what have we become? 

Now let me also tell you the consequences. They are more terrifying. And, I for how I perceive everything around me share a sadistic pleasure in this. 

In these above-mentioned circumstances, you might choose the tragic path of sticking entirely to the extremes. These extremes imply not having any sort of conversation whatsoever. It is a vicious cycle of presuming for no good reason that nobody understands you and so nobody ever will. I have seen people like this breathing over me and felt choking under the weight of their internal heaviness. This imaginary lighthouse of theirs where they supremely reign is so full of deadpan humor that you would feel sorry for every word that came out of their mouth. I want to plead to these people that such hollow words do not befit them. That they should immediately stop doing some kind of favor that they think they are doing by speaking. It is better to shed it before it consumes you. Every bit of you! 

The Crisis of Lovelessness 

I owe this etymology to bell hooks and it is only after hearing it from her that I could explain it to that extent. This crisis of lovelessness has a penchant for the spiritual crisis. It also shares a close proximity to nihilism or existential crisis, to put it another way. 

What I mean to state by the perusal of these lofty terms is that burning sensation within you that feels totally devoid of anything. It's something similar to the particles of ash left behind after the body is completely soul-less. 

You wake up every day in the hope of a better world, in hope of sanity. But, deep down you know that each day and each hour, you are losing the difference between what's sane and what's insane. And, that's when you try to search for it outside of you. The bruised self, the traumatized self, the hurt left, the vulnerable self, try in vain to seek it among pleasures of the flesh, pleasures of psychedelics.

Here, I would like to take a moment and quote Lord Byron when he said something like that, the spirits do not change by the mere change of skies. 

It holds very true because I have felt the dissociation very closely. It's a total lack of faith. There is no healing in this and there will never be a healing until you get rid of the real self caged within you. Until you let go of the linearity between your conscious and unconscious self. And, no, drugs might help you reach that stage but not when you are internally not ready to have that experience. I have seen that kind of raw escapism in people's eyes and believe me it is so pitiful to feel that arrogant psychosis. The result, self-destruction, and self-alienation without any self-realization. 

Acceptance of Repetitiveness and Monotony

"Youth is cruel and has no more remorse...."

                                                    ~T.S. Eliot 

Just some days ago I was thinking of penning down a poetry on the bulging and overflowing emotion that traps my chest in the mornings. It's like a river so brimmed up that she doesn't know what to do of this weight. Where to put it down when she fails to contain it within herself. To be honest it sounds extremely weird and funny because only the previous night I would have found myself crawling for life and here I am again with this euphoria. Youth is like that, it is blood boiling and the sad reality is you have nowhere to put it down. Partly yes but not the full of it and certainly you desire nothing less than that. 

So, sometimes, nay, most of the times, it feels like there is nothing to look forward to. 

Conan Gray would put it more clearly I believe when in Astronomy he said:

"We've traveled the seas,

we've ridden the stars

We've seen everything from Saturn to Mars..."

In times like these, you would find yourself pleading at the altar. But, I will pause here as it took me a while to realize that no matter how repetitive your words might sound, that no matter how many times they have been spoken before, does not, at all, make them less worthy. It is only a matter of time and everything would seem to you more clear when you would look back. 

So, fall in love, once, twice, thrice, or as many times as you want. It is always going to be different. Just for the fact that when there is chaos all around, it is foolish to hope for perfect clarity, a little would suffice. 

A Final Eulogy 

My motive for this entire piece is not to make you fall in line or to betray you of your personal tragedies, experiences, and stories. Because there is no such line. It is only a make-believe facade. And I seriously suck at paying tributes to such marketing gimmicks. 

But, when I see people not being their true selves I wonder how lonely they have been from within. Because it is easy to pass something as a joke but it takes real guts to confront your demons.

To put into words what cannot be stated otherwise.

When once is not enough, to have the courage to repeat that.

To not think that it's worthless.

To heal slowly but heal at last. 

To not hide yourself behind some buffer. 

To not suffer in silence.

You must understand that you cannot understand a good Rap without knowing Black trauma. You cannot understand a war without knowing the sorrow of women. 

That it is always a two-way road and no road when it is otherwise. 

Note: 

This is a sponsored post for "The Bildungsroman Project" whose sole purpose is to share stories about growth, faith, and healing.