Some Paradoxical Words about my Personal Experience
TODAY, SOME PARADOXICAL WORDS ABOUT MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCE. It was going to be a 3rd person poem but it’s come out in a more prosaic manner. To some, these words will seem crazy. To others (maybe just a few — maybe none at all!), they will ring so true that bells will peal in your hearts. It is with you who I share them for your encouragement.
My dear friends, I cannot begin to tell you what an overwhelming sense of acute weakness I feel most of the time. Sometimes I think it’s a wonder that I remain alive from one moment to the next. Not only that. I cannot even begin to communicate the galling sense of utter hopelessness which also envelopes my being most of the time. Most. But not all. For I also know that this is not truly my total reality but just a necessary temporary state. Because I will also suddenly be swept up into writing an article or song or poem and then I am ALIVE! It so often seems as if that is the ONLY reason I am alive. For me, creativity carries the same kind of aliveness, wonder, spontaneity and ecstasy as being in love. I think they come from the same zone. As soon as a piece of creative work is finished, that is when the overwhelming sense of weakness sets in. I feel as if I will (and can) never write another word in my life. This is how it is when I’ve completed an article or poem. Acute weakness.
The “utter hopelessness” is associated with being a man who feels and sees so much (too much?) on so many levels in a world which is of such limited dimension and in which there is so much evil, deception and mendacity. (This, in turn, creates a feeling of total aloneness). However (and it is a BIG however), I have known for some time that the weakness and hopelessness are present for very good reasons. When I was younger, I used to associate these feelings with depression (because that’s how they are associated and projected in this world). But that is so off the mark and completely misplaced. Here is why: A trap into which creative people can fall is to imagine that their creativity emanates from their ego-selves and thus they can take sole credit for it. That is a fatal illusion and is how the circus of fame, glamour and celebrity comes about. For we (that is, “we” as we see ourselves in this world) are actually conduits rather than prime-movers. That is why the weakness sets in after a creative work is complete. Those works come *through* us rather than from us — meaning we can take no real credit for their creation. Thus (and here lies the wonder), the overwhelming sense of acute weakness is not a negative element at all but one designed to humble us and fill us with a sense of awe at the way we are used as channels for creation.
I realise that the word “designed” may be controversial; for it implies forces outside of ourselves at work in our life development. Many do not want to acknowledge that there are forces of good “higher” than (or should I say beyond or behind) what we are, in and of our selves — guiding us, humbling us, elevating us, teaching us, preparing us. Often, this will happen in ways that are uncomfortable to us, as we are necessarily honed and pruned into a better shape. The widespread ignorance of these elevating forces is why there is so much misplaced emphasis today on the use of “positive thinking” to blot out any “negative” ideas about weakness and hopelessness. But rather than anaesthetizing ourselves against feelings of weakness and hopelessness when they arise, we need to embrace them and see their true origin, their necessity and beauty on our pathway to self-discovery and self-awareness. We should, in fact, be revelling in them, for they are life-changers and illusion-breakers!
It is not profitable to feel comfortably “at home” in this world as it is presently constituted — strutting around as if we are the happy business partners of atrophy and decadence! Not only is it a flawed and broken world but we are also merely passing through. Sojourners. Again, the sense of hopelessness also should humble us and goad us into desiring better things than feeling positive and comfortable on this earth. Truly, if we aspire to higher things, we *are* without hope in this world as it is presently constituted. For one day, all things will be changed and new dimensions will be pierced in the outgrowth of human existence. (It is already underway behind what we can see merely with our eyes). Now *that* is something worth hoping for.
Thus, in the midst of my weakness I find true strength and out of my hopelessness I begin to see where hope of a higher sort should really lie. Does this speak to you? Are you receiving this? Can you identify?
The Naked Troubadour 